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The manual page of the bitmap Linux command. Bitmap is a bitmap image editing and conversion utility for the X Window.
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man bitmapBITMAP(1) General Commands Manual BITMAP(1)
NAME
bitmap, bmtoa, atobm - bitmap editor and converter utilities for the X Window System
SYNOPSIS
bitmap [ -options ... ] [ filename ] [ basename ]
bmtoa [ -chars ... ] [ filename ]
atobm [ -chars cc ] [ -name variable ] [ -xhot number ] [ -yhot number ] [ filename ]
DESCRIPTION
The bitmap program is a rudimentary tool for creating or editing rectangular images made up of 1's and 0's. Bitmaps are used in
X for defining clipping regions, cursor shapes, icon shapes, and tile and stipple patterns.
The bmtoa and atobm filters convert bitmap files (FILE FORMAT) to and from ASCII strings. They are most commonly used to quickly
print out bitmaps and to generate versions for including in text.
COMMAND LINE OPTIONS
Bitmap supports the standard X Toolkit command line arguments (see X(7)). The following additional arguments are supported as
well.
-size WIDTHxHEIGHT
Specifies size of the grid in squares.
-sw dimension
Specifies the width of squares in pixels.
-sh dimension
Specifies the height of squares in pixels.
-gt dimension
Grid tolerance. If the square dimensions fall below the specified value, grid will be automatically turned off.
-grid, +grid
Turns on or off the grid lines.
-axes, +axes
Turns on or off the major axes.
-dashed, +dashed
Turns on or off dashing for the frame and grid lines.
-stippled, +stippled
Turns on or off stippling of highlighted squares.
-proportional, +proportional
Turns proportional mode on or off. If proportional mode is on, square width is equal to square height. If proportional mode
is off, bitmap will use the smaller square dimension, if they were initially different.
-dashes filename
Specifies the bitmap to be used as a stipple for dashing.
-stipple filename
Specifies the bitmap to be used as a stipple for highlighting.
-hl color
Specifies the color used for highlighting.
-fr color
Specifies the color used for the frame and grid lines.
filename
Specifies the bitmap to be initially loaded into the program. If the file does not exist, bitmap will assume it is a new
file.
basename
Specifies the basename to be used in the C code output file. If it is different than the basename in the working file, bit‐
map will change it when saving the file.
Bmtoa accepts the following option:
-chars cc
This option specifies the pair of characters to use in the string version of the bitmap. The first character is used for 0
bits and the second character is used for 1 bits. The default is to use dashes (-) for 0's and sharp signs (#) for 1's.
Atobm accepts the following options:
-chars cc
This option specifies the pair of characters to use when converting string bitmaps into arrays of numbers. The first charac‐
ter represents a 0 bit and the second character represents a 1 bit. The default is to use dashes (-) for 0's and sharp signs
(#) for 1's.
-name variable
This option specifies the variable name to be used when writing out the bitmap file. The default is to use the basename of
the filename command line argument or leave it blank if the standard input is read.
-xhot number
This option specifies the X coordinate of the hotspot. Only positive values are allowed. By default, no hotspot information
is included.
-yhot number
This option specifies the Y coordinate of the hotspot. Only positive values are allowed. By default, no hotspot information
is included.
USAGE
Bitmap displays grid in which each square represents a single bit in the picture being edited. Actual size of the bitmap image,
as it would appear normally and inverted, can be obtained by pressing Meta-I key. You are free to move the image popup out of
the way to continue editing. Pressing the left mouse button in the popup window or Meta-I again will remove the real size bitmap
image.
If the bitmap is to be used for defining a cursor, one of the squares in the images may be designated as the hot spot. This de‐
termines where the cursor is actually pointing. For cursors with sharp tips (such as arrows or fingers), this is usually at the
end of the tip; for symmetric cursors (such as crosses or bullseyes), this is usually at the center.
Bitmaps are stored as small C code fragments suitable for including in applications. They provide an array of bits as well as
symbolic constants giving the width, height, and hot spot (if specified) that may be used in creating cursors, icons, and tiles.
EDITING
To edit a bitmap image simply click on one of the buttons with drawing commands (Point, Curve, Line, Rectangle, etc.) and move
the pointer into the bitmap grid window. Press one of the buttons on your mouse and the appropriate action will take place. You
can either set, clear or invert the gird squares. Setting a grid square corresponds to setting a bit in the bitmap image to 1.
Clearing a grid square corresponds to setting a bit in the bitmap image to 0. Inverting a grid square corresponds to changing a
bit in the bitmap image from 0 to 1 or 1 to 0, depending what its previous state was. The default behavior of mouse buttons is
as specified below.
