xacursor(1) xacursor(1)
August 1993
NAME
xacursor - set an animated cursor in a window
SYNOPSIS
xacursor [-d display] [-r] [-fg color] [-bg color]
[-path directory] [-cursor file] [-mask file]
[-wait msecond] [-m swing | random | rswing | vibrate]
[-demo] [-h] [file]
DESCRIPTION
Upon execution, the cursor will be changed to a musical note, the
window then selected by the user will have its cursor changed to an
animated one, using the paths of the cursor bitmap files listed in
-file. If the -r option is specified, the cursor of the root window
will be changed.
If -cursor file are passed in the command line, the cursor will be
changed to the one specified. -demo shows the standard demonstration.
Please note that not all windows allow you to make a cursor change.
By default, xacursor sets the cursor to be the bitmaps in the sequence
listed in "file", which are specified in the following manner:
cursor[1] mask[1] foreground[1] background[1]
cursor[2] mask[2] foreground[2] background[2]
. . . .
. . . .
cursor[n] mask[n] foreground[n] background[n]
where "cursor[i]" and "mask[i]" are the paths of the cursor file and
the mask file; "foreground[i]" and "background[i]" are the foreground
and background colors, so the cursor can have changing colors. If
omited, the mask is defaulted to be the cursor file; the two colors
are set to be black and white respectively, unless otherwise specified
by the user.
xacursor ignores all blank lines, spaces and tabs; lines beginning
with the "#" character are comments. All tokens "NA" are treated as
place holder and will be ignored as well, so if one does not want to
specified the mask file, the line may look like:
e.g. fire1.xbm NA goldenrod midnightblue
- 1 - Formatted: November 29, 2025
xacursor(1) xacursor(1)
August 1993
OPTIONS
-d display Specifies the display that should be used.
-r The cursor of the root window will be changed,
the user will not be asked to specified a window.
-fg color The foreground color of the cursor,
defaulted to be black.
-bg color The background color of the cursor,
defaulted to be white.
-cursor file Using this option, the user can set the
cursor to "file", which is not animated.
-mask file The path of the mask file, defaulted to
be the cursor file if omited. In the
case of multiple cursors (as listed in
"file"}, it serves as the default mask file
for all cursors, unless it is otherwise
specified in the cursor list.
-path directory The directory in which all the specified
bitmaps can be found, so the user does not need to
type the full path of the bitmap files. This path
is optional.
-mode swing | random | rswing | vibrate
The way the cursors are animated. By default,
the cursor will be animated in the
sequence "first to last" as specified in "file".
"swing" mode makes the cursors changes from
the 1st one to the last one, go back to the
1st one in reverse order, then start from
the 1st one again; and so on and so forth.
While "random" mode makes them appear in
random orders.
"rswing" is just swing except the cursors
changes from the 1st one to one that is
picked at random, go back to the 1st one
in reverse order; then start again from the
- 2 - Formatted: November 29, 2025
xacursor(1) xacursor(1)
August 1993
1st one.
Being a little like "rswing", "vibrate" picks
2 random bitmap "a" and "b" when starts,
change the bitmap from "a" to "b"; then picks
another random bitmap "c", and goes from "b"
to "c", and so on.
-wait msecond Wait for "msecond" number of milli-
seconds between successive changes of the
cursor. By default, "msecond" cannot be smaller
then 10, otherwise 10 will be used. The
default is 200 msec.
-demo Show the standard demonstration, which is a
rotating earth. This can be combined with other
options like "-fg", "-mode" and "-wait" to get
a unique appearance.
-h Display the help message.
FILE
file The cursor list, contains relative pathnames
of cursors to be animated, subject to the
presence or absence of "-path", as
specified above.
AUTHOR
xacursor is written by Kam-Hung WONG (k2wong@noether.math.uwaterloo.ca),
4th year Computer Science student at University of Waterloo, Canada.
(WWW: http://www.undergrad.math.uwaterloo.ca/~k2wong)
Thanks goes to Victor S. H. Wong and Hilda Lee, for their fine
efforts of drawing many interesting bitmaps for demonstration
purposes.
This is a small work, but I would like to dedicate it to friends
at the Faculty of Mathematics, because of whom these years become
so memorable.
- 3 - Formatted: November 29, 2025
xacursor(1) xacursor(1)
August 1993
Further improvements to the application will be made, if the author
survives the Real-time Programming course. :-)
- 4 - Formatted: November 29, 2025
