1xdesktopwaves(1) General Commands Manual xdesktopwaves(1)
2
6 xdesktopwaves - simulation of water waves on the X Windows desktop
7
9 xdesktopwaves [option]...
10
12 xdesktopwaves is a cellular automata setting the background of your X
13 Windows desktop under water. Windows and mouse are like ships on the
14 sea. Each movement of these ends up in moving water waves. You can
15 even have rain and/or storm stirring up the water (-rain 0-10, -storm
16 0-10).
17 In shaped mode, which is enabled by default, xdesktopwaves usually
19 works good together with other desktop background programs like xfish‐
20 tank, xpenguins, xsnow and xearth. They are all under water.
21 xdesktopwaves has many options. The most important ones are -quality
23 0-9 and -colortheme 0-9. The first one is for adjusting the balance
24 between display quality and system load. And the other option is for
25 selecting a set of colors for visualization. Choose a color theme
26 suitable for your background picture. There are even options for fine-
27 tuning.
28 Window Managers
30 Unfortunately, xdesktopwaves does not function on every X11 desktop,
32 because some modern window managers (or compositing managers) do not
33 support classic X11 override-redirect backdrop windows. You will have
34 to try it out. If it does not work, please try it with the -root
35 option, then with the -wmbackdrop option, and finally with -window (but
36 with the last one, xdesktopwaves does not appear in the background).
37 Please read the comments on these options more below. It may also be
38 helpful to add -opaque.
39 If supported by the window manager, you should decide to enable opaque
41 moving and resizing of windows ("display content in moving windows" or
42 something like that), instead of displaying just a frame. This may
43 result in very dynamic wave effects - try to pile up a big wave by mov‐
44 ing a window slowly.
45 Starting and stopping
47 For a first try, open a shell and type xdesktopwaves followed by
49 desired options. Example:
50 xdesktopwaves -quality 4 -colortheme 3
52 Just press CTRL-C for stopping.
54 Now, if you want to create menu entries in your desktop environment,
56 window manager or wherever: For starting, create an entry containing a
57 command like the example above. And for stopping, create an entry con‐
58 taining this command:
59 xdesktopwaves -end
61 Hint: Whenever xdesktopwaves is starting, it automatically tells other
63 instances of xdesktopwaves to terminate. So there cannot be more than
64 one instance.
65 xdesktopwaves every day?
67 Depending on the quality settings, xdesktopwaves can be very CPU-inten‐
69 sive. To get along with this, the program goes into an idle mode if
70 there are no waves on the water or if the output window is obscured.
71 The cellular automata stops computing in that mode. Additionally, you
72 can give a lower priority to the xdesktopwaves process (see -nice).
73 If you want to have xdesktopwaves automatically started when starting X
75 Windows, insert the start command in the file $HOME/.xinitrc (see
76 startx(1)). But don't forget to append & to the command. This way,
77 xdesktopwaves is started before the window manager (may or may not
78 work, depending on the type of window manager).
79
81 -h or -help
82 Print a short help and exit.
83 -V or -version
85 Print version and exit.
86 -v or -verbose
88 Print some information about what's going on.
89 -vv or -veryverbose
91 Print much information (for debugging).
92 -d name or -display name
94 Connect to the display named name.
95 -e or -end
97 Exit after terminating a possibly already existing instance of
98 xdesktopwaves.
99
101 -r or -root
102 Do not create any window, draw the waves to the (virtual) root
103 window. This option implies -stippled if not -opaque.
104 -w or -window
106 Create an ordinary normal window. For some window managers
107 you'll even have to give -opaque.
108 -b or -backdrop (default)
110 Create an override-redirect backdrop window on the (virtual)
111 root window.
112 -wmb or -wmbackdrop
114 Create a backdrop window using the extended window manager
115 hints. This is not supported by every window manager. And if
116 it is, there's still the problem that it may not be possible to
117 activate icons or menus on the desktop background (possibly just
118 at every second scan-line in shaped mode).
119 -nxb or -noexitbutton
121 Do not create the (emergency) exit button. With some window
122 managers (or compositing managers), the backdropping fails in a
123 way that the user cannot see or control any window or menu on
124 the whole desktop. Unfortunately, the automatic backdrop fail‐
125 ure detection is not able to detect all such situation. There‐
126 fore an exit button is created at top level in the upper-right
127 corner of the desktop. With this option, that button is not cre‐
128 ated. This only concerns -root, -backdrop, and -wmbackdrop.
129 -nbf or -nobackdropfail
131 Do not abort if backdropping fails. Normally, the program exits
132 automatically when there is nothing in front of the xdesktop‐
133 waves window, because then the backdropping has probably failed
134 in lack of support by the window manager. With this option, that
135 exiting does not happen. This only concerns -backdrop and
136 -wmbackdrop.
137
139 -o or -opaque
140 Have no transparency at all.
141 -t or -stippled
143 Have faked transparency. This lets the desktop background pic‐
144 ture shine through. Other desktop background programs and desk‐
145 top icons may not be visible. The window of xdesktopwaves
146 inherits the background from the root window, and the waves are
147 drawn in stippled mode. This option implies -nodoublebuffer.
148 -s or -shaped (default)
150 Have better transparency. Everything behind xdesktopwaves
151 shines through. The window of xdesktopwaves is shaped by every
152 second scan-line, using the XShape extension. This option is
153 ignored if -root, otherwise this option implies -doublebuffer.
154 -wmo percent or -wmopacity percent
156 Have best transparency. This is still highly experimental! It
157 sets the window property _NET_WM_WINDOW_OPACITY, which is a hint
158 for the window manager respectively composite manager to render
159 the window with alpha blending. This option is ignored if
160 -root.