MouseButton1 Set
MouseButton2 Invert
MouseButton3 Clear
MouseButton4 Clear
MouseButton5 Clear
This default behavior can be changed by setting the button function resources. An example is provided below.
bitmap*button1Function: Set
bitmap*button2Function: Clear
bitmap*button3Function: Invert
etc.
The button function applies to all drawing commands, including copying, moving and pasting, flood filling and setting the hot
spot.
DRAWING COMMANDS
Here is the list of drawing commands accessible through the buttons at the left side of the application's window. Some commands
can be aborted by pressing A inside the bitmap window, allowing the user to select different guiding points where applicable.
Clear
This command clears all bits in the bitmap image. The grid squares will be set to the background color. Pressing C inside
the bitmap window has the same effect.
Set This command sets all bits in the bitmap image. The grid squares will be set to the foreground color. Pressing S inside the
bitmap window has the same effect.
Invert
This command inverts all bits in the bitmap image. The grid squares will be inverted appropriately. Pressing I inside the
bitmap window has the same effect.
Mark
This command is used to mark an area of the grid by dragging out a rectangular shape in the highlighting color. Once the
area is marked, it can be operated on by a number of commands (see Up, Down, Left, Right, Rotate, Flip, Cut, etc.) Only one
marked area can be present at any time. If you attempt to mark another area, the old mark will vanish. The same effect can
be achieved by pressing Shift-MouseButton1 and dragging out a rectangle in the grid window. Pressing Shift-MouseButton2 will
mark the entire grid area.
Unmark
This command will cause the marked area to vanish. The same effect can be achieved by pressing Shift-MouseButton3.
Copy
This command is used to copy an area of the grid from one location to another. If there is no marked grid area displayed,
Copy behaves just like Mark described above. Once there is a marked grid area displayed in the highlighting color, this com‐
mand has two alternative behaviors. If you click a mouse button inside the marked area, you will be able to drag the rectan‐
gle that represents the marked area to the desired location. After you release the mouse button, the area will be copied.
If you click outside the marked area, Copy will assume that you wish to mark a different region of the bitmap image, thus it
will behave like Mark again.
Move
This command is used to move an area of the grid from one location to another. Its behavior resembles the behavior of Copy
command, except that the marked area will be moved instead of copied.
Flip Horizontally
This command will flip the bitmap image with respect to the horizontal axes. If a marked area of the grid is highlighted, it
will operate only inside the marked area. Pressing H inside the bitmap window has the same effect.
Up This command moves the bitmap image one pixel up. If a marked area of the grid is highlighted, it will operate only inside
the marked area. Pressing UpArrow inside the bitmap window has the same effect.
Flip Vertically
This command will flip the bitmap image with respect to the vertical axes. If a marked area of the grid is highlighted, it
will operate only inside the marked area. Pressing V inside the bitmap window has the same effect.
Left
This command moves the bitmap image one pixel to the left. If a marked area of the grid is highlighted, it will operate only
inside the marked area. Pressing LeftArrow inside the bitmap window has the same effect.
Fold
This command will fold the bitmap image so that the opposite corners become adjacent. This is useful when creating bitmap
images for tiling. Pressing F inside the bitmap window has the same effect.
Right
This command moves the bitmap image one pixel to the right. If a marked area of the grid is highlighted, it will operate
only inside the marked area. Pressing RightArrow inside the bitmap window has the same effect.
Rotate Left
This command rotates the bitmap image 90 degrees to the left (counter clockwise.) If a marked area of the grid is high‐
lighted, it will operate only inside the marked area. Pressing L inside the bitmap window has the same effect.
Down
This command moves the bitmap image one pixel down. If a marked area of the grid is highlighted, it will operate only inside
the marked area. Pressing DownArrow inside the bitmap window has the same effect.
Rotate Right
This command rotates the bitmap image 90 degrees to the right (clockwise.) If a marked area of the grid is highlighted, it
will operate only inside the marked area. Pressing R inside the bitmap window has the same effect.
Point
This command will change the grid squares underneath the mouse pointer if a mouse button is being pressed down. If you drag
the mouse button continuously, the line may not be continuous, depending on the speed of your system and frequency of mouse
motion events.
Curve
This command will change the grid squares underneath the mouse pointer if a mouse button is being pressed down. If you drag
the mouse button continuously, it will make sure that the line is continuous. If your system is slow or bitmap receives very
few mouse motion events, it might behave quite strangely.
