4 a screen saver and locker for the X window system
13 The `configure' shell script will attempt to figure out which options are
14 appropriate for your system, and will create config.h and the various
15 Makefiles for you. Run `configure --help' to see how to override these
16 choices, or to specify things like the default installation directory.
17 The file `INSTALL' gives a general overview of use of these sorts of
18 configure scripts (those generated by the GNU autoconf system.)
19 The most important hint is probably this:
21 ./configure --includedir=/opt/Motif/include --libdir=/opt/Motif/lib
23 To build on VMS, see README.VMS.
25 If you think you've found a bug, please let me know; but first, read
26 the enlosed `README.debugging' file to find out what kind of information
27 would be most helpful to include in your bug report.
31 You can try out xscreensaver like so:
34 xscreensaver-command -demo
36 After a few seconds, the screen should go black, and a dialog box should
37 appear in the upper right corner. This is "Demo Mode".
39 Note: unlike `xlock', xscreensaver has a client-server model: the
40 `xscreensaver' process is a daemon that runs in the background; it is
41 controlled by the foreground `xscreensaver-command' program.
43 xscreensaver has an extensive manual -- please read it!
47 The xscreensaver program waits until the keyboard and mouse have been idle
48 for a period, and then runs a graphics demo chosen at random. It turns off
49 as soon as there is any mouse or keyboard activity.
51 The purpose of xscreensaver is to display pretty pictures on your screen
52 when it is not in use, in keeping with the philosophy that unattended
53 monitors should always be doing something interesting, just like they do
56 However, xscreensaver can also be used as a screen locker, to prevent
57 others from using your terminal while your are away.
59 The benefit that this program has over the combination of the xlock and
60 xautolock programs is the ease with which new graphics hacks can be
61 installed: you don't need to recompile this program to add a new display
62 mode, you just change some resource settings. Any program which can be
63 invoked in such a way that it draws on the root window of the screen can
64 now be used as a screensaver without modification. The programs that
65 are being run as screensavers don't need to have any special knowledge
66 about what it means to be a screensaver.
68 The XIDLE, MIT-SCREEN-SAVER, and/or SGI SCREEN_SAVER server extensions
69 will be used if you have them.
71 The dialog boxes (for locking and demo-mode) look best using Motif or
72 Lesstif, but can be configured to use Athena widgets instead.
74 Also included are numerous graphics hacks for use as screensavers. There's
75 nothing magic about these: they're just programs that draw on the root
76 window, which are pointed at by the screensaver's default resource settings.
78 qix - My own implementation of this, with many more options
79 than you would have thought qix could have.
80 helix - Generates spirally "stringart" patterns.
81 pedal - Draws a different kind of spirally pattern.
82 rorschach - Random inkblot patterns.
83 attraction - A bouncing ball demo, or a qix-like demo, or a wild
84 color-cycling thing, with some odd rules.
85 greynetic - Random colored/stippled rectangles.
86 rocks - Flying through an asteroid field.
87 blitspin - Rotate a bitmap using bitblts.
88 imsmap - Generates random maps or cloud formations.
89 hypercube - 2d projection of a hypercube rotating on all four axes.
90 slidescreen - Divides the screen into a grid and plays a 16-puzzle on it.
91 decayscreen - A melting effect.
92 jigsaw - Turns the screen into a jigsaw puzzle and shuffles it.
93 halo - Random circular patterns.
94 pyro - Fireworks. Looks a lot like the version in xlock.
95 hopalong - Fractals. I snarfed this code from xlock.
96 flame - Fractals. Also from xlock.
97 noseguy - A guy with a big nose wanders around the screen saying
98 things. I snarfed this code from xnlock.
99 maze - This is the X maze demo modified to take a -root option
100 so that it works with xscreensaver.
101 lmorph - morphing line drawings.
102 bubbles - condensation forms on your monitor, then pops.
103 deco - Generates Brady-Bunch-era wall paneling.
104 moire - Circular interference patterns.
106 kaleidescope - Groovy, man.
107 swirl - Swirly color-cycling patterns.
108 bouboule - Spinning bubbles on a transparent ball.
109 braid - Draws random color-cycling braids around a circle.
110 drift - Drifting recursive fractal cosmic flames.
111 vines - Small, curvy geometric patterns.
112 galaxy - Spinning, colliding galaxies.
113 grav - Orbital simulation and/or cloud chamber.
114 ifs - Spinning, colliding iterated-function-system shapes.
115 julia - Animated rendition of the Julia set.
