[\-display \fIhost:display.screen\fP] [\-window] [\-root] [\-install]
[\-visual \fIvisual\fP] [\-font \fIfont\fP] [\-scale \fIint\fP]
[\-ticks \fIint\fP] [\-delay \fIusecs\fP] [\-program \fIcommand\fP]
+[\-meta] [\-esc] [\-bs] [\-del]
.SH DESCRIPTION
The \fIphosphor\fP program draws text on the screen in a very large
pixelated font that looks like an old low resolution dumb tty. The
-pixels flare and fade out as if the phosphor was very long-sustain.
+pixels flare and fade out as if the phosphor was very
+long-sustain. It is also a fully functional vt100 terminal emulator.
.SH OPTIONS
.I phosphor
accepts the following options:
The speed of the terminal: how long to wait between drawing each character.
Default 50000, or about 1/20th second.
.TP 8
+.B \-pty
+Launch the sub-program under a PTY, so that it can address the screen
+directly. This is the default.
+.TP 8
+.B \-pipe
+Launch the sub-program at the end of a pipe: do not let it address the
+screen directly.
+.TP 8
.B \-program \fIsh-command\fP
-The command to run to generate the text to display. This option may be
-any string acceptable to /bin/sh. The program will be run at the end of
-a pipe, and any characters that it prints to \fIstdout\fP will be printed
-on phosphor's window. The characters will be printed artificially slowly,
-as per the \fI\-delay\fP option above. If the program exits, it will be
-launched again after 5 seconds.
-
-Note that phosphor is \fInot\fP a terminal emulator: programs that try to
-directly address the screen will not do what you might expect. Phosphor
-merely draws the characters on the screen left to right, top to bottom.
-Lines wrap when they reach the right edge, and the screen scrolls when
-characters reach the bottom.
-
-In other words, programs like
-.BR fortune (1)
-will work, but programs like
-.BR top (1)
-won't.
+The command to run to generate the text to display. This option may
+be any string acceptable to /bin/sh. The program will be run at the
+end of a pty or pipe, and any characters that it prints to \fIstdout\fP
+will be printed on phosphor's window. The characters will be printed
+artificially slowly, as per the \fI\-delay\fP option above. If the
+program exits, it will be launched again after 5 seconds.
For example:
.EX
phosphor -program 'ping localhost'
phosphor -program 'ps -e'
phosphor -program 'od -txC -w6 /dev/random'
+phosphor -scale 2 -geom =1280x1024 -program 'top'
+phosphor -scale 4 -geom =1280x1024 \\
+ -program 'mtr www.kernel.org'
+phosphor -program 'xemacs -nw -q -f life'
+phosphor -scale 5 -geom =1280x1024 \\
+ -program 'xemacs -nw -q --eval "(hanoi 5)"'
+.EE
+You can also use \fIphosphor\fP as a lo-fi replacement for the
+.BR xterm (1)
+and
+.BR gnome-terminal (1)
+terminal emulators:
+.EX
+phosphor -delay 0 -program tcsh
.EE
+.TP 8
+.B \-esc
+When the user types a key with the Alt or Meta keys held down, send an
+ESC character first. This is the default.
+.TP 8
+.B \-meta
+When Meta or Alt are held down, set the high bit on the character instead.
+.TP 8
+.B \-del
+Swap Backspace and Delete. This is the default.
+.TP 8
+.B \-bs
+Do not swap Backspace and Delete.
+.SH TERMINAL EMULATION
+By default, \fIphosphor\fP allocates a pseudo-tty for the sub-process to
+run under. This has the desirable side effect that the program will be
+able to use
+.BR ioctl (2)
+to fetch information about terminal parameters and window size, which
+many programs (such as
+.BR top (1))
+need to run properly. \fIphosphor\fP will also set the environment
+variable \fITERM\fP to \fIvt100\fP in the child process.
+
+Any characters typed on the phosphor window will be passed along to
+the sub-process. (Note that this only works when running in "window"
+mode, not when running in \fI\-root\fP mode under xscreensaver.)
.SH ENVIRONMENT
.PP
.TP 8
.B XENVIRONMENT
to get the name of a resource file that overrides the global resources
stored in the RESOURCE_MANAGER property.
+.TP 8
+.B TERM
+to inform the sub-process of the type of terminal emulation.
.SH SEE ALSO
.BR xscreensaver (1),
.BR fortune (1),
.BR webcollage (1),
.BR driftnet (1)
.BR EtherPEG ,
-.BR EtherPeek
+.BR EtherPeek ,
+.BR console_codes (4).
.SH COPYRIGHT
Copyright \(co 1999 by Jamie Zawinski. Permission to use, copy, modify,
distribute, and sell this software and its documentation for any purpose is
express or implied warranty.
.SH AUTHOR
Jamie Zawinski <jwz@jwz.org>, 27-Apr-99.
+Pty and vt100 emulation by Fredrik Tolf <fredrik@dolda2000.com>.
projects / xscreensaver / blobdiff