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9 <h1 align="center">The XPM<br>
10 Frequently Asked Questions</h1>
12 This article contains the answers to some Frequently Asked Questions about the
13 XPM format and/or library. If you don't find the answer to your problem here,
14 then you can mail either to lehors@sophia.inria.fr or to the mailing list
15 xpm-talk@sophia.inria.fr.
21 <li><a href="#Q1">How do I convert my images to or from XPM ?</a>
22 <li><a href="#Q2">Why are my XPM files said to be invalid ?</a>
23 <li><a href="#Q3">Why does my program core dumps using XPM ?</a>
24 <li><a href="#Q4">Why does my program core dumps using XPM with a widget ?</a>
25 <li><a href="#Q5">How can I get a non rectangular icon using XPM ?</a>
26 <li><a href="#Q6">What exactly triggers the creation of a mask when using XPM ?</a>
27 <li><a href="#Q7">How should I use the mask ?</a>
28 <li><a href="#Q8">Is there a string to pixmap converter somewhere ?</a>
29 <li><a href="#Q9">How can I edit XPM icons ?</a>
30 <li><a href="#Q10">Is there a collection of icons somewhere ?</a>
31 <li><a href="#Q11">The documentation fails to print out. Why ?</a>
32 <li><a href="#copy">Copyright</a>
36 <h2><a name="Q1">1. How do I convert my images to or from XPM ?</a></h2>
38 Netpbm is surely the best image conversion package that I know of. It defines
39 formats for color, gray and monochrome images and provides a set of filters.
40 Thus a GIF image can be converted to XPM with something like:
42 $ giftoppm youricon.gif | ppmtoxpm > youricon.xpm
44 The latest release can be found at least from wuarchive.wustl.edu
45 (128.252.135.4), directory /graphics/graphics/packages/NetPBM
48 <h2><a name="Q2">2. Why are my XPM files said to be invalid ?</a></h2>
50 There are three official versions of the XPM format. The XPM library since
51 version 3.3 can read all them but writes out only XPM 3. Also the small
52 program called sxpm which is part of the XPM library package can be used to
53 automatically translate XPM 1 and 2 files to XPM 3 with a command such as:
55 $ sxpm -nod yourxpm1or2file -o yourxpm3file
57 Also, the XPM format defines "None" to be the color name meaning
58 "transparent", but IXI used to hack the XPM library in its early days to
59 handle transparency as "#Transparent". This makes IXI format not compatible
60 with the official XPM format, and so not readable neither by the official XPM
61 library nor any of the programs built on top of it.
63 The only solutions are either to stick on IXI programs which can deal with
64 their format or convert your files to the standard XPM format. This can be
65 done simply by changing "#Transparent" to "None".
68 <h2><a name="Q3">3. Why does my program core dumps using XPM ?</a></h2>
70 Be sure the XpmAttributes structure you pass by reference has a valid
71 valuemask. You can give NULL instead if you don't want to use an
72 XpmAttributes but if you do, you MUST initialize its valuemask component to
73 some valid value, at least 0, otherwise unpredictable errors can occur.
75 So instead of doing something like:
79 XpmReadFileToPixmap(dpy, d, filename, &pixmap, &mask, &attrib);
87 XpmReadFileToPixmap(dpy, d, filename, &pixmap, &mask, &attrib);
91 <h2><a name="Q4">4. Why does my program core dumps using XPM with a widget ?</a></h2>
93 <li>First the XPM library is Xlib level, so don't pass your widget as a
94 Drawable parameter. A Drawable is either a Window or a Pixmap. The widget's
95 window can do the job but:
97 <li>Then a widget only gets a Window when realized, so passing XtWindow(widget)
98 with a not yet realized widget is wrong. Either realize you widget first or
99 use another window. Since the Drawable parameter is only used to specify
100 the screen to which the pixmap must be created on, most of the time the
101 default root window is just fine.
105 <h2><a name="Q5">5. How can I get a non rectangular icon using XPM ?</a></h2>
107 The X Window System does not support transparent color. However there are
108 several ways you can use to get the same visual effect using XPM:
110 <li>First you can use the None color to get a shape mask and use it as
111 explained below (question 7).
113 <li>Second you can define a symbolic color name such as "mask" in the XPM
114 format file, then use the color overriding mechanism to set this symbolic
115 color to the color of the underlying object. Note that in this case the XPM
116 library won't create a shape mask, and that if the color of the underlying
117 object is changed then you'll have to create a new pixmap.
121 <h2><a name="Q6">6. What exactly triggers the creation of a mask when using XPM ?</a></h2>
123 Basically a mask is created if "None" is used as one of the color of the
124 pixmap. Be aware that this is not only true if it is used in the XPM of the
125 pixmap since the colors can be overridden at load time. So a mask is created
126 if the "None" color is used at load time, coming either from the XPM
127 definition or the color overriding.
130 <h2><a name="Q7">7. How should I use the mask ?</a></h2>
132 There are basically two ways of using the mask:
134 <li>Use the mask as a shapemask with the X11 Nonrectangular Saphe Window
135 Extension. Typically this is what should be done when the icon is used in a
138 <li>Use the mask as a clipmask in the GC you pass to XCopyArea when drawing the
139 pixmap. So the "transparent" pixels being not actually drawn will get the
140 underlying pixels colors.
144 <h2><a name="Q8">8. Is there a string to pixmap converter for Motif ?</a></h2>
146 Yes, Motif 2.0 or later does support XPM pixmaps as well as XBM bitmaps.
149 <h2><a name="Q9">9. How can I edit XPM icons ?</a></h2>
151 As listed below several editors either commercial or not are supporting the
152 XPM format. However, pixmap is the one I would recommend since it is freely
153 available and, being fully dedicated to XPM, it allows to edit all the
154 special things, such as the symbolic color names, which makes XPM different
155 from all the other image formats. Pixmap can always be found by ftp from
156 ftp.x.org (contrib) and avahi.inria.fr (pub/pixmap).
158 Last Update: 3 August 1994
160 <caption>XPM Icon Editors</caption>
161 <tr><th>Program<th>Infos<th>Source/Author<th>Platforms<th>SA<th>XPM<th>cost
162 <tr><td>pixmap<td><ul>
163 <li><a href="ftp://ftp.x.org/contrib/application/pixmap/pixmap2.6.tar.gz">ftp://ftp.x.org/contrib/application/pixmap/pixmap2.6.tar.gz</a>
164 <li>requires 3.4 or higher revision of Xpm lib.
165 <li>supports all XPM format features
166 <li>current version doesn't work on 24-plane displays
168 <td>Lionel Mallet<td>source<td>yes<td>3<td>NC
171 <li><a href="ftp://ftp.x.org/contrib/pixt.tar.Z">ftp://ftp.x.org/contrib/pixt.tar.Z</a>
172 <li>doesn't work on 24-plane displays
173 <li>last updated November 1991
175 <td>J. Michael Flanery<td>source<td>yes<td>1<td>NC
177 <tr><td>pixed<td><ul>
178 <li>part of X.desktop
179 <li>current version doesn't work on 24-plane displays
181 <td>IXI<td>Many UNIX<td>no<td>3<td>N/A
183 <tr><td>olpixmap<td><ul>
184 <li>packaged with the OLIT (OpenLook) toolkit
186 <td>USL<td>Sun, SVR4.2, UnixWare<td>no<td>1<td>N/A
188 <tr><td>xfedor<td><ul>
190 <li>doesn't work on 24-plane displays
192 <td>Daniel Dardailler<td>source<td>yes<td>3<td>NC
194 <tr><td>SCOpaint<td><ul>
195 <li>included with the ODT package
197 <td>SCO/Wing Eng<td>ODT<td>yes<td>2.8<td>N/A
199 <tr><td>pme.icn<td><ul>
200 <li>written in the Icon language
202 <td>Icon Project<td>source<td>yes<td>3<td>NC
204 <tr><td>PixEditT<td><ul>
205 <li>there is currently no support for editing the colormap
207 <td>Free Widget Foundation<td>source<td>yes<td>3<td>NC
209 <tr><td>xscribble<td><ul>
210 <li>requires the FWF, 8-bit pseudocolor
211 <li><a href="ftp://ftp.cis.ufl.edu/pub/thoth">ftp://ftp.cis.ufl.edu/pub/thoth</a>
212 <li>Alpha version (last updated April 1993)
214 <td>Robert Forsman<td>source<td>yes<td>?<td>NC
216 <tr><td>vueicon<td><ul>
217 <li>included with Vue3.0
219 <td>Hewlett-Packard<td>HP<td>yes<td>3<td>N/A
221 <tr><td>iconedit V3<td> <td>SunSoft<td>Sparc/Sun3<td>yes<td>2<td>N/A
223 <tr><td>Pixmap Editor<td><ul>
224 <li>this is a Widget, not a complete program
226 <td>ICS<td>?<td>yes<td>?<td>?