116 laser - Moving radiating lines.
117 lightning - Crackling fractal lightning bolts.
118 penrose - Quasiperiodic tilings.
119 sierpinski - two-dimensional Sierpinski triangle.
120 slip - Sucks your desktop through a jet engine.
121 spiral - Circular color-cycling interference patterns.
122 strange - Animating strange attractors.
123 flag - A waving flag of an arbitrary bitmap or text.
124 sphere - Draws a bunch of shaded spheres.
125 forest - grows a fractal forest.
126 lisa - draws animated full-loop lisajous figures.
127 lissie - another lisajous path.
128 goop - Squishy transparent oil-and-bubble images
129 starfish - Radially-symmetric throbbing colormap-hacking blobs.
130 munch - The classic 1962-vintage "munching squares" hack.
131 rd-bomb - Reaction-diffusion fractals.
132 coral - Simulation of coral growth, sort of.
133 fadeplot - Draws a swimming ribbon.
134 mountain - Generates mountains on a square grid.
135 triangle - Generates mountains on a triangular grid.
136 worm - Draws wiggly worms.
137 rotor - Draws a rotating spiral pattern.
138 ant - A cellular automaton.
139 xjack - Simulates a schizophrenic typist.
140 xlyap - Calculates and displays Lyapunov exponents.
141 flow - More strange attractors.
142 epicycle - Spiral patterns based on pre-Copernican cosmologies.
143 interference - More groovy colored fields.
144 truchet - Nonrepeating planar tilings.
145 bsod - Simulates the system crashes of various other OSes.
146 crystal - A kaleidoscope of moving polygons.
147 discrete - Various fractal-ish "discrete map" forms.
148 gears - Draws interlocking rotating gears (GLX only.)
149 morph3d - Draws shiny shape-changing 3d forms (GLX only.)
150 superquadrics - More shiny shape-changing 3d forms (GLX only.)
151 pipes - Generates a field of intertwined plumbing (GLX only.)
152 rubik - Solves a Rubik's Cube (GLX only.)
153 sproingies - Marble Madness meets Q-Bert (GLX only.)
154 stairs - Draws Escher's infinite staircase (GLX only.)
155 cage - Draws Escher's impossible cage (GLX only.)
156 moebius - Draws Escher's Moebius Strip II (GLX only.)
157 atlantis - Draws swimming mammals (GLX only.)
159 All of these will pop up their own window unless given that -root option.
160 See their respective man pages for more details.
162 Other reasonable things to use as screensavers, if you have them, are
164 xdaliclock -root -builtin2 - melting digital clock
165 xswarm -r 2>&- - swimming sperm
166 xwave -root - random 3d graphs
167 xbouncebits - bounce arbitrary bitmaps around
168 ico -r -p8 -faces -sleep 1 - it's dull, but it's there
169 xv -root file.gif -quit - they don't all have to animate!
170 xsplinefun - bouncing splines
171 xfishtank -c black -d -r 1 - fish (use version 2.0 or later)
172 xmountains -b - very realistic generated mountains
173 xtacy -root - various eye candy
174 xearth -wait 0 -timewarp 400 - the earth as seen from space
175 /usr/demos/bin/bongo - an SGI GL demo
176 /usr/demos/bin/ep -S - another: the stunning ElectroPaint.
177 (Compile hacks/xscreensaver-sgigl.c
178 to use these with xscreensaver.)
180 You can get most of these from the contrib directory on ftp.x.org. If you
181 know of (or write) any other interesting programs that can be used as
182 screensavers, please let me know!
184 The latest version of xscreensaver is always available on the web at
185 http://people.netscape.com/jwz/xscreensaver/.
187 -- Jamie Zawinski <jwz@netscape.com>
190 Changes since 2.22: * The fix for SGI's "scheme" nonsense broke things, and
191 let the user's "*background" resource show through.
192 Fixed it in a different way.
193 Changes since 2.21: * Added support for the DPMS server extension (Display
194 Power Management System.)
195 * Made configure advertize the --enable-subdir option a
196 little more, since that seemed to cause some people
197 stress. Also, made that directory be built into the
198 xscreensaver executable, as a hardcoded prefix to
199 $PATH. (Might help, shouldn't hurt.)
200 * Made configure prefer the two-arg gettimeofday to the
201 one-arg version, since AIX doesn't have any prototypes.
202 * Made it work with Xaw3d (the 3D Athena library.)
203 * Made "make install" create directories as necessary.
204 * New version of lmorph from Sverre.
