NAME

xswitcher − X11 virtual screen switcher

SYNOPSIS

xswitcher [ -d display -i screen-number ]

DESCRIPTION

Xswitcher is a tool for X servers which have multiple virtual screens, but only one physical screen − for example, Acorn’s Xarm(1).  Xswitcher allows the user to rotate through the available screens in either direction. 

When invoked it opens a small window in each of the screens available on the specified display.  Each window shows a picture of a double-headed arrow and a message identifying the screen number that the window is on.  (If the window is too small for the message to fit, then just the number is displayed, centred in the window.)  A press of the left or middle mouse button inside the window causes the next screen to be displayed.   The screen number is decremented if the pointer was in the left half of the xswitcher window, incremented if it was in the right half.  In either case, the pointer is left inside the xswitcher window on the new screen, such that you are ready to move in the same direction again. 

While the input focus is assigned to the xswitcher window, a press on the key corresponding to the number of a screen takes you directly to that screen.  If an invalid number is pressed, xswitcher will ring the bell. 

To exit xswitcher type the string "quit" into one of its windows.  The characters must be typed in lower case, consecutively and without any intervening mouse button clicks.  Exiting has deliberately been made difficult because accidentally exiting xswitcher can sometimes leave you stranded on the wrong screen! 

OPTIONS

-d display

Use the specfied display instead of the default (which is found from environment variable $DISPLAY)

-i screen-number

Immediate mode.  Do not open any switcher windows, but switch directly to the specified screen and then exit.  This is provided so that xswitcher may be called from window manager menus. 

X DEFAULTS

The resource naming scheme has been designed to let the user specify colours (and other parameters) on the basis of screen number, screen depth, or a mixture of both.  This is necessary because the depths and characterisitics of the various virtual screens is determined when the X server is started, and the user would like to specify once and for all a set of resources that will cope adequately with any combination of screen characteristics. 

Resources are sought in the resoure database under the name by which the program was invoked, usually xswitcher. The program’s class is XSwitcher. Between the program name and the resource name is a field describing which screens the resource may be applied to.  This is best explained by example.  In the examples below, each resource is specifying the foreground colour.  The examples are presented in order of search priority.

To specify a resource to apply to screen 3 if and only if it is of depth 4, say

xswitcher.screen3depth4.foreground: Red

To specify a resource to apply to screen 3, whatever its depth, say

xswitcher.screen3.foreground: Blue

To specify a resource that applies to all screens of depth 4, say

xswitcher.depth4.foreground: Green

To specify a resource that applies to all screens of all depths, say

xswitcher.foreground: Yellow

A discussion of all the resources recognised follows.  All of these may be specified in any of the ways shown above. 

arrowcolour (class Foreground)
Specifies the colour of the double-headed arrow.

background (class Background)
Specifies the colour to be used for the background.

bordercolour (class Foreground)
Specifies the colour of the border.

borderwidth (class Borderwidth)
Specifies the width of the window border.

font (class Font)
Specifies the font to use for the label.  If absent, a default font is chosen automatically.

foreground (class Foreground)
Specifies the colour to be used for text.

geometry (class Geometry)
Specifies the geometry of the window.  Expressed in the usual X11 widthxheight[+-]xoffset[+-]yoffset notation. 

The values of the next three resources may contain the string "%d", which if present will be replaced by the screen number.  This enables the user to have the screen number in the window’s title, and hence on the window manager’s title bar. 

iconname (class Title)
Specifies the icon name to be passed to the window manager.

label (class Title)
Specifies the label to be displayed inside the arrow.

title (class Title)
Specifies the window title to be passed to the window manager.

The default values of the resources are: WhitePixel for class Foreground, BlackPixel for class Background, and "Xswitcher (%d)" for class Title.  The default size of the xswitcher windows is 100x100 pixels. 

SEE ALSO

Xarm(1), XWarpPointer(3)

BUGS

There should be command-line equivalents of many resources. 

You cannot specify an icon bitmap. 

There should be an option to create an active window icon. 

COPYRIGHT

Copyright 1989, Acorn Computers Ltd. 

AUTHOR

Steve Hunt, Acorn Computers Ltd. 

Acorn Computers Ltd  —  Revision 1.5 of 28/06/90