228 <tr><td>ezX<td> <td>Sunrise Softwarey<td>?<td>?<td>?<td>N/A
230 <tr><td>XPaint<td><ul>
231 <li>full featured, works on all displays
232 <li>current release is 2.1.1 (last update January 1994)
234 <td>David Koblas<td>source<td>yes<td>3<td>NC
236 <tr><td>Phoenix<td><ul>
237 <li>full featured, 24-bit painting program, requires Motif.
238 <li><a href="ftp://nic.funet.fi/pub/graphics/packages/phoenix">ftp://nic.funet.fi/pub/graphics/packages/phoenix</a>
239 <li>Beta version (last updated September 1993)
241 <td>ohtcolor@niksula.hut.fi<td>source<td>yes<td>3<td>NC
243 <tr><td>pixed<td><ul>
244 <li>pixed is part of the TeleUSE UIMS
245 <li>More info is available from service@ignite.alsys.com
247 <td>Alsys<td>Many UNIX<td>yes<td>3<td>N/A
249 <tr><td>display<td><ul>
250 <li><a href="ftp://ftp.x.org/contrib/application/ImageMagick/ImageMagick-3.2.tar.gz">ftp://ftp.x.org/contrib/application/ImageMagick/ImageMagick-3.2.tar.gz</a>
251 <li>lots of image conversion and manipulation features
253 <td>John Cristy<td>source<td>yes<td>3<td>NC
257 SA - Stand Alone program<br>
258 NC - No Charge (i.e. free); most programs are copyrighted.<br>
259 XPM - XPM format supported<br>
260 source - built from source code; likely works on all standard X platforms<br>
261 N/A - icon editor is normally distributed with other software
264 Send updates, additions, corrections, etc. to <a
265 href="mailto:dan@bristol.com">dan@bristol.com</a>
268 <h2><a name="Q10">10. Is there a collection of icons somewhere ?</a></h2>
270 At least there is one freely available: Anthony's X Icon Library. You can
271 found it on several ftp servers, such as <a href="ftp://server.berkeley.edu/pub/AIcons">server.berkeley.edu/pub/AIcons</a>. It
272 contains only small icons (less than about 100x100 pixels in size) which are
273 stored in groups in a logical way. Color icons are stored in XPM format and
274 Black & White icons in XBM.
277 <h2><a name="Q11">11. The documentation fails to print out. Why ?</a></h2>
279 The PostScript documentation file is formatted for US letter paper. Frame
280 Maker tries very hard to ensure that you have the right paper and punts if
281 you don't. However, you can easily work around this problem by applying the
282 following patch. If for some reason applying the patch fails, you can still
283 do it by hand. Just locate the corresponding block in the PS file and remove
284 the lines with a leading '-' character.
285 By the way, this applies to any doc generated by Frame Maker. The
286 corresponding block might be slightly different depending on which version of
287 Frame Maker was used, but it is still easy to locate.
290 *** xpm.PS Wed Sep 11 15:47:43 1996
291 --- xpm-A4.PS Thu Nov 21 09:27:28 1996
298 - manualfeed {setmanualfeed} if
299 - /FMdicttop countdictstack 1 add def
302 - manualfeed {true} {papersize} ifelse
303 - {manualpapersize} {false} ifelse
304 - {desperatepapersize} {false} ifelse
305 - { (Can't select requested paper size for Frame print job!) FMFAILURE } if
306 - count -1 FMoptop {pop pop} for
307 - countdictstack -1 FMdicttop {pop end} for
309 - {{1 dict dup /PageSize [paperwidth paperheight]put setpagedevice}stopped
310 - { (Can't select requested paper size for Frame print job!) FMFAILURE } if
311 - {1 dict dup /ManualFeed manualfeed put setpagedevice } stopped pop }
321 <h2><a name="copy">Copyright (C) 1989-95 GROUPE BULL</a></h2>
323 Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy
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