KALEID(1) UNIX System V KALEID(1)
NAME
kaleid - X11 Kaleidoscope Display
SYNOPSIS
0336384.el.if0=0 .nr i0 144u
kaleid
[-bd border] [-bg background] [-bstore] [-bw borderwidth] [-clip
x,y,w,h[,x,y,w,h[,...]]] [-colors color1[,color2[,...]]] [-delay msec]
[-display displayname] [-geometry geometry] [-icondelay msec] [-iconic]
[-mono] [-mult number] [-qix] [-r] [-randomcolor] [-refresh]
HP-UX COMPATIBILITY
Origin: User Contributed
DESCRIPTION
Kaleid runs a colorful kaleidoscope display in an X11 window. The 16-
color palette is chosen to approximate the default palette found on EGA
and VGA displays.
With window managers that support icon windows (such as uwm), the kaleid
icon is a small kaleidoscope window that runs a slow kaleidoscope display
(see -icondelay option, below).
Options:
-bd Specify border color; defaults to white.
-bg Specify background color; defaults to black.
-bstore
Enable backing store on kaleid windows.
-bw Specify border width in pixels; defaults to 2.
-clip
Specify clipping rectangles to be used in the kaleid window(s). You
can specify one or more clipping rectangles by x, y, width, and
height in floating-point coordinates. The values specified are
scaled to the window size, and can range from 0.0 to 1.0. So ``-
clip 0,0,1,1'' specifies the entire window, while ``-clip
0,0,.5,.5,.5,.5,.5,.5'' specifies the upper-left and lower-right
quadrants of the window. Note that kaleid does not check for
reasonable values, nor does it check for violation of X's
requirement that clipping rectangles not overlap.
-colors
Specify up to 16 colors to use instead of the default palette. This
option is overridden by the -randomcolors option. Example of
syntax: ``-colors red,green''. If a color is specified that does
not exist in the server's rgb database, color allocation will
silently fail.
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KALEID(1) UNIX System V KALEID(1)
-delay
Specify a delay (in msec) to be performed between drawing each set
of lines - can be used to avoid swamping the X11 server. Defaults
to 10 (100 when -r option, below, is used).
-display
Specify display on which to run; defaults to contents of DISPLAY
environment variable.
-geometry
Specify window geometry; defaults to =300x300+0+0.
-icondelay
Specify the delay to be used when drawing to the kaleid icon.
Defaults to 100 msec.
-iconic
Cause kaleid to come up in the iconic state.
-mono
Force kaleid to run in monochrome mode (default behavior on a
monochrome display).
-mult
Run specified number of kaleid windows. Each window is a top-level
window with an associated icon. See the note on WINDOW MANAGER
INTERACTIONS (below) for details on where the multiple windows get
mapped.
-qix Run a completely different ``Qix''-type drawing algorithm instead of
kaleidoscope.
-r Run kaleid in the root window. This option causes kaleid to ignore
all options irrelevant to running in the root window, with one
exception: the geometry string is interpreted in a strange and
different manner. The width and height are interpreted as number of
horizontal and vertical sections into which the root window is
divided. For example, a geometry specification of =3x2 will result
in six kaleidoscope patterns laid out in a 3x2 array in the root
window.
-randomcolor
Instead of the standard palette, use a randomly-generated palette
that is randomly changed at times during kaleid's execution. This
option causes kaleid to allocate read/write color cells instead of
read-only color cells, and will not work on a display whose default
visual type is StaticColor, StaticGray, or TrueColor.
-refresh
If an obscured portion a window containing a kaleid display is
exposed, refresh the window. This results in redrawing everything
that has been drawn since the last time the window was cleared.
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KALEID(1) UNIX System V KALEID(1)
NOTE
Specifying a delay (icondelay) value of 0 will cause kaleid to draw into
its window (icon) at top speed, bogging down your server and, if kaleid
is run remotely, your network. The default delay value was chosen to
work well on a fast CPU with a fast X server -- it is probably too low
for many systems.
If kaleid and the server are running on the same CPU, running kaleid with
a higher nice (nice(1)) value will usually produce good results without
1) swamping the server, and 2) requiring you to impose an unpleasantly
long delay.
AUTHORSHIP
There have been many different kaleidoscope programs for many different
flavors of computers and PCs over the years. The kaleidoscope algorithm
in kaleid was derived from the public-domain kaleidoscope program for IBM
PCs by Judson D. McClendon (Sun Valley Systems, 329 37th Court N.E.,
Birmingham, AL, 35215, CompuServe address [74415,1003]). X11 kaleid was
written by Nathan Meyers of Hewlett-Packard (nathanm@hp-pcd.hp.com).
WINDOW MANAGER INTERACTIONS
Some window managers do not appear to cope very well with window icons,
resulting in strange icon behavior. Uwm does not suffer from this
problem, although problems can occur when changing window managers (to or
from uwm) during execution of kaleid.
On window managers that support window icons and that specify icon sizing
hints, kaleid will respect the icon sizing hints, creating the largest
permissible icon. Without icon sizing hints, the default icon size is
64x64.
Kaleid maps all of its top-level windows to =+0+0 unless overridden by a
geometry string, and all of its icon windows to =+0+0. Where the windows
and icons actually end up is a function of how your window manager
handles placement of windows and icons. Uwm, for example, will request
manual window placement for each top-level window if a geometry string is
not specified, but will leave all icons mapped at =+0+0. Conversely,
with window managers that maintain galleries or grids of icons, multiple
kaleid icons can be spectacular.
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