.TH XPenguins 1 "1 October 2001" "XPenguins 2.2"
.SH NAME
xpenguins \- cute little penguins that walk along the tops of your windows
.SH SYNOPSIS
.B xpenguins
[-option ...]
.SH DESCRIPTION
.IR XPenguins
is a program for animating cute cartoons/animals in your root window.
By default it will be penguins - they drop in from the top of the
screen, walk along the tops of your windows, up the side of your
windows, levitate, skateboard, and do other similarly exciting
things. Be careful when you move windows as the little guys squash
easily. If you send the program an interupt signal (such as by
hitting Ctrl-C) they will burst.
.I XPenguins
is now themeable, so it is easy to select something else to animate
instead of penguins, or even (with a little artistic talent) define
your own; see the
.B THEMES
section below.
.SH OPTIONS
In all the following cases a double dash can be replaced by a single
dash.
.TP 8
.B "\-a, \-\-no\-angels"
Do not show any cherubim flying up to heaven when a toon gets
squashed.
.TP 8
.B "\-b, \-\-no\-blood"
Do not show any gory death sequences.
.TP 8
.BI "\-c " dir ", \-\-config\-dir " dir
Look for config files and themes in this directory. The default is
usually
.IR /usr/share/xpenguins "."
.TP 8
.BI "\-d " display ", \-\-display " display
Send the toons to the specified X display. In the absence of this
option, the display specified by the
.B DISPLAY
environment variable is used. 
.TP 8
.B "\-h, \-\-help"
Print out a message describing the available options.
.TP 8
.TP 8
.B "\-i, \-\-theme\-info"
Print out the auxiliary information about a theme and exit. Use the
.B "\-t"
option to select the theme to describe.
.TP 8
.B "\-l, \-\-list\-themes"
List the available themes, one on each line, and exit.
.TP 8
.BI "\-m " delay ", \-\-delay " delay
Set the delay between each frame in milliseconds. The default is defined
by the theme.
.TP 8
.BI "\-n " number ", \-\-penguins " number
The number of toons to start, up to a maximum of 256. The default
is defined by the theme.
.TP 8
.B "\-p, \-\-ignorepopups"
Toons fall through `popup' windows (those with the save-under
attribute set), such as tooltips. Note that this also includes the KDE
panel.
.TP 8
.B "\-r, \-\-rectwin"
Toons regard all windows as rectangular. This option results in
faster calculation of window positions, but if you use one of those
fancy new window managers with shaped windows then your toons
might sometimes look like they're walking on thin air.
.TP 8
.B "\-s, \-\-squish"
Enable the penguins to be squished using any of the mouse
buttons. Note that this disables any existing function of the mouse
buttons on the root window.
.TP 8
.BI "\-t " theme ", \-\-theme " theme
Use the named theme. The default is
.BR Penguins "."
If the theme has spaces in its name then you can use underscores
instead, or alternatively just put the name in double quotes. This
option can be called multiple times to run several themes
simultaneously.
.TP 8
.B  "\-q, --quiet"
Suppress the exit message when an interupt is received.
.TP 8
.B "\-v, \-\-version"
Print out the current version number and quit.
.TP 8
.B "\-\-all"
Load all available themes and run them simultaneously.
.TP 8
.BI "\-\-id " "window"
Send toons to the window with this ID, instead of the root window or
whichever window is appropriate for the current desktop environment. Note that
the ID of X clients reported by
.I xwininfo
is rarely that of the foremost visible window that should be used here.
.TP 8
.BI "\-\-nice " "loadaverage1 loadaverage2"
Start killing toons when the 1-min averaged system load exceeds
.IR loadaverage1 ";"
when it exceeds
.I loadaverage2
kill them all. The toons will reappear when the load average comes
down. The load is checked every 5 seconds by looking in
.IR /proc/loadavg ","
so this option only works under unices that implement this particular
pseudo file (probably just Linux). When there are no toons on the screen,
.I XPenguins
uses only a miniscule amount of CPU time - it just wakes up every 5
seconds to recheck the load.
.SH THEMES
The system themes are usually kept in
.IR /usr/share/xpenguins/themes ", "
and these can be augmented or overridden by the user's themes in
.IR $HOME/.xpenguins/themes "."
Each theme has its own subdirectory which to be valid must contain a
file called
.IR config "."
The name of the theme is taken from the directory name, although
because many install scripts choke on directory names containing
spaces, all spaces in a theme name are represented in the directory
name by underscores. Any directory name containing spaces is
inaccessible by
.IR xpenguins "."

