S$Id:xmris.man1.3Tue,16
NAME
xmris - video game for X
SYNOPSIS
xmris [-option ...] [-toolkitoption ...] xmsit [-option ...] [-
toolkitoption ...]
DESCRIPTION
Mr Is is a version of the Mr Do video arcade game for the X Window
System.
You control a gnome, who can walk around a garden, along paths already
marked, or create new paths wherever you wish. You also have a ball,
which can be thrown in the direction you're facing, towards the
gnome's feet. Points are scored for collecting cherries (if you
collect eight cherries without stopping or pushing an apple, you get a
bonus), killing monsters (by squashing them, or throwing the ball at
them), and collecting the prize left when all the monsters have come
out of their den.
Extra lives are obtained by killing all the 'EXTRA' monsters at the
top of the garden, so that the letters change from stippled to solid
(or grey to black or white, for colour). One of these comes out on its
own every 5000 points. When you collect the prize, the normal
monsters freeze, and an extra monster emerges, along with three
drones. Killing the letter monster will kill the drones too. When the
three drones are dead, the normal monsters wake up and things go
faster. When all the normal monsters are killed, or all the cherries
collected, or you have got the final extra monster, you advance to the
next garden.
You can kill the monsters by throwing the ball at them, or dropping
the apples on them. You get more points for squashing them, and the
more you squash in one go, the more points you get. The extra monster,
and its drones, can eat the apples, provided that they're walking
towards the apple. You die by colliding with a monster (unless its
eating an apple, in which case no harm is done), or by being squashed
by a falling apple. Sometimes a falling apple will break open to
reveal a diamond. The points scores are scaled by the game speed, (see
below).
Your score may be immortalized in the all time best scores and/or the
best of the day scores, and/or your own personal best scores. If your
score was added to the best of the day after 21:00, it is kept until
noon the next day, otherwise it will be removed at midnight. There is
only one entry per user in the all time best and the best of the day
tables.
There are two load lines at the bottom edge of the window. One shows
the frame time ratio and grows from left to right. The other shows the
frame loading and grows from right to left. Note that these two lines
can overlap, and are drawn with xor plotting. You can tell which is
which, because the frame loading line alters on a frame by frame
basis, whereas the frame time ratio only alters occasionally. The
frame load line grows by one pixel for every frame which took longer
to animate than there was allotted time, and is shrunk by one pixel
for each frame which is animated in time. The frame time ratio shows
- 1 - Formatted: April 19, 2024
XMRIS(6) X Version 11 XMRIS(6)
12 December 1995
the actual frame time, relative to the the ideal frame time. For a
frame time ratio of r, the line is 1 - 1 / r the width of the window.
Ie, for frame time ratio of 3 (one third speed) it covers two thirds
of the window width. The frame time ratio is a long time average of
the real frame times. It is used to scale the points scored in the
game. The higher the ratio, the lower the score, thus making
heterogeneous comparisons possible. The score scaling is biased
towards lower frame ratios, so you can't get a higher score just by
making the game slower. If your system becomes heavily loaded, you can
pause the game, to prevent the frame time ratio being updated. When
the frame load line diminishes, you can resume the game.
Because an interrupt is used to control the frame rate, the animation
is reasonably smooth. Though sometimes busywaiting will be needed to
get the best results. The game works best with all other processes
asleep. If another process gets too much processor time, the animation
will be jerky, and the load line will start to grow.
You probably want to position the pointer at the bottom of the window,
so that it doesn't interfere with the play area. You'll notice it
flicker, if one of the sprites moves under it.