Line
This command will change the gird squares in a line between two squares. Once you press a mouse button in the grid window,
bitmap will highlight the line from the square where the mouse button was initially pressed to the square where the mouse
pointer is located. By releasing the mouse button you will cause the change to take effect, and the highlighted line will
disappear.
Rectangle
This command will change the gird squares in a rectangle between two squares. Once you press a mouse button in the grid win‐
dow, bitmap will highlight the rectangle from the square where the mouse button was initially pressed to the square where the
mouse pointer is located. By releasing the mouse button you will cause the change to take effect, and the highlighted rec‐
tangle will disappear.
Filled Rectangle
This command is identical to Rectangle, except at the end the rectangle will be filled rather than outlined.
Circle
This command will change the gird squares in a circle between two squares. Once you press a mouse button in the grid window,
bitmap will highlight the circle from the square where the mouse button was initially pressed to the square where the mouse
pointer is located. By releasing the mouse button you will cause the change to take effect, and the highlighted circle will
disappear.
Filled Circle
This command is identical to Circle, except at the end the circle will be filled rather than outlined.
Flood Fill
This command will flood fill the connected area underneath the mouse pointer when you click on the desired square. Diago‐
nally adjacent squares are not considered to be connected.
Set Hot Spot
This command designates one square in the grid as the hot spot if this bitmap image is to be used for defining a cursor.
Pressing a mouse button in the desired square will cause a diamond shape to be displayed.
Clear Hot Spot
This command removes any designated hot spot from the bitmap image.
Undo
This command will undo the last executed command. It has depth one, that is, pressing Undo after Undo will undo itself.
FILE MENU
The File menu commands can be accessed by pressing the File button and selecting the appropriate menu entry, or by pressing Ctrl
key with another key. These commands deal with files and global bitmap parameters, such as size, basename, filename etc.
New This command will clear the editing area and prompt for the name of the new file to be edited. It will not load in the new
file.
Load
This command is used to load a new bitmap file into the bitmap editor. If the current image has not been saved, user will be
asked whether to save or ignore the changes. The editor can edit only one file at a time. If you need interactive editing,
run a number of editors and use cut and paste mechanism as described below.
Insert
This command is used to insert a bitmap file into the image being currently edited. After being prompted for the filename,
click inside the grid window and drag the outlined rectangle to the location where you want to insert the new file.
Save
This command will save the bitmap image. It will not prompt for the filename unless it is said to be <none>. If you leave
the filename undesignated or -, the output will be piped to stdout.
Save As
This command will save the bitmap image after prompting for a new filename. It should be used if you want to change the
filename.
Resize
This command is used to resize the editing area to the new number of pixels. The size should be entered in the WIDTHxHEIGHT
format. The information in the image being edited will not be lost unless the new size is smaller that the current image
size. The editor was not designed to edit huge files.
Rescale
This command is used to rescale the editing area to the new width and height. The size should be entered in the WIDTHxHEIGHT
format. It will not do antialiasing and information will be lost if you rescale to the smaller sizes. Feel free to add you
own algorithms for better rescaling.
Filename
This command is used to change the filename without changing the basename nor saving the file. If you specify - for a file‐
name, the output will be piped to stdout.
Basename
This command is used to change the basename, if a different one from the specified filename is desired.
Quit
This command will terminate the bitmap application. If the file was not saved, user will be prompted and asked whether to
save the image or not. This command is preferred over killing the process.
EDIT MENU
The Edit menu commands can be accessed by pressing the Edit button and selecting the appropriate menu entry, or by pressing Meta
key with another key. These commands deal with editing facilities such as grid, axes, zooming, cut and paste, etc.
Image
This command will display the image being edited and its inverse in its actual size in a separate window. The window can be
moved away to continue with editing. Pressing the left mouse button in the image window will cause it to disappear from the
screen.
Grid
This command controls the grid in the editing area. If the grid spacing is below the value specified by gridTolerance re‐
source (8 by default), the grid will be automatically turned off. It can be enforced by explicitly activating this command.
Dashed
This command controls the stipple for drawing the grid lines. The stipple specified by dashes resource can be turned on or
off by activating this command.
Axes
This command controls the highlighting of the main axes of the image being edited. The actual lines are not part of the im‐
age. They are provided to aid user when constructing symmetrical images, or whenever having the main axes highlighted helps
your editing.
Stippled
This command controls the stippling of the highlighted areas of the bitmap image. The stipple specified by stipple resource
can be turned on or off by activating this command.
Proportional
This command controls the proportional mode. If the proportional mode is on, width and height of all image squares are
forced to be equal, regardless of the proportions of the bitmap window.