205 * Added `crystal' and `discreet' hacks from xlockmore.
206 * Added a new mode to `bsod'.
207 Changes since 2.20: * Made "xscreensaver-command -time" use different words.
208 (It now describes the two states as "screen blanked
209 since..." and "screen non-blanked since..." instead of
210 "active since..." and "inactive since..." which a lot
211 of people interpreted as meaning the opposite of what
213 * Improved some error messages, in the hopes of making
214 the distinction between the xscreensaver and
215 xscreensaver-command programs more obvious.
216 * Rewrote (and reorganized) parts of the xscreensaver and
217 xscreensaver-command manual pages.
218 * Renamed xscreensaver's "-lock" command-line option to
219 be "-lock-mode", to avoid confusion with the "-lock"
220 option to xscreensaver-command, which does a totally
222 * Removed xscreensaver's "-demo" command-line option for
223 a similar reason; use "xscreensaver-command -demo"
225 * Disabled SGI's "scheme" nonsense in a better way than
226 fully-qualifying the background colors in every single
228 * Fixed some other minor cosmetic problems when *sgiMode
230 * Fixed an X error in `bsod -root' (how ironic...)
231 Changes since 2.19: * Fixed a bug that caused the mouse to sometimes not be
232 grabbed properly (meaning the window manager menu could
233 pop up over the demo-mode display.)
234 * Fixed a bug that made the stderr output sometimes get
236 * Fixed a bug that made the demo-mode scrollbar move too
238 * Protected against a possible buffer overflow.
239 * Made `vidwhacker' not leave stray xv windows around.
240 * New version of `ant' so that Bagley doesn't calve.
241 * Make configure on AIX get XShm from the right library.
242 Changes since 2.18: * One file was missing from the tar file. Fixed.
243 Changes since 2.17: * Oops, atlantis wasn't being built by default. Fixed.
244 * Added `epicycle' hack.
245 * Added `interference' hack.
246 * Added `truchet' hack.
248 * Added some new modes to `vidwhacker'.
249 Changes since 2.16: * Added a -window-id argument to most hacks, so that they
250 can draw on arbitrary externally-provided windows.
251 * Synched with xlockmore 4.11a01.
253 * Added `atlantis' GL hack.
254 * Renamed `puzzle' hack to `jigsaw', since xlock already
255 had a different mode called `puzzle'.
256 * Made it self-configure properly when Motif 2.1.0 is
257 being used (requires -lXp now, sigh...)
258 Changes since 2.15: * Made `flag' able to do XPM images.
259 * New look for the xscreensaver logo (`xroger').
260 * Fixed compilation error on Suns with adjunct passwords.
261 * Got multi-architecture builds working again.
262 * Some configure tweaks for building on HPUX and Solaris.
263 * Fixed bug in decayscreen.
264 * Fixed typo in passwd.c.
265 * Made `cynosure' not die when colormap is full.
266 Changes since 2.14: * Added `cynosure' hack.
267 * Added `moire2' hack.
268 * Tweaked `erase.c' some more.
269 * Made unfading a bit smoother.
270 * Added `vidwhacker' hack (not installed by default.)
271 * Added `stairs' hack.
272 * Split `escher' into `cage' and `moebius', as per
274 * Changed subprocess handling to use sigaction() instead
275 of signal() if it's available (this is necessary for
276 SCO but should work fine on other systems too.)
277 * Various other tweaks.
278 Changes since 2.13: * Better fix for the Motif drag-and-die lossage.
279 * Put in some kludges to work around a LessTif bug.
280 * XScreenSaver is known to work with LessTif 0.82 now.
281 * Made fading work on high-end SGI video hardware.
282 * Fixed another SGI-specific bug in screen grabbing;
283 will the madness never cease?
284 * Fixed another crash in `xlyap'.
285 Changes since 2.12: * Made `decayscreen' do directions other than down.
287 * Fixed a crash in `xlyap'.
288 * Added CDE info to the man page, removed `cde.txt'.
289 * Configure tweaks for Zippy.
290 * Turned off the signal handling in `bubbles' because
291 it was sometimes failing to die.
292 * Added `hacks/xscreensaver-sgigl.c' to make it possible
293 to run SGI's ElectroPaint hack (/usr/demos/bin/ep)
294 with xscreensaver. Finally!
295 * Fixed a buffer overrun in the locking code that some
296 wily, malicious cracker must have slipped in.
