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 XDaliClock(1)                  X Version 11                   XDaliClock(1)
                                 11-Sep-2002



 NAME
      xdaliclock - melting digital clock

 SYNOPSIS
      xdaliclock [-toolkitoption ...] [-option ...]

 DESCRIPTION
      The xdaliclock program displays a digital clock; when a digit changes,
      it ``melts'' into its new shape.

      This program was inspired by the Alto and Macintosh programs of the
      same name, written by Steve Capps in 1983 or 1984.

 OPTIONS
      xdaliclock accepts all of the standard toolkit options, and also
      accepts the following options:

      -help   Print a brief summary of the allowed options on the standard
              error output.

      -12     Use a twelve hour clock.

      -24     Use a twenty-four hour clock.

      -seconds
              Update every second.

      -noseconds
              Update once per minute; don't display seconds at all.

      -cycle  Do color-cycling.

      -nocycle
              Don't do color-cycling.

      -font fontname
              Specifies the X font to use; xdaliclock can correctly animate
              any font that contains all the digits plus colon and slash,
              and in which the letters aren't excessively curly.

              The xdaliclock program also contains four builtin bitmapped
              fonts, which are larger and more attractive than the standard
              X fonts.  One of these fonts will be used if the -font option
              is given one of the fontnames BUILTIN0,  BUILTIN1,  BUILTIN2,
              or BUILTIN3.

      -builtin0
              This is the same as specifying -font BUILTIN0.

      -builtin1
              This is the same as specifying -font BUILTIN1.



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      -builtin2 or -builtin
              This is the same as specifying -font BUILTIN2.

      -builtin3
              This is the same as specifying -font BUILTIN3.

      -fullscreen
              Make the window take up the whole screen.  When -fullscreen is
              specified, the displayed time will wander around a little, to
              prevent any pixels from being on continuously and causing
              phosphor burn-in.

      -root   Display the clock on the root window instead of in its own
              window.  This makes the digits wander around too.

      -window-id window
              Render the clock on a window created by some other program.

      -visual visual
              Specify which visual to use.  Legal values are:

              default Use the screen's default visual (the visual of the
                      root window.) This is the default.

              best    Use the visual which supports the most writable color
                      cells.

              class   One of StaticGray, StaticColor, TrueColor, GrayScale,
                      PseudoColor, or DirectColor.  Selects the deepest
                      visual of the given class.

              number  A number (decimal or hex) is interpreted as a visual
                      id number, as reported by the xdpyinfo(1) program; in
                      this way you can select a shallower visual if desired.

              If you don't have a 24-bit system, using a visual other than
              the default one may cause colormap flashing.

      -transparent
              Causes the background of the window to be transparent, if
              possible.

              If the server supports overlay planes, then they will be used
              (this is the case on SGIs, and on certain HP, DEC, and IBM
              systems.)

              If overlay planes are not available, but the server supports
              the Shape extension, then that will be used instead.  However,
              the Shape extension is very inefficient: it will cause your X
              server to use up a lot of cycles.




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              Also, if the Shape extension is used, you will probably need
              to configure your window manager to not put a titlebar on the
              XDaliClock window.  (This is the case at least with twm,
              tvtwm, and mwm.)  If you don't do this, then the window will
              flicker constantly, as the window manager tries to add and
              remove the titlebar ten times each second.

              None of these problems occur if overlay planes are used (or if
              the -transparent option is not requested.)

      -nontransparent
              Don't make the window's background be transparent.  This is
              the default.

      -memory low
              Use high-bandwidth, low-memory mode.  If you have a very fast
              connection between the machine this program is running on and
              the X server it is displaying on, then xdaliclock can work
              correctly by simply making the drawing requests it needs when
              it needs them.  This is the elegant method.  However, the
              amount of data necessary to animate the display ends up being
              a bit over 10 kilobytes worth of X Protocol per second.  On a
              fast machine with a local display, or over a fast network,
              that's almost negligible, but (for example) an NCD X Terminal
              at 38.4 kbps can't keep up.  That is the reason for:

      -memory medium
              Use high-memory, low-bandwidth mode.  In this mode, xdaliclock
              precomputes most of the frames that it will ever need.  This
              is the sleazy copout method.  The bandwidth requirements are
              drastically reduced, because instead of telling the server
              what bits to draw where, it merely tells it what pixmaps to
              copy into the window.  Aside from the fact that I consider
              this to be cheating, the only downside of this method is that
              those pixmaps (about 170 of them, each the size of one
              character) are consuming server-memory.  This probably isn't a
              very big deal, unless you're using an exceptionally large
              font.

      -memory high
              With memory set to high, the cache is twice as large (the n ->
              n+2 transitions are cached as well as the n -> n+1 ones).
              Even with memory set to medium, this program can seem sluggish
              when using a large font over a very slow connection to the
              display server.

      -countdown date
              Instead of displaying the current time, display a countdown to
              the specified date (if the date has already passed, count up
              from it.)  The date can take two forms: either a time_t (an
              integer, the number of seconds past "Jan 1 00:00:00 GMT



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              1970"); or, a string of the form "Mmm DD HH:MM:SS YYYY", for
              example, "Jan 1 00:00:00 2000".  This string is interpreted in
              the local time zone.

              To count up from the current time, do this:

                   xdaliclock -countdown "`date '+%b %d %T %Y'`"


      The following standard X Toolkit command line arguments are commonly
      used with xdaliclock:

      -display host:dpy
              This option specifies the X server to contact.

      -geometry geometry
              This option specifies the preferred size and position of the
              clock window.