161
163 -q number or -quality number (default: 5)
164 Set overall quality of the waves. number can be 0 to 9. The
165 higher the quality, the higher the CPU/network load. This
166 option is a comfortable alternative for -framerate, -simsper‐
167 frame, -eventsperframe, -resdivision, -cellsize and -maxcolors.
168 -fr rate or -framerate rate
170 Set maximum frame rate in hertz. This option is overridden by
171 -quality.
172 -sf count or -simsperframe count
174 Set number of simulation steps per frame. Hereby you can adapt
175 the speed of the waves. This option is overridden by -quality.
176 -ef count or -eventsperframe count
178 Set number of event processings per frame. This can improve the
179 trails of fast moving objects (mouse and windows), but it can
180 even incur a sensible higher CPU load, because of a worse cache
181 utilization. Maximum is the number of simulation steps per
182 frame. This option is overridden by -quality.
183 -rd rdx rdy or -resdivision rdx rdy
185 Set overall division of resolution in x and y direction. These
186 values have dramatic influence on the CPU usage on both sides,
187 the client and the server. This option is overridden by -qual‐
188 ity.
189 -cs cw ch or -cellsize cw ch
191 Set width and height of the cells of water. These values have
192 dramatic influence on the CPU usage on the client side. The
193 water surface is made of rectangular cells. This is a kind of
194 an image, where each pixel is a cell. For each frame, that
195 image is scaled up to the screen size in two steps. In the
196 first step it is scaled by (cw, ch) with bi-linear interpola‐
197 tion, and in the second step it is scaled by (rdx, rdy) without
198 interpolation. This option is overridden by -quality.
199 -mc count or -maxcolors count
201 Set maximum number of colors for drawing the waves. The higher
202 the color count, the more rectangles may be sent to the X
203 server. count can be 2 to 128. This option is overridden by
204 -quality.
205 -db or -doublebuffer (default)
207 Draw with double buffering. This option is ignored if -stip‐
208 pled.
209 -ndb or -nodoublebuffer
211 Draw without double buffering. This option is ignored if
212 -shaped.
213 -n increment or -nice increment (default: 0)
215 Increment nice value of the xdesktopwaves process. The higher
216 the nice value, the lower the process priority. A typical value
217 for increment is 10.
218 -i or -idle (default)
220 Go idle if there are no waves or if the output window is
221 obscured. This can spare CPU cycles.
222 -ni or -noidle
224 Never go idle.
225 -mo number or -maxoptimization number (default: 2)
227 Set maximum optimization by CPU instruction set. If compiled
228 with GCC for x86 (32 or 64-bit), 1 means MMX and 2 means SSE2.
229 0 means to have no special optimization.
230
232 -c number or -colortheme number (default: 0)
233 Select a color theme. number can be 0 to 9. Just try them
234 through. This option is a comfortable alternative for -water‐
235 color, -skycolor and -lightcolor.
236 -wc color or -watercolor color
238 Set color of water. This option is overridden by -colortheme.
239 -sc color or -skycolor color
241 Set color of sky reflections. This option is overridden by
242 -colortheme.
243 -lc color or -lightcolor color
245 Set color of light reflections. This option is overridden by
246 -colortheme.
247
249 -wm or -wavesbymouse (default)
250 Produce waves by mouse pointer movements.
251 -nwm or -nowavesbymouse
253 Ignore the mouse.
254 -ww or -wavesbywindows (default)
256 Produce waves by client windows.
257 -nww or -nowavesbywindows
259 Ignore client windows.
260 -rn intensity or -rain intensity (default: 0)
262 Simulate raindrops falling on the water. intensity can be 0 (no
263 rain) to 10 (cloudburst).
264 -st intensity or -storm intensity (default: 0)
266 Simulate a storm blowing on the water. intensity can be 0 (no
267 wind) to 10 (strong storm).
268 -vs value or -viscosity value (default: 3)
270 Set viscosity of the fluid. value can be 1 to 5. The higher
271 the viscosity, the shorter the lifetime of waves.
272 -si intensity or -skyintensity intensity (default: 5)
274 Set intensity of sky reflections. intensity can be 1 to 10.
275 -li intensity or -lightintensity intensity (default: 5)
277 Set intensity of light reflections. intensity can be 1 to 10.
278 -lal degrees or -lightaltitude degrees (default: 30)
280 Set altitude of the source of light. degrees can be 0 to 90.
281 -laz degrees or -lightazimuth degrees (default: -35)
283 Set azimuth of the source of light. degrees can be -360 to 360.
284
286 xdesktopwaves -quality 6 -colortheme 1 -verbose
287 Increased quality. Blue color theme. Print information about
288 settings and performance.
289 xdesktopwaves -q 6 -c 1 -v
291 Short cut of the previous example.
292 xdesktopwaves -c 2 -rn 8 -r -o
294 Dark night with flashy lights. It's raining. Draw to the root
295 window without any transparency.
296
298 xfishtank, xpenguins(1), xearth(1), xsnow(1), xlife(1x), xsetroot(1),
299 startx(1)
300
302 http://xdesktopwaves.sourceforge.net/
303
305 Oliver Hamann (olha@users.sourceforge.net)
306
308 xdesktopwaves is copyrighted (C) 2004,2019 by Oliver Hamann
309 This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
311 under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the
312 Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your
313 option) any later version.
314 This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but
316 WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MER‐
317 CHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General
318 Public License for more details.
319 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along
321 with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc.,
322 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307 USA
323xdesktopwaves 1.4 14 July 2019 xdesktopwaves(1)