1bubbles(6x) XScreenSaver manual bubbles(6x)
2
6 bubbles - frying pan / soft drink simulation
7
9 bubbles [-display host:display.screen] [-foreground color] [-background
10 color] [-window] [-root] [-mono] [-install] [-visual visual] [-simple]
11 [-broken] [-3D] [-rise|-drop] [-trails]
12
14 Bubbles sprays lots of little random bubbles all over the window which
15 then grow until they reach their maximum size and go pop. The inspira‐
16 tion for this was watching little globules of oil on the bottom of a
17 frying pan and it also looks a little like bubbles in fizzy soft drink.
18 The default mode uses fancy ray-traced bubbles but there is also a mode
19 which just draws circles in case the default mode is too taxing on your
20 hardware.
21
23 Depending on how your bubbles was compiled, it accepts the following
24 options:
25 -foreground
27 Colour of circles if -simple mode is selected.
28 -background
30 Colour of window background.
31 -window Draw on a newly-created window. This is the default.
33 -root Draw on the root window.
35 -mono If on a color display, pretend we're on a monochrome display.
37 -install
39 Install a private colormap for the window.
40 -visual visual
42 Specify which visual to use. Legal values are the name of a
43 visual class, or the id number (decimal or hex) of a specific
44 visual.
45 -delay microseconds
47 How much of a delay should be introduced between steps of the
48 animation. Default 800, or about 800 microsecond. Actually,
49 this is the delay between each group of 15 new bubbles since
50 such a delay between each step results in a very slow animation
51 rate.
52 -nodelay
54 Same as -delay 0.
55 -simple Don't use the default fancy pixmap bubbles. Just draw circles
57 instead. This may give more bearable performance if your hard‐
58 ware wasn't made for this sort of thing.
59 -broken Don't hide bubbles when they pop. This was a bug during devel‐
61 opment but the results were actually quite attractive.
62 -3D Normally, the simulation is done completely in two dimensions.
64 When a bubble swallows up another bubble, the areas of each are
65 added to get the area of the resulting bubble. This option
66 changes the algorithm to instead add volume (imagining each to
67 be a sphere in 3D space). The whole thing looks more realistic
68 but I find it attracts attention to the flickering of each bub‐
69 ble as they are move and are redrawn. Your mileage may vary.
70 -quiet Don't print messages explaining why one or several command line
72 options were ignored. This is disabled by default.
73 -rise | -drop
75 -trails
77
79 If you find the pace of things too slow, remember that there is a delay
80 even though you specify no -delay option. Try using -nodelay although
81 beware of the effects of irritation of other users if you're on a
82 shared system as you bleed their CPU time away.
83 Some tools to assist in creation of new bubbles are included in the
85 source distribution. These can either be loaded with the -file or
86 -directory options (if available) or they can be used in place of the
87 distributed default bubble (bubble_default.c). You might like to copy
88 these scripts to a permanent location and use them. Read bub‐
89 bles.README.
90 Rendered bubbles are not supported on monochrome displays. I'm not
92 convinced that small bubbles, even dithered properly are going to look
93 like anything more than a jumble of random dots.
94
96 There is a delay before something appears on the screen when using ren‐
97 dered bubbles. The XPM library seems to take a long time to make
98 pixmaps out of raw data. This can be irritating on slower systems.
99 The movement of the bubbles looks jerky if an incomplete set of bubbles
101 is used.
102 The hide/display algorithm could do with some work to avoid flickering
104 when -nodelay is set.
105
107 DISPLAY to get the default host and display number.
108 XENVIRONMENT
110 to get the name of a resource file that overrides the global
111 resources stored in the RESOURCE_MANAGER property.
112
114 X(1), xscreensaver(1)
115
117 This work is Copyright © 1995, 1996 by James Macnicol. Permission to
118 use, copy, modify, distribute, and sell this software and its documen‐
119 tation for any purpose is hereby granted without fee, provided that the
120 above copyright notice appear in all copies and that both that copy‐
121 right notice and this permission notice appear in supporting documenta‐
122 tion. No representations are made about the suitability of this soft‐
123 ware for any purpose. It is provided "as is" without express or
124 implied warranty.
125
127 James Macnicol <james.macnicol@mailexcite.com>
128X Version 11 5.05-3 (06-Apr-2008) bubbles(6x)