In addition to the
.I config
file, the theme directory contains the toon images that make up the
theme in the form of 
.IR "xpm image files" "."
Additionally, there should be an
.I about
file which gives information on the creator of the theme, the license
under which it is distributed and various other things. This file is
principally for use by
.IR "xpenguins_applet" ","
an applet for
.I GNOME
that allows different themes to be selected at the click of a
button.

The
.I config
file has a reasonably straightforward format. You can either read this
rather terse description of it or you can have a look at the config
file for the default
.B Penguins
theme, which is usually installed at
.IR /usr/share/xpenguins/themes/Penguins/config ","
and is reasonably well commented. We'll first establish some simple
terminology. Say you have a Farmyard theme with cows and sheep. The
cows and sheep are types of 
.BR toon ","
while the various things they get up to (walking, mooing and so on)
are termed
.BR activities "."
Each
.B activity
has its own
.IR "xpm image file" ","
in which the
.B frames
of the animation are laid out horizontally. Some activities (notably
walking) use different images depending on the
.B direction
the toon is moving in. In this case the frames for the two directions
are laid out one above the other in the image.

As in shell scripts, comments are initiated with the
.B #
character and hide the remainder of the line. The format is entirely
free except that there is an arbitrary limit on the length of a line
of 512 characters.  Spaces, tabs and newlines all count equally as
white space. Data is entered as a sequence of
.B "key value"
pairs, all separated by white space. Neither the
.BR keys " nor the " values
are case sensitive, except where the
.B value
is a filename. The following
.B keys
are understood:
.TP 8
.BI "delay " delay
Set the recommended delay between frames in milliseconds.
.TP 8
.BI "toon " toon
Begin defining a new toon called 
.IR toon "."
If only one type of toon is present in the theme then this key may be
omitted.
.TP 8
.BI "number " number
Set the default number of toons of the current type to start.
.TP 8
.BI "define " activity
Begin defining an
.I activity
for the current toon. The currently understood activities are
.BR walker ", " faller ", " tumbler ", " climber ", " floater ", "
.BR runner ", " explosion ", " squashed ", "
.BR zapped ", " splatted ", " angel ", " exit " and "
.BR action? ", where " ? " is a number between " 0 " and " 6 "."
Once you've seen the program in action you should be able to guess
which is which. A valid theme must contain at least
.BR walkers " and " fallers "."
Additionally, you may define a default activity (with
.BR "define default" ");"
any properties (such as
.BR width " and " speed ")"
set here are then adopted by the activities defined from then on, if
they do not themselves explicitly define those properties.  After an
activity has been declared with
.BR define ","
the following properties may be assigned:
.TP 8
.BI pixmap " xpmfile"
The file containing the image data for the activity. Note that you may
not set a 
.BR default " pixmap."
.TP 8
.BI width " width"
The width of each frame of the animation in pixels.
.TP 8
.BI height " height"
The height of each frame of the animation in pixels.
.TP 8
.BI frames " frames"
The number of frames in the animation.
.TP 8
.BI directions " directions"
The number of directions for the activity (can be 1 or 2).
.TP 8
.BI speed " speed"
The initial speed of the toon when engaged in this activity, in pixels
per frame.
.TP 8
.BI acceleration " acceleration"
The rate at which the speed increases, in pixels per frame
squared. This property is not utilised by all activities.
.TP 8
.BI terminal_velocity " terminal_velocity"
The maximum speed in pixels per frame, again not utilised by all activities.
.TP 8
.BI loop " loop"
Only understood by the
.BR actions ";"
indicates how many times to repeat the action. If negative, then the
probility of stopping the action every time the action is complete is
.RI "\-1/" loop "."
.PP
Some notes regarding the various activities. If you design a new
theme, feel free to make the
.BR splatted ", " squashed ", " zapped " and " exit
animations as gory and bloody as you like, but please keep the
.B explosion
activity nice and tame; that way those of a nervous disposition can
employ the
.B \-\-no\-blood
option which replaces all these violent deaths with a tasteful
explosion that wouldn't offend your grandmother. Xpm images
files are a factor of two smaller if you can limit the number of
colours in the image such that only one character need be used to
represent each colour; this also makes 
.I XPenguins
start up much more rapidly. Rarely are more than 64 colours required.

