Eclectic User Guide
===================

Introduction
------------

Eclectic is a tool for administration and configuration on Gentoo systems. It
_will_ modify the system's behaviour and should be used with care by the system
administrator.

Terminology
-----------

Eclectic is a framework providing a program named ``eclectic`` and many small
bash scripts that do the actual work. These are known as ``modules``, and can be
identified by their ``.eclectic`` file extension.

Every module provides a set of functions that can be called via the main
eclectic tool. These functions are called ``actions``.

Usage
-----

Eclectic should be called as: ::

	eclectic <module> <action> <options>

Eclectic features consistently named actions among most of its modules. The
following are standard action names -- each module may provide a subset of these
actions:

help
  Print the modules help screen.
usage
  Print information on how to invoke the modules actions.
version
  Print the modules version and other useful information.
list
  Prints a set of selectable options.
show
  Prints the currently active configuration(s).
set
  Select one of the options offered by ``list``.
enable
   Enable one of the module specific features.
disable
  Disable one of the module specific features.
update
  Like ``set``, but automatically selects an option rather than taking a
  parameter.
scan
  Gather information about the system and store it for future usage by the
  module.

A typical session will look like the following for most modules: ::

    / # eclectic <module> list
    These selections are available:
      [1] <first>
      [2] <second>
  
    / # eclectic <module> set <first>
    / # eclectic <module> show
    Active selection:
      <item1>

You can usually set items either by name or by number.

.. vim: set ft=glep tw=80 sw=4 et spell spelllang=en : ..