The game is controlled from the keyboard. All the key bindings can be
changed by the toolkit application resource mechanism, or during one
of the demonstration screens. There are four direction keys, known as
up, down, left and right and the ball can be thrown with the throw
key. Because the paths are aligned to a matrix, it is only possible
to go in any direction at intersections. Elsewhere you can either go
horizontally or go vertically. Pressing more than one direction key
will turn the gnome appropriately at the next intersection, so you can
go round corners by pressing the new direction key before releasing
the old one. If you press a single direction key to go in an
impossible direction (ie not at an intersection), the gnome will
either continue in the direction it was already going, or, if
stationary, move towards the nearest intersection. As an example,
suppose you're going left and want to go up at the next intersection,
the sequence would be,
left pressed, because that's the way you're going
up pressed, before the intersection
left released, when you've gone round the corner
The game can be paused by iconizing it with the iconize key (when your
boss walks in), or by losing the keyboard focus, or by pressing the
pause key. When de-iconized, the game remains paused. To continue,
press the throw key. When paused, you can abort the current game by
pressing the quit key. If the game is displaying the demonstration
screens, the quit key will quit the game, and pause key will cycle
onto the next demonstration screen. During the score table display,
the direction keys can be used to change to a different score table.
Up or right cycle forwards and down or left cycle backwards. During
- 2 - Formatted: April 19, 2024
XMRIS(6) X Version 11 XMRIS(6)
12 December 1995
the garden demonstration, the direction keys can be used to select a
different garden. If you start the game from that new garden, you will
start at that level, but not score anything. During the game there are
several information screens and pauses, these can be skipped by
pressing the throw key.
The keys can be changed by using the keyboard key. Each logical key
name is prompted for, and you can select a new key binding by pressing
the one you want. Pressing the throw key will keep the binding for
that particular key (remember the throw key may change half way
through this process). You cannot map one key onto two functions, Mr
Is will wait until you give an unambiguous set of keys. Key bindings
set this way will be forgotten when Mr Is terminates. To permanently
set the key bindings, you will have to the the X resources.
Mr Is will use colour sprites, if the visual permits it (has a colour
map size of more than 15, and you haven't forced monochrome). All the
colours bar black and white are user definable. There are four sets,
one for each of the four combinations of gender and swap flag. The
colours are allocated in reverse order of their distance in colour
space, from currently allocated colours (the most distant colours are
allocated first). That way, if allocation fails because the colour map
is full, an allocated substitute colour, which is nearest the desired
colour, can be used and the allocated colours are kept maximally
distant. You can limit the number of distinct colours with the
-distinct option. A warning message is sent to stderr, if a colour
allocation fails. The -colours argument shows how these are allocated,
and -help -colours can be used to get the colour resource names.
OPTIONS
Mr Is accepts the standard X Toolkit options, as well as these.
-help
Lists the command options, application resource fields and some
other information to stderr. Does not start the game. If the
-colours option is supplied too, then the colour resource classes
are listed instead, with their default values. The format of this
list is suitable for inclusion in a resource file. Note, this
does not list out the colour values that you would get if you ran
the game, as it does not read the color resources.
-swap
-rv
-reverse
Normally the foreground is black and the background white, this
swaps them round. On colour systems, this may also alter other
colours.
- 3 - Formatted: April 19, 2024
XMRIS(6) X Version 11 XMRIS(6)
12 December 1995
+swap
-noswap
Override a swap resource in your resources, to force unswapped
colours.
-mono
Use black and white, even on colour displays. (Unfortunately, the
obvious option, '-bw', is already nabbed by the toolkit as
borderwidth.)
-random
+random
Mr Is has two methods for placing the apples. They will either be
placed according to one of four sets of explicit apple positions,
or placed randomly on any permitted location (though trying not
to place them adjacently). These two options override the default
set by the resources, -random places them randomly, and +random
uses one of the four sets.
-mris
-msit
-gender gender
Mr Is can also be run as xmsit. The two sexes have different
sprites. Mris selects the classic sprites, while msit selects a
more modern set. The gender of the game is taken from the
program name (mris or msit) but may be overridden by these two
switches. Valid genders are 'he', 'she', 'female', 'male',
'msit', 'mris', 'boy', 'girl'. The game is known as xmris (eks
mister iz), because the arcade game was masculine.
