* 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 Rudel's key bindings and add a menu entry. 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
** 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.
** 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.
* 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 <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
#+TITLE: Rudel README
#+AUTHOR: Jan Moringen
#+STARTUP: showeverything
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