bggen(l)
NAME
bggen - generates colored backgrounds on X11 displays
SYNTAX
bggen [-d display] [-g geometry] [-G rptgeom] [-r rot]
[-a] [-w width] [-h height] [-b bits] <color-spec>
[<color-spec> ...]
DESCRIPTION
bggen is a program that generates a rectangular 24-bit
image, with a smooth vertical gradient between the listed
colors. (If you only specify one color, the image will be
a single solid color.) The top of the image will be in
color (r1,g1,b1), and the bottom of the image will be in
color (rn,gn,bn). Intermediate positions in the image are
interpolated between these colors. If you specify more
than 2 colors, the gradient passes through all the speci-
fied colors, in the order specified.
The '-d' option lets you specify what display to connect
to. bggen only connects to the display to find out the
size of the screen (and hence, the default size for the
generated image).
The '-g' option lets you control the size of the image, as
a standard X geometry specification. (ie, something like
"512x348")
The '-G' option lets you control the tile size, as a stan-
dard X geometry specification. (ie, something like
"32x32") Normally, (if you don't give a -G option), the
gradient fills the entire image. If you specify a -G
option, the gradient will fill a portion of the image, and
that portion will be 'center-tiled' to fill the rest of
the image.
The '-r' option lets you rotate the gradient counter-
clockwise by the specified number of degrees.
The '-a' option lets you force bggen to generate an image
in PPM 'Ascii' format, rather than in PPM 'raw' format.
The '-w' and '-h' options also let you set the size of the
image. They are provided only for backward compatibility.
The '-b' option specifies the number of significant bits
in the (output) color specifications. It must range
between 1 and 8, inclusive. Use values less than 8 (the
default) to limit color use by increasing the color granu-
larity. Since XV can do this sort of thing better, this
is of dubious value.
A <color-spec> can be three integers separated by spaces,
forming an R,G,B triple ("0 255 0"). The values should be
between 0 and 255.
A <color-spec> can also be a standard X color specifica-
tion by name ("green") or value ("#00ff00"). This is
decidedly easier, and the 'three integer' method remains
mainly for backward compatibility. One note: the '#'
character is treated specially by many shells, and should
probably be protected by putting a '\' character in front
of it, or wrapping the entire value with a pair of single-
quotes.
bggen doesn't actually affect your background directly.
bggen merely generates a PPM (Portable Pixmap Format)
datafile and dumps it to 'stdout'. It's up to some other
program (such as XV) to read this file and display it.
To use bggen, you should pipe its output into an XV com-
mand, such as: "xv -root -quit -"
TRY THESE
Light Blue to Dark Blue
bggen 100 100 255 0 0 100 | xv -root -quit -
RGB Rainbow
bggen red green blue | xv -root -quit -
Green Cylinders
bggen black green black -h 128 | xv -root -quit -
Blue to Magenta
bggen blue magenta | xv -root -quit -
Full Rainbow
bggen black red yellow green blue purple black | xv -root -quit -
Repeating Rainbow
bggen red yellow green blue purple red -h 256 | xv -root -quit -
Green Tiles
bggen green black -r 30 -g 32x32 | xv -root -quit -
Red Balls
bggen red black -r 45 -g 32x32 | xv -root -quit -rmode 3 -
Red+Yellow Diamonds
bggen red yellow -r 45 -g 32x32 | xv -root -quit -rmode 3 -
AUTHOR
John Bradley - bradley@dccs.upenn.edu