-busywait
Forces the game timing to be done by busy waiting, rather than
with an alarm timeout. Some systems have particularly inaccurate
alarms, and this option may improve things, by not using the
system's timer signal at all. Some alarms go off before the
requested time. Mr Is will detect this, and insert a busy wait in
the remaining time. A warning will be displayed as well. Note
that this is different to forcing busywaiting, as the timer
signal is still being used for the initial part of the frame
delay.
-dir score-directory
Specify a different score directory.
-username
-realname
The name for the score file can be either the username or the
real name. These options select which to use. The default is to
use the real name. If the real name is unobtainable, the
username will be used anyway. If the current score file has an
entry by the other name, then it will be changed to the new name.
- 4 - Formatted: April 19, 2024
XMRIS(6) X Version 11 XMRIS(6)
12 December 1995
-gardens garden-file
Specify a garden definition file. This allows you to alter the
initial garden layouts. The file is searched for in the current
directory, and the Mr Is subdirectory of app-defaults. These are
explained below.
-scores
List the high scores to stdout. Does not start the game. Note
that this will still need to open an X display, in order to read
the X resources (which may affect the score directory). If you
don't want the defaults read, use the +display option too.
+display
-nodisplay
Inhibits the opening of an X display. This option may only be
used with the -scores, -expire or -remove options. Note that the
X resources may override the default score directory, and that
this will not be done -- you will have to use the -dir option
too.
-remove name
Allows the game's owner to remove someone's scores. The option
will only work when the real and effective user ids are the same.
(ie a setuid Mr Is has been run by its owner). After updating the
files, the score tables are listed, and the game does not start.
An X display will still need to be opened, to read the X
resources, which may override the default score directory. The
+display option may be used to prevent this.
-expire date
Allows you to remove your own scores before or after a certain
date. If your high score is removed, then it is replaced with a
new personal high score. After updating the files, the score
tables are listed, and the game does not start. An X display will
still need to be opened, to read the X resources, which may
override the default score directory. The +display option may be
used to prevent this.
The date format is very flexible. Either an absolute or a
relative date may be given. Both may be prefixed with a '+' or
'-'. These have opposite interpretations for relative and
absolute dates. For an absolute date a '+' will delete those
after the date and a '-' will delete those before. The default is
to delete those before. For a relative date a '+' will delete
those older than specified, whereas a '-' will delete those
younger. The default is to delete those older.
Relative dates are given as a number with an optional trailing
modifier. A modifier of 'years', 'months', 'weeks', 'days',
'hours', 'minutes' or 'seconds' can be used to scale the number
appropriately (there are 365.25 days a year and 30.5 days a
- 5 - Formatted: April 19, 2024
XMRIS(6) X Version 11 XMRIS(6)
12 December 1995
month). The modifier may be abbreviated, but there cannot be any
spaces between the number and modifier.
Absolute dates are given as three fields separated by any non-
alphanumeric character, or by a change from numerals to letters.
The month may be entered numerically or named (abbreviated or
not). The day, month and year fields may be in any order, their
values are used to infer which is which. The year may be the full
year name (eg 1993), or just the last two digits, those in the
range 00 to 89 are in the 21st century, and those from 90 to 99
are the 20th century. If the date is ambiguous (eg 1/1/1), a
stored format is used and a warning is given. The following are
valid unambiguous dates, '11jun93' (dmy), '14/3/93' (dmy),
'april6:93' (mdy), and '0-16-8' (ydm).
-format format
Allows the game's owner to set the date format which is stored
with the score file, for future use disambiguating dates. The
format is automatically stored if none is set. The format must be
a three character string containing one each of 'D', 'M' and 'Y'.
-depth depth
Mr Is will use the default depth of the screen. You may wish to
override that by using this option. Selecting a different depth
may affect the visual selected.
