UCI ICS 1C, Lab Exercise #1

By 23 January, you and all members of your team are expected to be able to do all the things outlined below. We will start formally checking this no later than 23 January. Our main focus the week of 17-20 January will be helping people with these tasks, but if time in Labs allows, we may be able to start formal checking of mastery toward the end of this week.

A copy of these instructions is being mailed to you. You will also be given a printed copy in lab.

After setting up your ea.oac.uci.edu login as described in the next paragraph, "Export" a copy of what has been mailed to you from the e-mail system to a file named "Lab.1" in the special "ics.1c" directory created by following these instructions. (This means that the name of the file when viewed from your home directory will be "ics.1c/Lab.1") As you work through the Lab Exercises described below, update this file with your own notes about doing things.

Set up your ea.oac.uci.edu login for the ICS 1C class by getting to the "ea>" prompt (quit the EA-menu system if you are in it) and typing

    source ~ics1c/class.setup

• You will get the new ICS 1C setup automatically next time you log in. This one time only, though, to switch to the new ICS 1C Window Manager Configuration:
  • Position the mouse on the background screen. Holding down the right button, drag the mouse down the right half of the menu until you come to "TWM Operations," and then select "Source .twmrc" from the menu that appears.

Basic EA skills you need:

EA-Menu system:

Be able to exit the EA menu system and get to the "ea>" prompt and to restart it (by typing "menu" at the "ea>" prompt.

E-mail (pine recommended):

• Read, reply to, forward, and refile e-mail messages you receive.
• "Export" an e-mail message you receive to the file system.
• Compose and send new e-mail messages.
• Include in an e-mail message you send the contents of a file read in from the file system.
• Create and update an e-mail "address book" of the names an e-mail addresses of those with whom you are likely to correspond (e.g., members of your ICS 1C team).

File and directory creation, manipulation and editing:

• Directory operations:
  • mkdir (make a directory)
  • cd (change current/default/working directory)
  • pwd (print current/default/working directory)
  • ls (list a directory), ls -l (list long/detailed version), ls -a (list all files, including ones normally hidden, ls -al
• File operations:
  • ls (as above, for directories), mv (move/rename), cp (copy)
  • create and edit -- pico is the recommended editor for beginners

X Window System:

• 3-button mouse operation and the options that appear when the mouse is positioned on the background screen ("root window") and each is pressed.
• Moving, iconifying, resizing, bringing forward, etc. windows
• Changing the font size in a normal shell/text window (crtl/right-button)
• Cutting and pasting text between windows.
  • (Hold down left button and drag to cut. Middle button pastes. On some windows (e.g. normal text/shell windows), one can click-and-release left button to designate start of selection and then click-and-release right button to designate end of area being selected. Middle button still pastes. In these cases, double-click at start indicates select on word-boundary; triple-click selects whole lines.)

Tip: Use "clipboard" (select from left-button-mouse-on-background-screen menu) to paste into.

World-Wide Web via Mosaic

You should be able to handle (and understand) all the buttons along the bottom of the X Mosaic Document View window, except "Save As ..." and the following items from the menus along the top:

• File: everything except Open Local, Save As, and Print;
• Options: everything except Reload Config;
• Navigate: everything with special attention to Hotlist Start building (and editing) your own hotlist with choices such as the following:
  • http://www.w3.org/
  • http://thomas.loc.gov/
  • http://www.w3.org/hypertext/DataSources/bySubject/
  • http://www.oac.uci.edu/
  • http://www.socsci.uci.edu/
  • http://akebono.stanford.edu/yahoo/Education/
  • http://phwww.cwis.uci.edu/cgi-bin/phwww
  • http://www.directory.net/
  • http://galaxy.einet.net/
• Annotate: Skip all of this for now;
• Help: Skip "Mail Developers" but be sure to explore at least the first level or 2 of all the other options.

The most important things here are (1) to become familiar with the various options, (2) to start building your own personal hotlist, and (3) to be able to use the "Open..." fluently. (Note that you MUST POSITION THE MOUSE INSIDE type-in windows such as "Open Document" and "Edit Hotlist" use. You can left-click the mouse or use the arrows to reposition the cursor, but (BEWARE) the Delete key on the keyboard deletes to the RIGHT of where the cursor is within the window. So to edit strings in type-in windows, one typically MUST use a left-button click or arrow keys to position the cursor to the LEFT of where the deletion/insertion is to be made.)