So that's about it for the
.I config
file, now for the 
.I about
file. This is very simple. Again comments are initialised by a
.BR "#" "."
An entry consists of a
.BR key
at the start of a line, followed by the corresponding
.BR value
which is read up to the next newline. The following
.B keys
are understood, although none are compulsory.
.TP 8
.B artist
Used to list the artist(s) who created the original images.
.TP 8
.B maintainer
The person who compiled the images into an
.I XPenguins
theme. It is useful if an email address can also be provided.
.TP 8
.B date
The date when the theme was last modified. My preferred format is
.IR "day of the month" ","
.IR "name of the month in english" ","
.IR "full year" "."
For example: 24 April 2001.
.TP 8
.B icon
The name of an image file that can be used as an icon for the theme;
XPM and PNG are suitable formats.
.TP 8
.B license
The name of the license under which the theme is distributed
(e.g. GPL).
.TP 8
.B copyright
The year and holder of the copyright.
.TP 8
.B comment
Any other essential information, such as the theme's web site, as
brief as possible.

Please test any 
.I about
files you create by looking at how the information is displayed by the
.I xpenguins_applet
program.

.SH AUTHOR
Robin Hogan <R.J.Hogan@reading.ac.uk>.
.SH CREDITS
Inspiration provided by Rick Jansen <rick@sara.nl> in the form of the
classic 
.IR xsnow . 
Most penguin images were taken from 
.IR Pingus ","
a free lemmings clone that can be found at <http://pingus.seul.org/>;
these images were designed by Joel Fauche <joel.fauche@wanadoo.fr> and
Craig Timpany <timpany@es.co.nz>. Additional images in version 2 by
Rob Gietema <tycoon@planetdescent.com> and Robin Hogan.
.SH NOTES
.IR XPenguins
can load an X server and/or network (although the CPU time used is
small), and if a large number of penguins are spawned then they may
begin to flicker, depending on the speed of the X server. 
.P
The
.IR xpenguins
homepage is located at:
.P
http://xpenguins.seul.org/
.SH BUGS
A new feature since version 2.1 is the ability to draw to windows
other than the root window in situations where the window manager or
desktop environment places a large window over the root window that
would otherwise obscure the toons. Currently
.IR XPenguins
can draw to the KDE Desktop (KDE 2.0 and 2.1), Enlightenment desktops
greater than 0 (E16), the Nautilus desktop and the virtual root window
of certain window managers like amiwm.  Of course, simpler window
managers that don't mess around like this will still work (sawfish,
blackbox and countless others). It cannot work with CDE and probably
never will. Future versions of KDE, Enlightenment and Nautilus may not
work; the classic symptom of this is that
.I XPenguins
sits there as if it's doing something, but no toons are visible. If
this happens, try running the program with one of the simpler window
manager listed above, or visit the
.I XPenguins
web site and download the latest version. If there are icons drawn on
the root window then the toons will erase them when they walk over
them, although an expose event will be sent to the window every 100
frames to redraw them.
.SH FILES
$HOME/.xpenguins/themes/*
.br
/usr/share/xpenguins/themes/*
.br
/proc/loadavg
.br
.SH "SEE ALSO"
xsnow(1), xroach(1), xwininfo(1) pingus(6)