-visual visual-class
Mr Is will pick the default visual for the depth chosen, but you
can override that by specifying a particular visual class. Valid
visuals are 'PseudoColor', 'DirectColor', 'TrueColor',
'StaticColor', 'GrayScale', and 'StaticGray'. To see which one is
picked, you can use the -colours option. If you do select a non-
default visual, you may have to specify a private colour map too,
due to limitations of the server or display.
-private
This forces Mr Is to allocate a private colour map. Normally Mr
Is will share the default colour map of the selected visual, but
if that does not have enough free colour cells then some colours
will have to be shared.
-colours
-colors
Show how the colours are allocated, and which visual has been
selected. The allocation is listed to stdout. When allocating
each colour, its resource name and rgb values are listed together
with the nearest already allocated colour and the distance
between them in colour space. The allocated pixel number is
printed last. If given with the -help option, the colour resource
classes are listed, and the game does not start.
- 6 - Formatted: April 19, 2024
XMRIS(6) X Version 11 XMRIS(6)
12 December 1995
-distinct n
Sets the number of distinct colours used. This can be used to
limit the number of colours used from the colour map. Black and
white are not included, and neither are the two writable colours
used for the garden backgrounds on dynamic visuals. Note that
-distinct 0 is different from -mono, even though both will only
use black and white.
-static
Do not use dynamic background colours, even if the visual
supports them. The default uses two dynamic colours, which alter
during the game.
-sprites
Show all the sprites during the demonstration cycle. This can be
used when you are defining your own sprite colours. The direction
keys will control the direction in which the demonstration
animated sprites face, and the throw key will cycle the
background colours for pseudo colour visuals.
APPLICATION RESOURCES
Mr Is uses the X toolkit application resource mechanism for setting up
the environment. Application resource items start with 'Xmris'. The
resource name can be derived from the given resource class by
decapitalizing it. For example 'cherryStalk' is the resource name for
the class 'cherryStalk'. The following classes are used (choices in
'{}' and defaults in '[]'.)
Xmris.Up: keysym [apostrophe]
Xmris.Down: keysym [slash]
Xmris.Left: keysym [z]
Xmris.Right: keysym [x]
Xmris.Throw: keysym [space]
Xmris.Pause: keysym [p]
Xmris.Quit: keysym [q]
Xmris.Iconize: keysym [i]
Xmris.Keyboard: keysym [k]
These give the logical key bindings. If the key symbol is
unknown, the default will be used, and a warning printed. Note
that these are case sensitive.
Xmris.Dir: score-directory
The name of the high score directory.
Xmris.UserName: {yes, no} [no]
Selects whether the username or real name should be used for your
entry in the high score table.
Xmris.Gardens: gardens-file
The name of the garden definition file.
- 7 - Formatted: April 19, 2024
XMRIS(6) X Version 11 XMRIS(6)
12 December 1995
Xmris.ReverseVideo: {yes, no} [no]
Specifies whether to use swapped colours or not.
Xmris.Mono: {yes, no} [no]
Whether the default is for monochrome on colour displays.
Xmris.Random: {yes, no} [no]
Sets whether the apples are placed randomly or not.
Xmris.Gender: gender [he]
Sets the default game gender. Valid genders are 'mris', 'msit',
'she', 'he', 'female', 'male', 'boy', 'girl'.
Xmris.Busywait: {yes, no} [no]
Determines whether the game timing is always done by busy
waiting.
Xmris.Depth: depth
Set the required screen depth to use.
Xmris.Visual: visual-class
Set the required visual class to use. Valid visuals are
'PseudoColor', 'DirectColor', 'TrueColor', 'StaticColor',
'GrayScale', and 'StaticGray'.
Xmris.Private: {yes, no} [no]
Set whether or not to use a private colour map.
Xmris.Distinct: n
Set the number of distinct colours allocated from the colour map.
Xmris.Static: {yes, no} [no]
Do not use dynamic background colors.