297 * Disabled Motif drag-and-drool in the dialog box
298 buttons, since it's broken in some old versions of
300 Changes since 2.11: * Added `README.debugging'.
301 * Added `puzzle' hack.
302 * Added `xlyap' hack.
303 * Added "default-n" as a visual name, so that one can
304 have -install on by default, but turn it off for
305 certain poorly-behaved hacks (like xv.)
306 * Added support for grabbing frames of external video
307 (on SGI) to the screen-grabbing hacks (decayscreen,
308 slidescreen, slip, blitspin, and puzzle.)
309 * Improved look of tiles in `slidescreen'; fixed its
310 color allocation problem.
311 Changes since 2.10: * Tweaked `blitspin', added it to the default list.
312 * Added `lissie', `mountain', `triangle', `worm',
313 `rotor', and `ant' from xlockmore.
314 * Updated `sierpinski', `galaxy', and `lisa'.
315 * Thickened the lines in `braid' and `lmorph'.
316 * Updated VMS makefiles.
317 * Renamed `fract' to `vines'.
318 * Added `xjack' hack.
319 * Made a few more hacks use erase.c, and added a few
321 * Fixed compilation problem with Sun's version of OpenGL.
322 * Added ability to use sigaction() instead of signal()
323 to work around a SCO kernel bug.
324 Changes since 2.09: * Fixed colormap bugs in `rd-bomb'; sped up `coral'.
325 * Configure tweaks for *BSD.
326 Changes since 2.07: * New hacks `rd-bomb' and `coral'.
327 * New version of `maze' with some new algorithms.
328 * New colorized version of `rocks'.
329 * Fixed a bug in qix on 64-bit machines.
330 * Fixed a bug in the -time option.
331 * Fixed a bug in configure related to LessTif.
332 Changes since 2.06: * Minor header tweaks in windows.c and flag.c.
333 * Made multi-architecture (VPATH) builds work properly.
334 * Merged new GL stuff from xlockmore (rubik, morph3d.)
335 * Fixed intermittent crashes in `imsmap' and `munch'.
336 * Added `fadeplot' hack from xlockmore.
337 Changes since 2.05: * Merged in VMS support from Patrick Moreau.
338 Changes since 2.04: * Fixed a MIT-SCREEN-SAVER-related crash, and tweaked
339 configure to detect the extra-random -Xss library.
340 Changes since 2.03: * HP configure tweaks. Detect and warn about LessTif.
341 * Fixed low-color behavior of `goop', `pyro', `starfish',
342 `greynetic', `flame', `halo', and `moire'.
343 Changes since 2.02: * Fixed flicker in `pipes'. Fixed 3d in `bouboule'.
344 * Added `munch' hack.
345 * Added basic dependencies to the Makefile.in files.
346 Changes since 2.01: * Fixes for compiling with the MIT saver extension.
347 * Made the yow/fortune program be a configure option.
348 * Various configure tweaks.
349 Changes since 2.00: * Added `goop' and `starfish' hacks.
350 * Added colomap cycling to `halo'.
351 * Made `attraction' use the new colormap allocator.
352 * Added better $PATH diagnostics.
353 * There was a bug in frand! Color selection should be
355 Changes since 1.34: * Converted to use `configure' instead of `imake'.
356 * ANSI C is now required.
357 * Added Kerberos locking support, from Nat Lanza.
358 * Made the stderr text use overlay planes, if possible.
359 * Reworked the xlockmore compatibility stuff again.
360 * Added `gears', `superquadrics', `escher', `pipes',
361 and `sproingies' hacks (depend on OpenGL.)
362 Changes since 1.33: * Fixed some bugs, made fading be a little smoother.
363 Changes since 1.32: * Made it work with multi-headed displays.
364 * Generalized sub-process management (Unix sucks!)
365 * Added interactive mouse frobbing to Julia.
366 * Added (untested) support for HPUX shadow passwords.
367 * Made normal non-shadow passwords be checked if the
368 shadow passwords aren't accessible for some reason.
369 Changes since 1.31: * Removed *colorPrograms and *monoPrograms resources:
370 made it possible to specify the desired visual on a
372 * Cleaned up / restructured the driver: no more globals.
373 * Made the Motif and Athena dialogs share more code.
374 * Probably fixed some Athena colormap-installation bugs.
375 * Fixed screen grabbing (cmap) on SGI 12-bit PseudoColor.
376 * Fixed divide-by-zero in bright random colormaps.
377 * Added an improved version of xlock's `flag' hack.
378 * Made unfading work better, and not flicker on SGIs.
