NAME¶
slrnface - show
X-Faces in X11 terminal emulator
SYNOPSIS¶
slrnface [
-xOffsetChar x_char_offset ] [
-yOffsetChar y_char_offset ] [
-xOffsetPix
x_pixel_offset ] [
-yOffsetPix y_pixel_offset ] [
-XFacePad left_padding ] [
-ink fg_color ] [
-paper bg_color ] [
-padColor pad_color ]
DESCRIPTION¶
The
slrnface helper utility can be used from
slrn(1),
mutt(1) or similar programs to show
X-Faces in Usenet articles
or mail messages when those programs are run in an X11 terminal emulator. This
utility is not intended to be run directly from the command line. Instead, the
master programs should be configured to invoke
slrnface when
appropriate.
Different terminal emulators have different screen layouts. Some might have
scroolbars (on either side), a menubar or something else. Terminal window
which
slrnface uses might contain some of these
"decorations," but it is impossible to determine if that is the case
at run time. Therefore it is impossible to determine the exact location at
which the X11 window with the
X-Face image should be placed. Default
hardcoded values are appropriate for several terminal emulators, but not for
all of them. The placement can be controlled by command line arguments, but it
is suggested to use X resources for this task.
While
slrnface is running and showing
X-Face, the left mouse
button can be used to move the window.
RESOURCES¶
The
slrnface helper is controlled by the resources set for the terminal
emulator in which it runs, not for the
slrnface class or instance. That
is because correct execution entirely depends on the master program and the
geometry of the terminal emulator in use and has little to do with
slrnface itself. All resources have a command line parameter
equivalent.
However, a lot of popular terminal emulators have a certain amount of hardcoded
brain damage and setting X resources will not have any effect with them. This
usually happens because of illegal characters in the WM_CLASS property. In
those cases command line arguments are the only remaining option.
|
|
|
Resource |
Command line parameter |
Default value |
|
slrnface.xOffsetChar |
-xOffsetChar |
0 |
slrnface.yOffsetChar |
-yOffsetChar |
1 |
slrnface.xOffsetPix |
-xOffsetPix |
0 |
slrnface.yOffsetPix |
-yOffsetPix |
2 |
slrnface.XFacePad |
-XFacePad |
0 |
slrnface.ink |
-ink |
black |
slrnface.paper |
-paper |
white |
slrnface.padColor |
-padColor |
black |
xOffsetChar¶
The horizontal offset for the
X-Face window from the terminal's upper
right corner expressed in character units.
yOffsetChar¶
The vertical offset for the
X-Face window from the terminal's upper right
corner expressed in character units. The exact value in pixels will be
calculated at run time, as well as the pixel equivalent for
xOffestChar. There are some lousily coded terminals which are not very
helpful with this, so the calculation might not be perfect.
xOffsetPix¶
The horizontal offset for the
X-Face window from the terminal's upper
right corner expressed in pixels.
yOffsetPix¶
The vertical offset for the
X-Face window from the terminal's upper right
corner expressed in pixels. This value is added to the character offset
provided by the
yOffsetChar resource and the resulting sum is
substracted from the vertical coordinate of the terminal's upper right corner.
The equivalent calculation for the horizontal coordinate is done with the
xOffsetChar and
xOffsetPix resources. In both cases, pixel value
resources are provided for finer control.
XFacePad¶
This value tells
slrnface how many pixels should be cleared on the left
side of the
X-Face image. In the case of long subject lines the image
may be displayed over characters and having some spacing between them would be
beneficial.
ink¶
This is the foreground color for the
X-Face image. The more common name
for this resource is
foreground. However, that name is not used because
there is a high probability that it would be inherited from the terminal's
resources. A lot of users use light foreground and dark background for
terminals. Since
X-Faces should normally be viewed with dark foreground
on light background, inheriting the colors from the terminal setup would
present a negative image by default. In order to avoid that,
slrnface
uses different resource name.
paper¶
This is the background color for the
X-Face image.
padColor¶
This is the color for the padding region set with
XFacePad resource.
EXAMPLES¶
The following example demonstrates how to set resources for xterm.
Example 1: horizontal offsets for xterm¶
Since
slrnface looks at the resources defined for the terminal's class
and name, an example setting is:
xterm.slrnface.xOffsetChar: 1
xterm.slrnface.xOffsetPix: 2
It is better to use the application name, rather than class, because some other
terminals use XTerm as their class, since they try to be feature compatible.
However, they might not have the same screen layout, so resources set for the
terminal class might not yield the desired effect in all terminals.
ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES¶
- DISPLAY
- The name of the display where the terminal runs. This
environment variable is the only way to pass it to slrnface.
- WINDOWID
- Used for determining terminal's X window id. It must be set
by a terminal emulator.
- LANG, LC_ALL, LC_MESSAGES
- These environment variables will be used when determining
the location of the appropriate resource file.
EXIT STATUS¶
The
slrnface helper doesn't print any diagnostic, because it doesn't know
if that is the appropriate action. In cases when diagnostic output is
appropriate, it can't guarantee that the output would be visible to the user.
Therefore it returns distinct error status for every kind of problem and
relies on the parent process to take the appropriate action.
It should be noted that
slrnface forks early in its execution. The parent
process exits immediately, returning success status to its parent. The child
process continues execution, reading commands from the FIFO in the
$HOME/.slrnfaces directory and executing them as appropriate. In the
case where there is a problem with the process' startup, the fork doesn't
happen and
slrnface exits immediately, returning the appropriate error
status. The following exit values are returned:
- 0
- Successful completion.
- 1
- slrnface couldn't connect to the display.
- 2
- Terminal emulator didn't set the WINDOWID
environment variable or its value was invalid.
- 3
- slrnface couldn't find its controlling
terminal.
- 4
- Terminal's width or height are not set.
- 5
- There was a problem with the FIFO setup.
- 6
- fork(2) failed.
FILES¶
- $HOME/.slrnfaces/*
- A named pipe used for communication between slrnface
and the master proces.
- slrnface.sl
- An example S-Lang hooks for setting up slrnface with
slrn(1).
SEE ALSO¶
slrn(1),
mutt(1),
X11(5),
xprop(1),
xterm(1),
fork(2)
BUGS¶
Multiple
X-Faces are not supported.
AUTHOR¶
Drazen Kacar <dave@willfork.com>
Home page:
http://dave.willfork.com/slrnface/