For example, if you want to use the arrow keys, the following will
work
Xmris.Up: Up
Xmris.Down: Down
Xmris.Left: Left
Xmris.Right: Right
In addition, you have the normal resources such as '*Font'.
Normally the cursor is invisible in the Mr Is window. You can force a
cursor to be shown by setting the "Xmris*cursorName" resource to a
named cursor.
COLOUR RESOURCES
There are many colour name defaults. You can specify different ones
for the four combinations of gender and swap resources, or use the
- 8 - Formatted: April 19, 2024
XMRIS(6) X Version 11 XMRIS(6)
12 December 1995
same for some combinations. There is no reason why all these cannot be
different colours, but note that the more unique colours you define,
the more colour map entries you will use up. The colours black and
white are already known about, but because of the way X parses hex
colour names, I have programmed white as #FF00FF00FF00 (what #FFFFFF
expands to), not #FFFFFFFFFFFF (what I think #FFFFFF should expand
to). This means that if you specify a white colour to more than 8 bit
accuracy, a new colour will be allocated. (This is a bug.) Of course,
you can specify the colours by name ('NavajoWhite'), so long as X can
grok it by searching your colour database.
Most of the sprites have a black edge to them on the unswapped colour
scheme, this gives comic like sprites. This edge is not included for
the swap colour scheme, and the sprite's colours go right up to the
sprite's edge. Most of the sprites will be surrounded by a halo of
the background colour, so that they don't blend in with each other,
when crossing. Another thing to watch out is contrast compensation.
Because of eye physiology, colours can look different, depending on
the surrounding colours, and light colours look brighter on dark
backgrounds than they do on light ones. A particular case of the
former is if pink is used for the player's face. On white backgrounds
pink looks alright, but on dark backgrounds the pink can look quite
brown, and must be brightened up, if you still want it to look pink.
The latter effect means that the blue used for the drones is bright
for a dark background and darker for a light background. There is no
requirement that those colours with a specific colour in their name,
need actually be a shade of that colour. For example GreenBack could
be #A020F0 (purple). You can use the -sprites and -colours options to
check out how these colours have been defined and look, and the
distinct resource to limit the distinct colours used.
The colour resources use the 'mris' or 'msit' widget instance within
the widget tree. They have the optional sub resource 'swap'. The
following are valid.
Xmris*Background: for all
Xmris*mris*Background: for all mris
Xmris*mris.swap.Background: for swapped mris
Xmris*mris.Background: for unswapped mris
Xmris*msit*Background: for all msit
Xmris*msit.swap.Background: for swapped msit
Xmris*swap.Background: for all swapped
The usual toolkit parsing rules apply to these resources. Namely that
'*' is used to fill out levels of hierarchy, while '.' is used for
explicit matching. The toolkit uses the longest matching string to
select resources in the case of ambiguities. Ie,
'Xmris*Swap.Background' will be selected over 'Xmris*Background' for
the swapped versions.
- 9 - Formatted: April 19, 2024
XMRIS(6) X Version 11 XMRIS(6)
12 December 1995
The defaults for 'mris', 'mris.swap', 'msit' and 'msit.swap' are
included after the resource class.
Background [#FFFFFF, #000000, #FFFFFF, #000000]
Foreground [#000000, #FFFFFF, #000000, #FFFFFF]
BorderColor [#000000, #FFFFFF, #000000, #FFFFFF]
The main foreground, background and border colours. The
foreground colou is used for all text and on garden scoring. The
background is used for the pathways and non-garden parts of the
screen. The border color is used for the board partion lines.