      -bg color
              This option specifies the color to use for the background of
              the window.  The default is ``white.''

      -fg color
              This option specifies the color to use for the foreground of
              the window.  The default is ``black.''

      -bd color
              This option specifies the color to use for the border of the
              window.  The default is the same as the foreground color.

      -rv     This option indicates that reverse video should be simulated
              by swapping the foreground and background colors.

      -bw number
              This option specifies the width in pixels of the border
              surrounding the window.

      -xrm resourcestring
              This option specifies a resource string to be used.

 COMMANDS
      Clicking and holding any mouse button in the xdaliclock window will
      cause it to display the date while the button is held.

      Typing ``space'' at the xdaliclock window will toggle between a twelve
      hour and twenty-four hour display.

      Typing ``q'' or ``^C'' at the window quits.

      If the xdaliclock window is iconified or otherwise unmapped, it will



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      go to sleep until it is mapped again.

 X RESOURCES
      xdaliclock understands all of the core resource names and classes as
      well as:

      mode (class Mode)
              Whether to display 12-hour or 24-hour time.  If 12, this is
              the same as the -12 command line argument; if 24, this is the
              same as -24.

      datemode (class DateMode)
              Specifies how the date should be printed when a mouse button
              is held down.  This may be one of the strings mm/dd/yy,
              dd/mm/yy, yy/mm/dd, yy/dd/mm, mm/yy/dd, or dd/yy/mm.  The
              default is mm/dd/yy.  If seconds are not being displayed, then
              only the first four digits will ever be displayed (mm/dd
              instead of mm/dd/yy, for example.)

      seconds (class Seconds)
              Whether to display seconds.  If true, this is the same as the
              -seconds command line argument; if false, this is the same as
              -noseconds.

      cycle (class Cycle)
              Whether to do color cycling.  If true, this is the same as the
              -cycle command line argument; if false, this is the same as
              -nocycle.

      font (class Font)
              The same as the -font command line option: the font to melt.
              If this is one of the strings BUILTIN0, BUILTIN1, BUILTIN2, or
              BUILTIN3, then one of the large builtin fonts will be used.
              Otherwise, this must be the name of a valid X font.

      fullScreen (class FullScreen)
              The same as the -fullscreen command-line option.

      root (class Root)
              The same as the -root command-line option.

      visualID (class VisualID)
              The same as the -visual command-line option.

      transparent (class Transparent)
              Whether to make the window's background be transparent, if
              possible.  If true, this is the same as the -transparent
              command line argument; if false, this is the same as
              -nontransparent.





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      memory (class Memory)
              This must be high, medium, or low, the same as the -memory
              command-line option.

      countdown (class Countdown)
              Same as the -countdown command-line option.

 ENVIRONMENT
      DISPLAY
          to get the default host and display number.

      XENVIRONMENT
          to get the name of a resource file that overrides the global
          resources stored in the RESOURCE_MANAGER property.

      TZ  to get the current time zone.  If you want to force the clock to
          display some other time zone, set this variable before starting
          it.  For example:

                sh:   TZ=GMT0 xdaliclock
               csh:   ( setenv TZ PST8PDT ; xdaliclock )

          You may notice that the format of the TZ variable (which is used
          by the C library ctime(3) and localtime(3) routines) is not
          actually documented anywhere.  The fourth character (the digit) is
          the only thing that really matters: it is the offset in hours from
          GMT.  The first three characters are ignored.  The last three
          characters are used to flag daylight savings time: their presence
          effectively adds 1 to the zone offset.  (I am not making this
          up...)

 BUGS
      Other system load will sometimes cause the second-display to increment
      by more than one second at a time, in order to remain synchronized to
      the current time.

      The -memory option is disgusting and shouldn't be necessary, but I'm
      not clever enough to eliminate it.  It has been said that hacking
      graphics in X is like finding sqrt(pi) with roman numerals.

      When using a small font (less than 48x56 or so) it's possible that
      shipping a bitmap to the server would be more efficient than sending a
      DrawSegments request (since the endpoints are specified using 16 bits
      each, when all that we really need is 6 or 7 bits.)

      Support for the Shared Memory Extension would be a good thing.

      It should display the day of the week somewhere.

      The color cycling should be less predictable; it should vary
      saturation and intensity as well, and should be more careful that



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      foreground and background contrast well.

      The correct default datemode should be extracted from the current
      locale.

      Should have a -analog mode (maybe someday...)

 UPGRADES
      The latest version can always be found at
      http://www.jwz.org/xdaliclock/

      There is a version of this program for PalmOS available there as well.

 SEE ALSO
      X(1), xrdb(1), xlsfonts(1), xclock(1), dclock(1), oclock(1),
      tclock(1), xscreensaver(1)

 COPYRIGHT
      Copyright c 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2002
      by Jamie Zawinski.  Permission to use, copy, modify, distribute, and
      sell this software and its documentation for any purpose is hereby
      granted without fee, provided that the above copyright notice appear
      in all copies and that both that copyright notice and this permission
      notice appear in supporting documentation.  No representations are
      made about the suitability of this software for any purpose.  It is
      provided "as is" without express or implied warranty.

 AUTHOR
      Jamie Zawinski <jwz@jwz.org>, 18-sep-91.

      Please let me know if you find any bugs or make any improvements.

      Thanks to Ephraim Vishniac <ephraim@think.com> for explaining the
      format of the bitmap resources in the Macintosh version of this, so
      that I could snarf them for the -builtin3 font.

      And thanks to Steve Capps for the really great idea.

















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