http://invisible-island.net/
Copyright 1996-2011,2013 by Thomas E. Dickey

• Synopsis
• History
  • Comparing with IBM Flist Status
  • Related Work
• Download

Synopsis

Flist (file-list) provides the user with a powerful and versatile interface to VAX/VMS. Flist is a full-screen editor which shows the effects of commands rapidly and naturally. It provides both interfaces to VAX/VMS file management commands (EDIT, COPY, RENAME) as well as extensions to the command interface to better integrate VMS commands, and to augment them

History

I wrote flist in 1984-1985 while at the ITT Advanced Technology Center. Seeing the original flist program on VM/SP CMS, then dired on BSD 4.1 gave me the inspiration to go and do likewise on VAX/VMS (which really does need a good user interface).

Comparing with IBM Flist

In adapting the concept to VMS, I made several tradeoffs which make the program different from the IBM program. For example:

• IBM flist is designed for the 3270 synchronous terminals. Users type commands on the screen beside the filename. Then they transmit the screen to the program, which collects the commands from the screen, adds parameters and executes the commands.

  While it might be nice to run multiple commands (even without the synchronous terminals), I chose to limit the program to a single command at a time. Aside from this - typing commands and collecting parameters—the programs act much alike.

• VM/CMS uses shorter filenames than VMS (two 8-character fields plus a 2-character minidisk location versus two 39-characters and a version number).

  I added a command to set the displayed width of the filename- and filetype-fields.

• VM/CMS provides only a handful of file attributes, which fit nicely on an 80-column display.

  VMS has many interesting file attributes to display (4 types of date, record attributes, etc). The default view of the VMS program looks much like the IBM program. I added a command which is used for select the attributes to display.

• The IBM program supports multiple lists of files (usually showing only one at a time, but also supporting a limited split-screen showing two lists), denoting those as levels. It allows the user to open any of those lists from any level.

  The VMS program is strictly hierarchical, with only one list shown at a time.

• The IBM program uses in-memory file information which is available to any application in VM/CMS,

  The VMS program must read/reread info after invoking editor, etc., which is a significant performance problem. To work around the limitations of VMS, it includes its own command interpreter to infer when a file has been edited (and detect new versions), handle copying of files (again, to handle versions),

References:

• Screenshots of FLIST
• Discussion of VM/CMS FLIST showing screenshot
• Textual description of VM/CMS FLIST

Related Work

Later, I developed ded, which is nicer in many ways for UNIX. In 1995, I used the (now defunct) AXP demo machine axpvms.pa.dec.com to test and upgrade this version from the original K&R source (which was what VAX C was in 1984) to ANSI, and distributed this on the second and third VMS freeware cdroms. Flist is getting a little old, but still quite usable.

There is another flist written by Hunter Goatley with TPU a few years later. The two programs are unrelated (and Hunter Goatley stated that he was unaware of the other programs using the same name).

Download

flist.zip