GreenBack [#77BB77, #BBFFBB, #77BB77, #BBFFBB]
GreenFore [#007700, #00BB00, #007700, #00BB00]
RedBack [#BB7777, #FFBBBB, #BB7777, #FFBBBB]
RedFore [#770000, #BB0000, #770000, #BB0000]
BlueBack [#7777BB, #BBBBFF, #7777BB, #BBBBFF]
BlueFore [#000077, #0000BB, #000077, #0000BB]
DroneBack [#AA3333, #FF6666, ------, ------]
DroneFore [#992222, #FF2222, ------, ------]
These are the colours used for the hedges. Two are used per
garden. For pseudo colour visuals, droneback and dronefore are
used when the prize is eaten.
Ball [#FFFF77, #FFFF77, #FF00FF, #FF00FF]
This is the ball colour.
CherryRed [#EE0000, #EE0000, #EE0000, #EE0000]
CherryStalk [ ------, #EEAA66, ------, #EEAA66]
The cherries use two colours, one for the fruit and the other for
the stalk. The cherry's glint is always white.
Apple1 [#EEDD00, #EEDD00, #EEDD00, #EEDD00]
Apple2 [#DD3300, #DD3300, #DD3300, #DD3300]
AppleFaint [#BBBBBB, ------, #BBBBBB, ------]
The apples use two colours for their skin. The apple's flesh and
glint is always white.
Gem1 [#DDDDDD, #DDDDDD, #DDDDDD, #DDDDDD]
Gem2 [#BBBBBB, #BBBBBB, #BBBBBB, #BBBBBB]
The gem facets are white or one of the two gem colours. The lines
between them are black and the sparkle is black for the unswapped
scheme and white colour for the swap scheme.
LetterGot [#000000, #FFFFFF, #000000, #FFFFFF]
LetterNotGot [#BBBBBB, #BBBBBB, #BBBBBB, #BBBBBB]
The extra letters and game title lettering uses two colours. One
to show letters which have been got, one for those which have not
been got. They do not have an edge colour put around them.
- 10 - Formatted: April 19, 2024
XMRIS(6) X Version 11 XMRIS(6)
12 December 1995
Normal [#EE0000, #EE0000, #EE0000, #EE0000]
Munch1 [#FFFF00, #FFFF00, #FFCC00, #FFCC00]
Munch2 [#CCCCCC, #CCCCCC, #FFCC00, #FFCC00]
Drone [#0000DD, #6666FF, #00FF00, #00FF00]
DroneTongue [ ------, ------, #EE0000, #EE0000]
Extra [#EEFF00, #EEFF00, #EEFF00, #EEFF00]
Chomp [#FFFFFF, #FFFFFF, #CCFF00, #CCFF00]
ChompLip [#77FFFF, #77FFFF, ------, ------]
ChompTongue [ ------, ------, #EE0000, #EE0000]
Most of the monsters have only one additional colour (to black
and white), but in some instances there are additional colours
for the features implied by the resource name.
Player [#0000DD, #6666FF, #6666FF, #6666FF]
PlayerBobble [#FFFFFF, #FFFFFF, #FFFFFF, #FFFFFF]
PlayerSkin [#FFCCCC, #FFDDDD, #FFCCCC, #FFDDDD]
PlayerBoot [ ------, #EEAA66, #773322, #DD9955]
The player uses four additional colours. The bobble colour is
also used for the flecks in the player's suit. The skin colour is
used for the face and hands.
Seat [#EE0000, #EE0000, #EE0000, #EE0000]
The little seat on which you can rest uses this additional
colour.
Cake [#FFFF77, #FFFF77, #FFFF77, #FFFF77]
CakeIcing [#DD9955, #EEAA66, #DD9955, #EEAA66]
CakeJam [#EE0000, #EE0000, #EE0000, #EE0000]
The cake prize has an icing layer and a jam layer around the cake
layers.
Spanner [#AAAAAA, #DDDDDD, #AAAAAA, #DDDDDD]
SpannerShadow [#000000, #000000, #000000, #000000]
The spanner prize only uses these two colours.
