* INTRODUCTION Rudel is a collaborative editing environment for GNU Emacs. Its purpose is to share buffers with other users in order to edit the contents of those buffers collaboratively. Rudel supports multiple backends to enable communication with other collaborative editors using different protocols, though currently Obby (for use with the Gobby editor) is the only fully-functional one. Since Rudel is not an application, but an extension to Emacs, it is not started and used like most applications (not even Emacs applications like Gnus). Rudel mostly works in the background to change the behavior of the set of Emacs buffers for which it has been activated. The user interface consists of a set of key bindings, a menu entry and some visual status indicators, which are added to the text, header line and/or mode line of buffers for which Rudel has been activated. * GETTING STARTED Assuming Rudel has already been installed (see file:INSTALL) and auto loading has been set up, a global Rudel mode can be enabled as follows: : M-x global-rudel-minor-mode This will enable key bindings to list available backends, join, and host Rudel sessions (see below). To enable this mode permanently, the following fragment can be added to the Emacs initialization file (usually file:~/.emacs): #+BEGIN_SRC emacs-lisp (global-rudel-minor-mode 1) #+END_SRC ** LISTING BACKENDS : M-x rudel-backend-dump This command is available through the Rudel drop down menu. However, typically this is only used for debugging, since backends are chosen automatically when joining or hosting a session. ** JOINING A SESSION : M-x rudel-join-session [ C-c c j ] Depending on the installed Rudel backends, system environment and configuration, a number of questions will be asked, followed by an attempt to join session described by your answers. A typical example of the questions asked when joining a session may look like this: #+BEGIN_EXAMPLE Server: localhost RET Port (default 6522): RET Username: jan RET Color: light sky blue RET Use Encryption (y or n): n RET Global Password: RET User Password: RET #+END_EXAMPLE *IMPORTANT*: For sessions using the obby backend (like in the example above), the following restriction has to be taken into account: + When the server is Rudel inside an Emacs process: Encryption cannot be used currently in this case. Consequently the answer to the `Use Encryption (y or n):' prompt above has to be `n RET'. + When the server is a Gobby process: Gobby only supports encrypted connections. So the answer has to be `y RET' is this case. It is possible to configure frequently used sessions using the customization options `rudel-configured-sessions'. When one or more sessions are configured, `rudel-join-session' will provide choices like "my-configured-session", ... and "ask-protocol". Selecting "ask-protocol" invokes the behavior described above. Selecting one of the configured sessions connects to that session without asking for all the data. *** SAVING AND REUSING CONFIGURED SESSIONS Each session is described as a plist (a list of keys and values see Info node `(elisp)Property Lists'). Keys are specified using keywords and look like this: :host, :username, :color. Values are mostly strings, but symbols and numbers are possible as well. The following keys are required for any session: * :name (string) * :transport-backend (string or symbol) * :protocol-backend (string or symbol) Other keys are optional and depend on the selected backend. Required keys for which no value is specified will be prompted for when selecting the session. The values of the :name properties have to be distinct for all configured sessions. Additional keys required by most backends: * :host (string) * :port (number) * :username (string) * :color (string) Here is a complete example of customized values for the obby backend: * :name "sonian" * :transport-backend tcp * :protocol-backend obby * :host "sobby" * :port 6522 * :encryption t * :username "phil" * :color "white" * :global-password "" (this means "no password") * :user-password "" The programmatic equivalent looks like this: #+BEGIN_SRC emacs-lisp (add-to-list 'rudel-configured-sessions (list :name "myserver" :protocol-backend 'tcp :transport-backend 'obby :host "my.sobby-server.net" :username user-login-name ;; Use M-x list-colors-display to see color choices. :color "white" :encryption t :port 6522 ;; empty string means no password :global-password "" :user-password "")) #+END_SRC ** WORKING WITHIN A CONNECTED SESSION *** SHARING BUFFERS : M-x rudel-publish-buffer [ C-c c p ] Make a buffer available for subscription to peers in a collaborative editing session. : M-x rudel-subscribe [ C-c c s ] Subscribe to a document offered by a peer in a collaborative editing session. Invoking this command will prompt for the name of the document to subscribe to; TAB will show a list of available documents. : M-x rudel-unsubscribe [ C-c c u ] Detaches the current buffer from the collaborative editing session. The most recent version of the content will remain in the buffer but not be affected by future changes from other peers. *** CHANGING COLORS : M-x rudel-change-color [ C-c c c ] Change the color associated with your edits. *** LEAVING A SESSION : M-x rudel-end-session [ C-c c e ] Exit the current collaborative editing session. ** HOSTING A SESSION : M-x rudel-host-session [ C-c c h ] Note that the session starts out without any participating users (This is sometimes referred to as being a dedicated server). If you want to participate in the session you host, you have to join it as described above. * EXTRA MINOR MODES ** [Global] Header Subscriptions minor mode : rudel-header-subscriptions-minor-mode Displays subscribed users and information concerning their respective status in the header line of a buffer. : global-rudel-header-subscriptions-mode Enables or disables rudel-header-subscriptions-minor-mode automatically for all buffers. ** [Global] Mode line publish state minor mode : rudel-mode-line-publish-state-minor-mode Displays an indicator of the publication status of a buffer in its mode line. This indicator is similar to the read-only vs. read-write and the remote vs. local indicators. Publication is indicated by a the letter P. Buffers that are not published have an - indicator. : global-rudel-mode-line-publish-state-mode Enables or disables rudel-mode-line-publish-state-minor-mode automatically for all buffers. * REPORTING BUGS AND GETTING HELP ** EmacsWiki The EmacsWiki page about Rudel has [[http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/Rudel#toc8][a section for feedback and questions]]. Feel free leave feedback or ask questions there. If a reply does not occur promptly, try writing to the mailing list of visiting the IRC channel. ** Issue Tracker Bugs can be reported using the issue tracker on the sourceforge project page: http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?group_id=249139 ** Mailing List Another possibility for getting help and reporting problems is writing to the Rudel mailing list: http://sourceforge.net/mail/?group_id=249139 ** IRC Channel Rudel users and developers can also be reached on the #rudel IRC channel on the freenode network: irc:/irc.freenode.net:6667/#rudel * KNOWN ISSUES + Publishing eshell buffers will cause your session to be disconnected since eshell disables the hooks that Rudel uses to catch changes to the buffer. As a workaround, you can use M-x ansi-term or another terminal emulator. * LICENSE This file is part of Rudel. Rudel is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version. Rudel is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details. You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with Rudel. If not, see . #+TITLE: Rudel README #+AUTHOR: Jan Moringen #+STARTUP: showeverything # Local variables: # mode: org # end: