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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.	Terminal  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  re-
     sources 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 em-
     ulator 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 hard-
     coded 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  op-
     tion.

	   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 xOff-
     setChar  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  re-
     sources. A lot of users use light foreground and dark background for termi-
     nals. 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 com-
     patible.  However, they might not have the same screen layout, so resources
     set for the terminal class might not yield the desired effect in all termi-
     nals.

ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
     DISPLAY	    The name of the display where the terminal runs. This  envi-
		    ronment 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 output  is  ap-
     propriate, 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 parent. The
     child process continues execution, reading commands from the  FIFO  in  the
     $HOME/.slrnfaces  directory  and executing them as appropriate. 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)

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