slrnface(1)						      General Commands Manual						       slrnface(1)

NAME

       slrnface - show X-Faces in X11 terminal emulator

SYNOPSIS

       slrnface  [  -xOffsetChar  x_char_offset  ]  [ -yOffsetChar y_char_offset ] [ -xOffsetPix x_pixel_offset ] [ -yOffsetPix y_pixel_offset ] [
       -XFacePad left_padding ] [ -ink fg_color ] [ -paper bg_color ] [ -padColor pad_color ]

DESCRIPTION

       The slrnface helper utility can be used from slrn(1), mutt(1) or similar programs to show X-Faces in Usenet articles or mail messages  when
       those  programs	are  run in an X11 terminal emulator. This utility is not intended to be run directly from the command line.  Instead, the
       master programs should be configured to invoke slrnface when appropriate.

       Different terminal emulators have different screen layouts. Some might have scroolbars (on either side), a menubar or something else.  Ter-
       minal  window  which  slrnface uses might contain some of these "decorations," but it is impossible to determine if that is the case at run
       time. Therefore it is impossible to determine the exact location at which the X11 window with the X-Face image should  be  placed.  Default
       hardcoded  values  are appropriate for several terminal emulators, but not for all of them. The placement can be controlled by command line
       arguments, but it is suggested to use X resources for this task.

       While slrnface is running and showing X-Face, the left mouse button can be used to move the window.

RESOURCES

       The slrnface helper is controlled by the resources set for the terminal emulator in which it runs, not for the slrnface class or  instance.
       That is because correct execution entirely depends on the master program and the geometry of the terminal emulator in use and has little to
       do with slrnface itself. All resources have a command line parameter equivalent.

       However, a lot of popular terminal emulators have a certain amount of hardcoded brain damage and setting X  resources  will  not  have  any
       effect  with  them.  This usually happens because of illegal characters in the WM_CLASS property. In those cases command line arguments are
       the only remaining option.

					      Resource		     Command line parameter   Default value
					      --------------------------------------------------------------
					      slrnface.xOffsetChar   -xOffsetChar	      0
					      slrnface.yOffsetChar   -yOffsetChar	      1
					      slrnface.xOffsetPix    -xOffsetPix	      0
					      slrnface.yOffsetPix    -yOffsetPix	      2
					      slrnface.XFacePad      -XFacePad		      0
					      slrnface.ink	     -ink		      black
					      slrnface.paper	     -paper		      white
					      slrnface.padColor      -padColor		      black

   xOffsetChar
       The horizontal offset for the X-Face window from the terminal's upper right corner expressed in character units.

   yOffsetChar
       The vertical offset for the X-Face window from the terminal's upper right corner expressed in character units.  The exact value	in  pixels
       will be calculated at run time, as well as the pixel equivalent for xOffestChar.  There are some lousily coded terminals which are not very
       helpful with this, so the calculation might not be perfect.

   xOffsetPix
       The horizontal offset for the X-Face window from the terminal's upper right corner expressed in pixels.

   yOffsetPix
       The vertical offset for the X-Face window from the terminal's upper right corner expressed in pixels. This value is added to the  character
       offset provided by the yOffsetChar resource and the resulting sum is substracted from the vertical coordinate of the terminal's upper right
       corner. The equivalent calculation for the horizontal coordinate is done with the xOffsetChar and  xOffsetPix  resources.  In  both  cases,
       pixel value resources are provided for finer control.

   XFacePad
       This  value  tells  slrnface  how many pixels should be cleared on the left side of the X-Face image. In the case of long subject lines the
       image may be displayed over characters and having some spacing between them would be beneficial.

   ink
       This is the foreground color for the X-Face image. The more common name for this resource is foreground.  However, that name  is  not  used
       because	there is a high probability that it would be inherited from the terminal's resources. A lot of users use light foreground and dark
       background for terminals. Since X-Faces should normally be viewed with dark foreground on light background, inheriting the colors from  the
       terminal setup would present a negative image by default. In order to avoid that, slrnface uses different resource name.

   paper
       This is the background color for the X-Face image.

   padColor
       This is the color for the padding region set with XFacePad resource.

EXAMPLES

       The following example demonstrates how to set resources for xterm.

   Example 1: horizontal offsets for xterm
       Since slrnface looks at the resources defined for the terminal's class and name, an example setting is:

       xterm.slrnface.xOffsetChar:     1
       xterm.slrnface.xOffsetPix:      2

       It  is  better  to use the application name, rather than class, because some other terminals use XTerm as their class, since they try to be
       feature compatible. However, they might not have the same screen layout, so resources set for  the  terminal  class  might  not	yield  the
       desired effect in all terminals.

ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES

       DISPLAY	      The name of the display where the terminal runs. This environment variable is the only way to pass it to slrnface.

       WINDOWID       Used for determining terminal's X window id. It must be set by a terminal emulator.

       LANG, LC_ALL, LC_MESSAGES
		      These environment variables will be used when determining the location of the appropriate resource file.

EXIT STATUS

       The  slrnface helper doesn't print any diagnostic, because it doesn't know if that is the appropriate action. In cases when diagnostic out-
       put is appropriate, it can't guarantee that the output would be visible to the user. Therefore it returns distinct error status	for  every
       kind of problem and relies on the parent process to take the appropriate action.

       It  should  be noted that slrnface forks early in its execution. The parent process exits immediately, returning success status to its par-
       ent. The child process continues execution, reading commands from the FIFO in the $HOME/.slrnfaces directory and executing them	as  appro-
       priate.	In  the case where there is a problem with the process' startup, the fork doesn't happen and slrnface exits immediately, returning
       the appropriate error status. The following exit values are returned:

       0   Successful completion.

       1   slrnface couldn't connect to the display.

       2   Terminal emulator didn't set the WINDOWID environment variable or its value was invalid.

       3   slrnface couldn't find its controlling terminal.

       4   Terminal's width or height are not set.

       5   There was a problem with the FIFO setup.

       6   fork(2) failed.

FILES

       $HOME/.slrnfaces/*  A named pipe used for communication between slrnface and the master proces.
       slrnface.sl	   An example S-Lang hooks for setting up slrnface with slrn(1).

SEE ALSO

       slrn(1), mutt(1), X11(5), xprop(1), xterm(1), fork(2)

BUGS

       Multiple X-Faces are not supported.

AUTHOR

       Drazen Kacar <dave@willfork.com>

       Home page: http://dave.willfork.com/slrnface/

								    28 Feb 2002 						       slrnface(1)