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.TH XDaliClock 1 "11-Sep-2002" "X Version 11"
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xdaliclock - melting digital clock
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[-\fItoolkitoption\fP ...] [-\fIoption\fP ...]
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The \fIxdaliclock\fP program displays a digital clock; when a digit
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changes, it ``melts'' into its new shape.
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This program was inspired by the Alto and Macintosh programs of the same
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name, written by Steve Capps in 1983 or 1984.
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accepts all of the standard toolkit options, and also accepts the
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Print a brief summary of the allowed options on the standard error output.
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Use a twelve hour clock.
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Use a twenty-four hour clock.
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Update once per minute; don't display seconds at all.
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Don't do color-cycling.
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.B \-font \fIfontname\fP
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Specifies the X font to use; \fIxdaliclock\fP can correctly animate any font
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that contains all the digits plus colon and slash, and in which the letters
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aren't excessively curly.
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The \fIxdaliclock\fP program also contains four builtin bitmapped fonts,
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which are larger and more attractive than the standard X fonts. One of
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these fonts will be used if the \fI-font\fP option is given one of the
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fontnames \fBBUILTIN0\fP, \fBBUILTIN1\fP, \fBBUILTIN2\fP, or \fBBUILTIN3\fP.
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This is the same as specifying \fI-font BUILTIN0\fP.
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This is the same as specifying \fI-font BUILTIN1\fP.
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.B \-builtin2\fP or \fB-builtin\fP
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This is the same as specifying \fI-font BUILTIN2\fP.
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This is the same as specifying \fI-font BUILTIN3\fP.
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Make the window take up the whole screen. When \fI-fullscreen\fP is
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specified, the displayed time will wander around a little, to prevent
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any pixels from being on continuously and causing phosphor burn-in.
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Display the clock on the root window instead of in its own window.
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This makes the digits wander around too.
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.B \-window-id \fIwindow\fP
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Render the clock on a window created by some other program.
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.B \-visual \fIvisual\fP
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Specify which visual to use. Legal values are:
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Use the screen's default visual (the visual of the root window.)
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Use the visual which supports the most writable color cells.
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One of \fBStaticGray\fP, \fBStaticColor\fP, \fBTrueColor\fP, \fBGrayScale\fP,
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\fBPseudoColor\fP, or \fBDirectColor\fP. Selects the deepest visual of
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A number (decimal or hex) is interpreted as a visual id number, as reported
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program; in this way you can select a shallower visual if desired.
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If you don't have a 24-bit system, using a visual other than the default
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one may cause colormap flashing.
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Causes the background of the window to be transparent, if possible.
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If the server supports overlay planes, then they will be used (this is
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the case on SGIs, and on certain HP, DEC, and IBM systems.)
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If overlay planes are not available, but the server supports the Shape
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extension, then that will be used instead. However, the Shape extension
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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
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your window manager to not put a titlebar on the XDaliClock window. (This
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is the case at least with \fItwm\fP, \fItvtwm\fP, and \fImwm\fP.) If
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you don't do this, then the window will flicker constantly, as the window
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manager tries to add and remove the titlebar ten times each second.
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None of these problems occur if overlay planes are used (or if
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the \-transparent option is not requested.)
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Don't make the window's background be transparent. This is the default.
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Use high-bandwidth, low-memory mode. If you have a very fast connection
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between the machine this program is running on and the X server it is
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displaying on, then \fIxdaliclock\fP can work correctly by simply making
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the drawing requests it needs when it needs them. This is \fIthe elegant
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method.\fP However, the amount of data necessary to animate the display
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ends up being a bit over 10 kilobytes worth of X Protocol per second. On a
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fast machine with a local display, or over a fast network, that's almost
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negligible, but (for example) an NCD X Terminal at 38.4 kbps can't
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keep up. That is the reason for:
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Use high-memory, low-bandwidth mode. In this mode, \fIxdaliclock\fP
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precomputes most of the frames that it will ever need. This is \fIthe
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sleazy copout method.\fP The bandwidth requirements are drastically
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reduced, because instead of telling the server what bits to draw where,
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it merely tells it what pixmaps to copy into the window. Aside from the
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fact that I consider this to be \fIcheating,\fP the only downside of this
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method is that those pixmaps (about 170 of them, each the size of one
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character) are consuming server-memory. This probably isn't a very big deal,
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unless you're using an exceptionally large font.
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With \fImemory\fP set to \fIhigh\fP, the cache is twice as
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large (the \fIn -> n+2\fP transitions are cached as well as the \fIn -> n+1\fP
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ones). Even with memory set to \fImedium\fP, this program can seem sluggish
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when using a large font over a very slow connection to the display server.
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.B \-countdown \fIdate\fP
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Instead of displaying the current time, display a countdown to the specified
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date (if the date has already passed, count up from it.) The date can take
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two forms: either a time_t (an integer, the number of seconds
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past "Jan 1 00:00:00 GMT 1970"); or, a string of the form
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"Mmm DD HH:MM:SS YYYY", for example, "Jan 1 00:00:00 2000". This string
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is interpreted in the local time zone.
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To count up from the current time, do this:
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xdaliclock \-countdown "`date '+%b %d %T %Y'`"
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The following standard X Toolkit command line arguments are commonly
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used with \fIxdaliclock\fP:
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.B \-display \fIhost:dpy\fP
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This option specifies the X server to contact.
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.B \-geometry \fIgeometry\fP
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This option specifies the prefered size and position of the clock window.
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This option specifies the color to use for the background of the window.
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The default is ``white.''
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This option specifies the color to use for the foreground of the window.
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The default is ``black.''
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This option specifies the color to use for the border of the window.
