1webcollage(6x) XScreenSaver manual webcollage(6x)
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6 webcollage - decorate the screen with random images from the web
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9 webcollage [-display host:display.screen] [-root] [-window-id id]
10 [-verbose] [-timeout secs] [-delay secs] [-background bg] [-no-output]
11 [-urls-only] [-imagemap filename-base] [-size WxH] [-opacity ratio]
12 [-filter command] [-filter2 command] [-http-proxy host[:port]] [-dic‐
13 tionary dictionary-file] [-driftnet [cmd]] [-directory dir] [-fps]
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16 The webcollage program pulls random image off of the World Wide Web and
17 scatters them on the root window. One satisfied customer described it
18 as "a nonstop pop culture brainbath." This program finds its images by
19 doing random web searches, and extracting images from the returned
20 pages.
21 webcollage is written in perl(1) and requires Perl 5.
23 It will be an order of magnitude faster if you also have the webcol‐
25 lage-helper program installed (a GDK/JPEG image compositor), but web‐
26 collage works without it as well.
27 webcollage can be used in conjunction with the driftnet(1) program (the
29 Unix equivalent of EtherPEG) to snoop images from traffic on your local
30 subnet, instead of getting images from search engines.
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33 webcollage accepts the following options:
34 -root Draw on the root window. This option is mandatory, if output
36 is being produced: drawing to a window other than the root win‐
37 dow is not yet supported.
38 Images are placed on the root window by using one of the
40 xscreensaver-getimage(6x), chbg(1), xv(1), xli(1), or xloadim‐
41 age(1) programs (whichever is available.)
42 -window-id id
44 Draw to the indicated window instead; this only works if the
45 xscreensaver-getimage(6x) program is installed.
46 -verbose or -v
48 Print diagnostics to stderr. Multiple -v switches increase the
49 amount of output. -v will print out the URLs of the images,
50 and where they were placed; -vv will print out any warnings,
51 and all URLs being loaded; -vvv will print information on what
52 URLs were rejected; and so on.
53 -timeout seconds
55 How long to wait for a URL to complete before giving up on it
56 and moving on to the next one. Default 30 seconds.
57 -delay seconds
59 How long to sleep between images. Default 2 seconds. (Remem‐
60 ber that this program probably spends a lot of time waiting for
61 the network.)
62 -background color-or-ppm
64 What to use for the background onto which images are pasted.
65 This may be a color name, a hexadecimal RGB specification in
66 the form '#rrggbb', or the name of a PPM file.
67 -size WxH
69 Normally, the output image will be made to be the size of the
70 screen (or target window.) This lets you specify the desired
71 size.
72 -opacity ratio
74 How transparently to paste the images together, with 0.0 mean‐
75 ing "completely transparent" and 1.0 meaning "opaque." Default
76 0.85. A value of around 0.3 will produce an interestingly
77 blurry image after a while.
78 -no-output
80 If this option is specified, then no composite output image
81 will be generated. This is only useful when used in conjunc‐
82 tion with -verbose.
83 -urls-only
85 If this option is specified, then no composite output image
86 will be generated: instead, a list of image URLs will be
87 printed on stdout.
88 -imagemap filename-base
90 If this option is specified, then instead of writing an image
91 to the root window, two files will be created: "base.html" and
92 "base.jpg". The JPEG will be the collage; the HTML file will
93 include that image, and an image-map making the sub-images be
94 linked to the pages on which they were found (just like
95 https://www.jwz.org/webcollage/.)
96 -filter command
98 Filter all source images through this command. The command
99 must take a PPM file on stdin, and write a new PPM file to std‐
100 out. One good choice for a filter would be:
101 webcollage -root -filter 'vidwhacker -stdin -stdout'
103 -filter2 command
106 Filter the composite image through this command. The -filter
107 option applies to the sub-images; the -filter2 applies to the
108 final, full-screen image.
109 -http-proxy host:port
111 If you must go through a proxy to connect to the web, you can
112 specify it with this option, or with the $http_proxy or
113 $HTTP_PROXY environment variables.
114 -dictionary file
116 Webcollage normally looks at the system's default spell-check
117 dictionary to generate words to feed into the search engines.
118 You can specify an alternate dictionary with this option.
119 Note that by default, webcollage searches for images using sev‐
121 eral different methods, not all of which involve dictionary
122 words, so using a "topical" dictionary file will not, in it‐
123 self, be as effective as you might be hoping.
124 -driftnet [ args ]
126 driftnet(1) is a program that snoops your local ethernet for
127 unencrypted packets that look like they might be image files.
128 It can be used in conjunction with webcollage to generate a
129 collage of what other people on your network are looking at,
130 instead of a search-engine collage. If you have driftnet in‐
131 stalled on your $PATH, just use the -driftnet option. You can
132 also specify the location of the program like this:
133 -driftnet /path/to/driftnet
135 or, you can provide extra arguments like this:
137 -driftnet '/path/to/driftnet -extra -args'
139 Driftnet version 0.1.5 or later is required. Note that the
141 driftnet program requires root access, so you'll have to make
142 driftnet be setuid-root for this to work. Please exercise cau‐
143 tion.
144 -directory dir
146 Instead of searching the web for images, use the contents of
147 the given directory.
148 -fps Display the current frame rate and CPU load (MacOS only).
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152 Webcollage on Fedora uses '-directory' option by default, so it does
153 not connect to internet and uses image files on your local disk. If you
154 want webcollage to search for image files on net, use webcollage.origi‐
155 nal .
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158 DISPLAY to get the default host and display number.
159 XENVIRONMENT
161 to get the name of a resource file that overrides the global
162 resources stored in the RESOURCE_MANAGER property.
163 http_proxy or HTTP_PROXY
165 to get the default HTTP proxy host and port.
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168 /usr/dict/words, /usr/share/lib/dict/words, or /usr/share/dict/words to
169 find the random words to feed to certain search engines.
170 http://www.altavista.com/image/randomlink,
172 http://random.yahoo.com/fast/ryl,
173 http://www.livejournal.com/stats/latest-img.bml, and
174 http://www.google.com/ to find random web pages.
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177 The Internet being what it is, absolutely anything might show up in the
178 collage including -- quite possibly -- pornography, or even nudity.
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181 Animating GIFs are not supported: only the first frame will be used.
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184 The latest version of webcollage can be found as a part of xscreen‐
185 saver, at https://www.jwz.org/xscreensaver/, or on the WebCollage page
186 at https://www.jwz.org/webcollage/.
187 DriftNet: http://www.ex-parrot.com/~chris/driftnet/
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191 X(1), xscreensaver(1), xli(1), xv(1), xloadimage(1), ppmmake(1),
192 giftopnm(1), pnmpaste(1), pnmscale(1), djpeg(1), cjpeg(1), xdpyinfo(1),
193 perl(1), vidwhacker(6x), dadadodo(1), driftnet(1) EtherPEG, EtherPeek
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196 Copyright © 1998-2018 by Jamie Zawinski. Permission to use, copy, mod‐
197 ify, distribute, and sell this software and its documentation for any
198 purpose is hereby granted without fee, provided that the above copy‐
199 right notice appear in all copies and that both that copyright notice
200 and this permission notice appear in supporting documentation. No rep‐
201 resentations are made about the suitability of this software for any
202 purpose. It is provided "as is" without express or implied warranty.
203
205 Jamie Zawinski <jwz@jwz.org>, 24-May-1998.
206X Version 11 6.02-4.fc35 (09-Nov-2021) webcollage(6x)