Brolly1 [#FFFFFF, #FFFFFF, #FFFFFF, #FFFFFF]
Brolly2 [#EE0000, #EE0000, #EE0000, #EE0000]
BrollyHandle [#DD9955, #EEAA66, #DD9955, #EEAA66]
The umbrella prize uses four colours. The edge colour is used to
demark the parasol colour areas.
MushroomStalk [#FFFFFF, #FFFFFF, #FFFFFF, #FFFFFF]
MushroomCap [#EE0000, #EE0000, #EE0000, #EE0000]
The mushroom prize uses these two additional colours.
ClockFace [#FFFFFF, #FFFFFF, #FFFFFF, #FFFFFF]
ClockBell [#00DD00, #00DD00, #00DD00, #00DD00]
ClockRim [#0000DD, #00DD00, #00DD00, #00DD00]
The clock prize uses these thee additional colours.
- 11 - Formatted: April 19, 2024
XMRIS(6) X Version 11 XMRIS(6)
12 December 1995
GARDENS
You may override the default garden layouts by specifying a garden
file. The file is a text file consisting a of a set of garden
definitions, include files, or comments. An include file is specified
by '#include "filename"', where filename is the name of the included
file. Relative include files are searched for relative to the
including file, or, if that fails, in the Mr Is subdirectory of app-
defaults directory (this will usually be '/usr/lib/X11/app-
defaults/xmris'). In If the filename is null, then the internal
gardens will be included. Comments are delimited by '/*' and '*/', A
garden definition is the following format, '{fillpattern,
backgroundcolour, apples, {layout}},'. New gardens must begin on a new
line. Fillpattern is an integer specifying one of the following fill
patterns,
0 brickwork
1 diagonal stripes
2 cross hatched
3 zigzag lines
Backgroundcolour is an integer specifying one of the following
background colour schemes,
0 red
1 green
2 blue
Apples specifies the number of apples to place in the garden. Its
upper limit is twelve. Layout consists of 13 strings of 12 characters
each, such as '"..b@@B..@@.B"'. Within these strings the following
characters are used,
A-D Blank path
E-H Cherry on path
I-L Den on path
MP Player on path
@ Cherry on background
a-p Explicit apple possibilities
+ Invalid apple location
. Background
The path characters specify connections to the cell below and to the
right. A bit mask is obtained by subtracting the base character. Bit
0 connects downwards and bit 2 connects to the right. The explicit
apple positions define four sets of apple locations, using the four
bits obtained by subtracting the base character. Random apples will
be placed on any cell which is not a pathway, cherry or invalid apple
location.
There must be at least one cherry, at least one den and exactly one
player. Certain locations must be pathway. The garden is checked, and
- 12 - Formatted: April 19, 2024
XMRIS(6) X Version 11 XMRIS(6)
12 December 1995
if faulty, it will be fixed, if possible.
The format of these garden files is similar to a C source file, except
that includes and comments can only occur between garden definitions,
and missing or superfluous commas are ignored.
You can examine the gardens during the demonstration screens. When a
garden is shown, the direction keys can be used to change the garden
number. Up and down increment and decrement by ten, whilst right and
left increment and decrement by one. If a game is started from the
selected garden, then it will be the initial garden, but you won't
score any points.
ENVIRONMENT
A few environment variables are used to locate resources.
DISPLAY
The default display to connect to. May be overridden with the
-display option.
LOGNAME, USER, HOME
Read to determine the name to use for the score tables, and the
user's home directory, if getpwuid(3) fails.
FILES
The loadable garden file must be fully named, or located in the score
directory. They may have any name. The score files have the following
names.
.../xmris.score
The high score file. The directory is system dependent, and may
be changed by application resource or option. This file must
either exist and be writable to by Mr Is, or the directory
containing it must be writable by Mr Is. This can be done by
chmoding the score file or directory, or by setuiding Mr Is
appropriately. A non-setuid Mr Is will chmod the score file to
666 if creating it.