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The default is the same as the foreground color.
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This option indicates that reverse video should be simulated by swapping
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the foreground and background colors.
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This option specifies the width in pixels of the border surrounding
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.B \-xrm \fIresourcestring\fP
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This option specifies a resource string to be used.
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Clicking and holding any mouse button in the \fIxdaliclock\fP window will
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cause it to display the date while the button is held.
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Typing ``space'' at the \fIxdaliclock\fP window will toggle between a
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twelve hour and twenty-four hour display.
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Typing ``q'' or ``^C'' at the window quits.
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If the \fIxdaliclock\fP window is iconified or otherwise unmapped, it
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will go to sleep until it is mapped again.
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\fIxdaliclock\fP understands all of the core resource names and
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.B mode (\fPclass\fB Mode)
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Whether to display 12-hour or 24-hour time.
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If \fB12\fP, this is the same as the \fI\-12\fP command line argument;
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if \fB24\fP, this is the same as \fI\-24.\fP
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.B datemode (\fPclass\fB DateMode)
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Specifies how the date should be printed when a mouse button is held down.
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This may be one of the strings \fBmm/dd/yy\fP, \fBdd/mm/yy\fP,
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\fByy/mm/dd\fP, \fByy/dd/mm\fP, \fBmm/yy/dd\fP, or \fBdd/yy/mm\fP.
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The default is \fBmm/dd/yy\fP. If seconds are not being displayed, then
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only the first four digits will ever be displayed (\fBmm/dd\fP instead
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of \fBmm/dd/yy\fP, for example.)
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.B seconds (\fPclass\fB Seconds)
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Whether to display seconds.
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If true, this is the same as the \fI-seconds\fP command line argument;
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if false, this is the same as \fI-noseconds.\fP
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.B cycle (\fPclass\fB Cycle)
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Whether to do color cycling.
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If true, this is the same as the \fI-cycle\fP command line argument;
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if false, this is the same as \fI-nocycle.\fP
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.B font (\fPclass\fB Font)
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The same as the \fI-font\fP command line option: the font to melt.
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If this is one of the
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strings \fBBUILTIN0\fP, \fBBUILTIN1\fP, \fBBUILTIN2\fP, or \fBBUILTIN3\fP,
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then one of the large builtin fonts will be used. Otherwise, this must
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be the name of a valid X font.
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.B fullScreen (\fPclass\fB FullScreen)
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The same as the \fI\-fullscreen\fP command-line option.
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.B root (\fPclass\fB Root)
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The same as the \fI\-root\fP command-line option.
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.B visualID (\fPclass\fB VisualID)
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The same as the \fI\-visual\fP command-line option.
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.B transparent (\fPclass\fB Transparent)
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Whether to make the window's background be transparent, if possible.
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If true, this is the same as the \fI-transparent\fP command line argument;
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if false, this is the same as \fI-nontransparent.\fP
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.B memory (\fPclass\fB Memory)
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This must be \fIhigh\fP, \fImedium\fP, or \fIlow\fP, the same as
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the \fI-memory\fP command-line option.
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.B countdown (\fPclass\fB Countdown)
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Same as the \fI-countdown\fP command-line option.
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to get the default host and display number.
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to get the name of a resource file that overrides the global resources
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stored in the RESOURCE_MANAGER property.
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to get the current time zone. If you want to force the clock to display
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some other time zone, set this variable before starting it. For example:
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sh: TZ=GMT0 xdaliclock
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csh: ( setenv TZ PST8PDT ; xdaliclock )
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You may notice that the format of the TZ variable (which is used by the
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routines) is not actually documented anywhere. The fourth character (the
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digit) is the only thing that really matters: it is the offset in hours from
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GMT. The first three characters are ignored. The last three characters are
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used to flag daylight savings time: their presence effectively adds 1 to the
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zone offset. (I am not making this up...)
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Other system load will sometimes cause the second-display to increment
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by more than one second at a time, in order to remain synchronized to
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The \fI-memory\fP option is disgusting and shouldn't be necessary, but I'm
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not clever enough to eliminate it. It has been said that hacking graphics
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in X is like finding \fIsqrt(pi)\fP with roman numerals.
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When using a small font (less than 48x56 or so) it's possible that shipping
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a bitmap to the server would be more efficient than sending a DrawSegments
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request (since the endpoints are specified using 16 bits each, when all that
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we really need is 6 or 7 bits.)
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Support for the Shared Memory Extension would be a good thing.
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It should display the day of the week somewhere.
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The color cycling should be less predictable; it should vary saturation and
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intensity as well, and should be more careful that foreground and background
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The correct default datemode should be extracted from the current locale.
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Should have a \fI-analog\fP mode (maybe someday...)
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The latest version can always be found at
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http://www.jwz.org/xdaliclock/
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There is a version of this program for PalmOS available there as well.
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Copyright \(co 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2002 by
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Jamie Zawinski. Permission to use, copy, modify, distribute, and sell this
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software and its documentation for any purpose is hereby granted without fee,
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provided that the above copyright notice appear in all copies and that both
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that copyright notice and this permission notice appear in supporting
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documentation. No representations are made about the suitability of this
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software for any purpose. It is provided "as is" without express or implied
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Jamie Zawinski <jwz@jwz.org>, 18-sep-91.
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Please let me know if you find any bugs or make any improvements.
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Thanks to Ephraim Vishniac <ephraim@think.com> for explaining the format of
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the bitmap resources in the Macintosh version of this, so that I could snarf
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them for the \fI-builtin3\fP font.
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And thanks to Steve Capps for the really great idea.
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.pc/spelling-error-in-manpage_xdaliclock/X11/xdaliclock.man