379 * Added `sphere', `forest', `lisa' hacks from xlockmore.
380 * Added (untested) support for SunOS Adjunct passwords.
381 Changes since 1.30: * Improved colors and colormap cycling of many hacks.
382 * Cleaned up xlockmore compatibility layer.
383 * Made `blitspin' able to grab an image off the screen.
384 * Ported `swirl' and `bouboule' hacks from xlockmore.
385 * Made the driver more careful about not leaving bits on
386 the screen, or allowing other windows to raise
387 themselves: it now re-blanks the screen every so often.
388 * Added `-time' option to `xscreensaver-command'.
389 * Improved SGI screen-grabbing some more: now it can grab
390 TrueColor screens into PseudoColor windows and have the
391 colors still come out semi-reasonably.
392 Changes since 1.29: * Made `slidescreen' and `decayscreen' work better on
393 SGIs when windows of different visuals are present, by
394 using the XReadDisplay() extension to get a true 24-bit
395 image out of the frame buffer.
396 * Made `noseguy' be in color, if compiled with XPM.
397 * Ported `braid', `drift', `fract', `galaxy', `grav',
398 `ifs', `julia', `laser', `lightning', `penrose',
399 `sierpinski', `slip', `spiral', and `strange' hacks
401 * Merged `hopalong' hack with a more recent version.
403 Changes since 1.27: * Added `deco', `moire', and `kaleidescope' hacks.
404 * Merged in support for non-Motif locking and demo mode.
405 * Made `blitspin' and `bubbles' work in TrueColor.
406 * Fixed a stupid bug I introduced in `imsmap'.
407 * Added `poly' and `gravity' options to `qix'.
408 Changes since 1.26: * Added support for SGI SCREEN_SAVER extension.
409 * Made `fade' and `unfade' work on 8-bit SGIs.
410 * Made the dialog boxes more Motify.
411 * Added `bubbles' hack.
412 Changes since 1.25: * Added `lmorph' hack.
413 * Added viscosity and mouse-control to attraction.
414 * Fixed possible bad color choices in qix and attraction.
415 * Added ramp-mode to halo.
416 * Added a new RNG, which is faster and more portable
417 than using the RNG in libc.
418 * Made locking work on SCO.
419 * Various other minor tweaks that I don't remember.
420 Changes since 1.24: * Made it capture the stdout/stderr of its subprocesses
421 and present them on the screensaver window itself.
422 * Made demo mode work correctly with non-default visuals
423 and color maps, instead of always using the defaults.
424 * Added -visual argument to all included screenhacks.
425 * Support for the R6 MIT-SCREEN-SAVER server extension.
426 * Made the demo mode list scroll properly.
427 * Added `pedal' hack.
428 Changes since 1.23: * Fixed some private-colormap oddities in slidescreen,
429 decayscreen, and xroger. Fixed apparent conservation-
430 of-mass problem in pyro; made the shrapnel round.
431 Changes since 1.22: * Minor tweaks for IRIX5; fixed locking race condition.
432 Changes since 1.21: * Minor tweaks for X11R6.
433 * Fixes for non-default visuals.
434 Changes since 1.20: * Fixed bug in color blitspin; added default image.
435 * Added diagnostics to noseguy. Fixed off-by-one
436 error in flame. Added some missing casts.
437 Changes since 1.18: * Added `flame' hack.
438 * Fixed a minor Motif dialog text field bug.
439 * Fixed yet another XPointer-not-defined-in-R4 bug.
440 Changes since 1.17: * Added support for shadow password files.
441 * Fixed some Motif-related locking bugs.
442 * Added diagnostics when locking is disabled.
443 * Made blitspin able to use the XPM library.
444 * Added `decayscreen' hack.
445 Changes since 1.16: * Added `halo' hack.
446 Changes since 1.15: * Portability fixes.
447 Changes since 1.14: * Broke the driver up into more source files.
448 * Moved the hacks into their own directory.
449 * Made all `time' parameters accept the 00:00:00 syntax,
450 so that even the parameters which are normally read as
451 minutes can be specified in seconds.
452 * Added colormap cycling to `imsmap'.
453 * Made hyper work with K&R compilers.
454 Changes since 1.13: * Added `orbit' option to `attraction' hack.
455 * Added `lock-timeout' option.
456 * Cleaned up options of `maze' hack.
457 Changes since 1.8: * Added demo mode, and locking.
459 * Added `norotate' option to `rocks' hack.
projects / xscreensaver / blob