.../xmris.lock
In some systems, where lockf or flock doesn't work, this
temporary file is used to perform the locking. The directory
containing it must be writable by Mr Is. This can be done by
chmoding the directory, or by setuiding Mr Is appropriately.
.../xmris-<name>
~/.xmris.score
One of these files is used to store the personal best scores. Mr
Is first looks for the personal score file in the score directory
and then in the home directory. If a personal score file cannot
be found, Mr Is attempts to create one. If the file is found in
the user's home directory, Mr Is attempts to move it to the score
- 13 - Formatted: April 19, 2024
XMRIS(6) X Version 11 XMRIS(6)
12 December 1995
directory. Mr Is will attempt to create the personal files in the
score directory. If this cannot be done, the personal score file
is placed in the home directory. In order to create the personal
score file in the score directory, Mr Is will have to have the
correct access rights, as with the lock file. A setuid Mr Is will
juggle the effective uid correctly for accessing both the score
directory and the users' home directories.
~/.Xdefaults
.../app-defaults/Xmris.ad
You can place you favourite key bindings and stuff in an
application resource file, and Mr Is will use them, rather than
its compiled defaults. See X for information about how these are
searched.
.../app-defaults/xmris/<gardens>
<score-dir>/<gardens>
<score-dir>/gardens/<gardens>
Search path for loadable gardens. The suffix ".gdn" is appended
to the filename, if required.
digits.gdn, alphabet.gdn, puzzle.gdn
Some of the garden files.
SEE ALSO
xmred(6)
ERRORS
If you use a lock file, rather than lockf, and an error occurs
creating the lock file, a message is printed on stderr, and file
locking is not done for that access. Subsequent accesses may be
alright.
If an error occurs opening the score file, a message is printed on
stderr, and the score file is disabled. Personal score files will be
generated in the users' home directories.
Various errors can occur during initialization, most are obvious. Note
that if you requested a non-default visual, you may also have to
request a private colormap, otherwise an X error 8 on request 1:0
occurs when realizing the widget.
Some systems' timer returns too soon. Mr Is detects this, and then
starts performing a busywait at the end of the timer period. A warning
is also printed. If this is the case, it may be better to force
busywaiting with the busywait resource.
If a loadable garden is incorrect, an error is displayed, enabling you
to locate the offending files and lines. The garden is ignored.
- 14 - Formatted: April 19, 2024
XMRIS(6) X Version 11 XMRIS(6)
12 December 1995
BUGS
Mr Is can be addictive, so don't blame me if your work suffers.
Mr Is does not check that the key definitions in the application
resources do not conflict with each other. Neither are the colours
checked, to see that things are actually visible.
Some of the -msit -swap sprites have black pixels at their edge.
These should really be background colour pixels, but this is only
significant if the -swap background colour is not dark.
Best of the day scores scored between 21:00 Dec 31 and 00:00 Jan 1
won't be kept until noon on New Year's Day.
One of the sprites with lettering, has the lettering reversed when
facing left.
Getting accurate, stable timing is difficult, as Unix is not a real
time OS. Unix schedules processes in ticks, with a certain
granularity. Getting finer grained timing than that is very much
system dependent. There is also slippage between receiving one
interrupt and starting the next one. You don't want to get the
interrupt to restart itself (even though this is possible), as you
then get very rude behaviour if your main loop is a bit too slow, (Mr
Is on speed). Some timers round downwards, returning before the
requested time. This has to be detected, and a busy wait inserted.
The visual class name conversion is performed by a standard toolkit
routine. It accepts only American spelling, the English spelling of
COPYRIGHT
Copyright (C) 1995, 1994, 1993, 1992 Nathan Sidwell.
AUTHOR
Nathan Sidwell <nathan@pact.srf.ac.uk>
<http://www.pact.srf.ac.uk/~nathan/>
Additional sprites by Stefan Gustavson <stefang@isy.liu.se>
- 15 - Formatted: April 19, 2024
