README for openshellmatrix
==========================

This is a hack.

I use it all the time for many years now, YMMV.

I hereby release it under the GPLv3 license. No guarantee whatsoever etc.

INSTALL
=======

Copy bin/* to somewhere in your PATH (I put them in ~/bin ).

Copy dotfiles/.* to your ~ . Should be very easy to fix the scripts to
use some other place if you don't like this one.

USE
===
Run an xterm. Not sure how it works under other terminals.

Inside it run 'rows SOMENAME'.

It will open a 8x8 matrix of screens. Press Enter in any of them to
get a shell.

You move between the rows with F1 - F8, and between the columns with
Alt-F1 - Alt-F8.

The screen controlling the rows has ^P as its command character, and
the ones controlling the columns have ^O. So you can press e.g. ^O c
to add more columns. Key bindings for up to 12 cols (until Alt-F12)
are defined.

If you want to carefully close everything, Run:
Killallopenshell SOMENAME
It will only kill those windows in which you didn't press Enter.
Then you can go over the others and cleanly close all the vi sessions
etc left open.

WHY
===
I find it easier to remember where I left something open than when
it's just a whole lot of open xterms.

Compared to modern multi-tab terminals, it's easier to reconnect
if something happened to your termianl/X session/etc.

It also works well over ssh on a remote machine.