bggen(1)                    General Commands Manual                   bggen(1)



[1mNAME[0m
       bggen - generates colored backgrounds on X11 displays

[1mSYNTAX[0m
       [1mbggen  [22m[-d display] [-g geometry] [-G rptgeom] [-r rot] [-a] [-w width]
       [-h height] [-b bits] <color-spec> [<color-spec> ...]

[1mDESCRIPTION[0m
       [1mbggen [22mis a program that generates a rectangular 24-bit  image,  with  a
       smooth vertical gradient between the listed colors.  (If you only spec-
       ify 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  interpo-
       lated  between  these  colors.   If you specify more than 2 colors, the
       gradient passes through all the specified colors, in the  order  speci-
       fied.

       The  '-d'  option  lets  you specify what display to connect to.  [1mbggen[0m
       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 standard X  geome-
       try  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 (out-
       put) 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 granularity.  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  specification  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.

       [1mbggen  [22mdoesn't  actually affect your background directly.  [1mbggen [22mmerely
       generates a PPM (Portable Pixmap Format) datafile and dumps it to 'std-
       out'.  It's up to some other program (such as XV) to read this file and
       display it.

       To use [1mbggen[22m, you should pipe its output into an XV command,  such  as:
       "xv -root -quit -"

[1mTRY THESE[0m
       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 -

[1mAUTHOR[0m
       John Bradley  -  bradley@dccs.upenn.edu




                                                                      bggen(1)
