Samet Kilictas's Blog

Here is a new nice project i’ve just heard about TDFSB…. Which reads directory information and displays it as a 3D world. cd’ing into another directory is possible by simply walking into the assigned sphere. It also reads images and text files and displays their contents. It plays MP3 files and MPEG-1 videos as 3D objects.

Shortly, it is a 3D world inside your pc. This is really nice and interesting tool for your boring pc. Just imagine.. you can fly between your files.. your documents.. even your pictures..

This project came to me with really nice ideas. I am glad to talk about TDFSB because it has been coded 6 years ago. A developer [Leander Seige - i hope this is true] coded this tools with simple code in first time. But now just take a look at it. He and some other developers are came with new ideas.

I have run this tool with my system which is Ubuntu Hardy 8.04 and of course to run TDFSB nicely, you gonna need a hardware accelerated 3d graphic card. While walking arround your documents you can also listen mp3s or you can watch some of your video files.

As i mentioned in the beginning part of my post  this tools gave me a couple of nice ideas. Since companies are producing more efficient graphic cards and CPU’s .. i am just asking that why there is no 3D browser for real..

Of course TDFSB comes with some bad sides such as;

1. Not very practical
2. Bad graphics
3. Few video file type support
4. Big work load on CPU
5. Over 1000 files, really long warping time
6. Bad accesibility
7. some more…..

There are many good sides as well.

How to install

It is really simple.

sudo apt-get install tdfsb

Just run this command on terminal.

There you go…

Now you are able to run this tool by using the termianal. Type tdfsb in terminal and enjoy..

Here is a print out of the default keyboard settings.
You may change these by editing ~/.tdfsb

=======================================

Esc           quit                  F1/F2    speed +/-
Mouse move    look          F3/F4      rot +/-
UP         forward               F5/F6  ball detail
DOWN      backward          HOME     start pos
L/R     step aside             LMB  select object
END    ground zero          +RMB|CTRL appr.obj
F7/F8  max fps  +/-          +ENTER ply mpg/mp3
“t”      filenames               “g”   ground cross
“c”      crosshair                 “d”        display
“.”      dot files                    “p”      print FPS
“r” rel./get mouse              “f”     fullscreen
“l”     reload dir                  “b”   image bricks
“u”           cd..                   “a”      alphasort
“m”        shading               ” “         flying
“h”      show help               “i”  print GL info
“0″      jump home            “o”    classic nav
“s”    save config               “#”   fps throttle

“1|3|q|e”            Up|Down|Left|Right
“2|w”                  Forward|Backward
PgUp/Down or MMB+Mouse move up/downward
=======================================

it is possible to execute a custom command from within tdfsb. configure
your command in the config file! the command can be called by pressing
the tabulator key. put a “%s” in the command line, this will be replaced
by the current directory or selected file.
for instance if you set the command to
xmms “%s” &
and press tab from a directory, xmms will be started with the directory
given as argument.
if you select an audio file and press the tab key xmms will play the file.
the default command is
cd “%s”; xterm&
it will open a xterm in the current directory.
this command is always present by pressing shift+tab!
so you have two commands:
- one by configuring your custom command for the tab key
- one by pressing shift+tab, it will execute the built in xterm call
but dont forget the quotation marks!
you are free to not add “%s” to your custom command if you just
want to launch any program. but if you do so, you can customize
tdfsb for your needs, choose a certain kind of files and than launch
emacs for editing text files, mplayer for playing avis or whatever…

Have Fun…

Project Web Site