source: trunk/third/xalf/README @ 16248

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1Xalf (http://www.lysator.liu.se/~astrand/projects/xalf/)
2--------------------------------------------------------
3
4This a utility to provide feedback when starting X11 applications.
5
6Xalf is solving the same problem as Busycursor (also written by me),
7but in a more reliable and flexible way. The main differences are:
8
91) Xalf can reliable detect if newly mapped windows are belonging to a
10particular launched application. It does this by overloading the Xlib
11function XMapWindow with a version that signals the tracking xalf
12process.
13
142) Xalf provides (currently) four different types as "indicators",
15described below.
16
17Invisible Window:
18Xalf creates an invisible window, to be used in conjunction with a
19standard task pager like Gnomes tasklist_applet or the KDE
20Taskbar. The name of the window is the application name within
21parenthesis. The small window icon (KWM_WIN_ICON) is set to a small
22hourglass. This indicator is default.
23
24Splash screen:
25An generic splashscreen is displayed during application launch.
26
27Mouse cursor change:
28Xalf adds an hourglass symbol to the mousecursor for the root window
29and the Gnome panel. Note that the cursor is not changed for the Gnome
30foot-menu windows.
31
32Animated star:
33An animated indicator resembling the look of that on SGI/Irix
34machines (a kind of yellow animated star).
35
36
37INSTALL
38-------
39See the file INSTALL.
40
41
42SUPPORTED PLATFORMS
43-------------------
44The main platforms for Xalf are Linux and Solaris. People have
45reported that Xalf also runs on FreeBSD and Irix. Newer versions are
46only tested on Linux and Solaris. If you want support for other
47platforms and are willing to test beta-versions, contact me.
48
49
50GNOME INTEGRATION
51-----------------
52Xalf is included with GNOME 1.4. Xalf also works with earlier GNOME
53versions if you have Gnome-libs version 1.2.11 or newer.
54
55You can control Xalf via GNOME Control Center (or by editing
56~/.gnome/xalf). Note:
57
58You can prepend NO_XALF to desktop entries commandlines to disable
59Xalf for a specific application. This is especially useful for
60launching applications that doesn't start new processes but only
61creates new windows. Gmc works like this, so I recommend change
62"Exec=gmc" in /usr/share/gnome/apps/Gmc.desktop to "Exec=NO_XALF gmc".
63
64
65KDE INTEGRATION
66---------------
67KDE has borrowed some Xalf techniques, and integrated them into
68KDE2. I don't know the current status of this work, though.
69
70
71USING SAWFISH "Matched Windows"
72-------------------------------
73Beginning with version 0.11, Xalf sets different WM_CLASS names for
74the different indicators. The class name is always set to "xalf". The
75instance name is set to "invisiblewindow", "splash" and "anim",
76depending on the indicator that is used.
77
78This can be used with Sawfish to automatically iconify, for example,
79the invisible window. This can be done by:
80
811) Create and match on Class: xalf/invisiblewindow
822) Set its state to "Iconified" in the State pane.
83
84
85THE FUTURE
86----------
87Xalf needs to do quite many tricks to work. The principle with
88LD_PRELOAD is not very beautiful and there are many cases when it does
89not work. These issues were discussed on the Window manager
90specification mailing list. Most people (including myself) thinks that
91an Toolkit-based implementation is a better long term solution. Mary
92Dwyer at Sun Microsystems has begun working on such an
93implementation.
94
95
96USAGE
97-----
98If you are not using GNOME with built-in hooks, prepend xalf to your
99commandlines. For example, create an desktop icon running:
100 "xalf gnumeric"
101
102
103COMMANDLINE OPTIONS
104-------------------
105   -h, --help               display this help and exit
106   -v, --version            output version information and exit
107   -t, --timeout nseconds   use a time-out period of nseconds seconds
108   -n, --noxalf             do nothing, besides launch application
109   -m, --mappingmode        compatibility mode: Do not distinguish between
110                            windows. All new mapped windows turns off indicator
111   -i, --invisiblewindow    use an invisible window as indicator (default)
112                            (for use with Gnome panel, KDE taskbar etc)
113   -s, --splash             use splashscreen as indicator
114   -c, --cursor             add hourglass to mouse cursor
115   -a, --anim               use animated star as indicator
116   -l, --title titlestring  Title to show in the tasklist
117
118Comments and bug-reports are appreciated.
119
120/Peter Åstrand <astrand@lysator.liu.se>
121
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