xbouncebits(1) xbouncebits(1)
11 March 1992
NAME
xbouncebits - display moving bouncing bitmaps in the X11 root window
SYNOPSIS
xbouncebits [-display d] [-rtol] [-cycles n] [-id] [-jump|-glide|-
gravity|-copies n] bitmap ...
DESCRIPTION
Xbouncebits displays moving bouncing bitmaps in the root window.
OPTIONS
Xbouncebits accepts all the usual X flags and resources, such as -
display, -fg, -bg, -rv, -sync, and -xrm. One unusual feature is that
xbouncebits will accept more than one -display flag; the multiple
displays are treated as one large virtual display, all lined up next
to each other from left to right. Also, for any display
specifications without an explicit screen number, all screens will be
used. In particular, if you let the display default then xbouncebits
will run on all screens of the default display.
Xbouncebits also accepts the following flags:
-rtol
Treats multiple displays as if they are lined up right-to-left
instead of left-to-right. X resource: rtol. Default: off.
-cycles
Specifies how often the simulation runs, in cycles per second.
If you specify 0, it runs continuously (and you should probably
nice the xbouncebits process, or your interactive response will
suffer). X resource: cycles. Default: 10.
-id Forks a background process and prints the process-id to stdout.
Useful if you want to make a menu command to kill xbouncebits. X
resource: id. Default: off.
The rest of the arguments are a list of bitmap files with interspersed
mode flags. The mode flags apply to all bitmaps that follow them.
-jump
Bitmaps jump around the screen every few seconds. This is the
default mode.
-glide
Bitmaps glide slowly around the screen and bounce off each other.
-gravity
Like -glide, but the bitmaps are slowly attracted to the bottom
of the screen.
- 1 - Formatted: November 8, 2025
xbouncebits(1) xbouncebits(1)
11 March 1992
-copies
Puts up n copies of the subsequent bitmaps.
You can mix modes freely; for example:
xbouncebits cow.x cow.x cow.x cow.x cow.x -glide triangle.x
puts up three cows in jump mode and a triangle in glide mode. The
same setup using the -copies flag:
xbouncebits -copies 5 cow.x -copies 1 -glide triangle.x
Note that while jump mode uses very little CPU time, glide and gravity
modes can use a substantial amount.
DIAGNOSTICS
can't place bitmaps
This means that there wasn't enough room on the screen to fit all
the bitmaps you specified. Try fewer or smaller bitmaps.
BUGS / DEFICIENCIES
Doesn't handle masked images. Not too hard to add, just an argument
parsing question.
Doesn't handle color images. This could be added trivially if there
was a standard X way (i.e. XPM) to read them in.
SEE ALSO
xsetroot(1)
AUTHOR
Copyright (C) 1992 by Jef Poskanzer <jef@acme.com>. All rights
reserved.
- 2 - Formatted: November 8, 2025