Zoom
This command controls the zoom mode. If there is a marked area of the image already displayed, bitmap will automatically
zoom into it. Otherwise, user will have to highlight an area to be edited in the zoom mode and bitmap will automatically
switch into it. One can use all the editing commands and other utilities in the zoom mode. When you zoom out, undo command
will undo the whole zoom session.
Cut This commands cuts the contents of the highlighted image area into the internal cut and paste buffer.
Copy
This command copies the contents of the highlighted image area into the internal cut and paste buffer.
Paste
This command will check if there are any other bitmap applications with a highlighted image area, or if there is something in
the internal cut and paste buffer and copy it to the image. To place the copied image, click in the editing window and drag
the outlined image to the position where you want to place i, and then release the button.
CUT AND PASTE
Bitmap supports two cut and paste mechanisms; the internal cut and paste and the global X selection cut and paste. The internal
cut and paste is used when executing copy and move drawing commands and also cut and copy commands from the edit menu. The
global X selection cut and paste is used whenever there is a highlighted area of a bitmap image displayed anywhere on the screen.
To copy a part of image from another bitmap editor simply highlight the desired area by using the Mark command or pressing the
shift key and dragging the area with the left mouse button. When the selected area becomes highlighted, any other applications
(such as xterm, etc.) that use primary selection will discard their selection values and unhighlight the appropriate information.
Now, use the Paste command for the Edit menu or control mouse button to copy the selected part of image into another (or the
same) bitmap application. If you attempt to do this without a visible highlighted image area, the bitmap will fall back to the
internal cut and paste buffer and paste whatever was there stored at the moment.
WIDGETS
Below is the widget structure of the bitmap application. Indentation indicates hierarchical structure. The widget class name is
given first, followed by the widget instance name. All widgets except the bitmap widget are from the standard Athena widget set.
Bitmap bitmap
TransientShell image
Box box
Label normalImage
Label invertedImage
TransientShell input
Dialog dialog
Command okay
Command cancel
TransientShell error
Dialog dialog
Command abort
Command retry
TransientShell qsave
Dialog dialog
Command yes
Command no
Command cancel
Paned parent
Form formy
MenuButton fileButton
SimpleMenu fileMenu
SmeBSB new
SmeBSB load
SmeBSB insert
SmeBSB save
SmeBSB saveAs
SmeBSB resize
SmeBSB rescale
SmeBSB filename
SmeBSB basename
SmeLine line
SmeBSB quit
MenuButton editButton
SimpleMenu editMenu
SmeBSB image
SmeBSB grid
SmeBSB dashed
SmeBSB axes
SmeBSB stippled
SmeBSB proportional
SmeBSB zoom
SmeLine line
SmeBSB cut
SmeBSB copy
SmeBSB paste
Label status
Pane pane
Bitmap bitmap
Form form
Command clear
Command set
Command invert
Toggle mark
Command unmark
Toggle copy
Toggle move
Command flipHoriz
Command up
Command flipVert
Command left
Command fold
Command right
Command rotateLeft
Command down
Command rotateRight
Toggle point
Toggle curve
Toggle line
Toggle rectangle
Toggle filledRectangle
Toggle circle
Toggle filledCircle
Toggle floodFill
Toggle setHotSpot
Command clearHotSpot
Command undo
COLORS
If you would like bitmap to be viewable in color, include the following in the #ifdef COLOR section of the file you read with
xrdb:
*customization: -color
This will cause bitmap to pick up the colors in the app-defaults color customization file:
/etc/X11/app-defaults/Bitmap-color
BITMAP WIDGET
Bitmap widget is a stand-alone widget for editing raster images. It is not designed to edit large images, although it may be
used in that purpose as well. It can be freely incorporated with other applications and used as a standard editing tool. The
following are the resources provided by the bitmap widget.
Bitmap Widget
Header file Bitmap.h
Class bitmapWidgetClass
Class Name Bitmap
Superclass Bitmap
All the Simple Widget resources plus ...
Name Class Type Default Value
foreground Foreground Pixel XtDefaultForeground
highlight Highlight Pixel XtDefaultForeground
framing Framing Pixel XtDefaultForeground
gridTolerance GridTolerance Dimension 8
size Size String 32x32
dashed Dashed Boolean True
grid Grid Boolean True
stippled Stippled Boolean True
proportional Proportional Boolean True
axes Axes Boolean False
squareWidth SquareWidth Dimension 16
squareHeight SquareHeight Dimension 16
margin Margin Dimension 16
xHot XHot Position NotSet (-1)
yHot YHot Position NotSet (-1)
button1Function Button1Function DrawingFunction Set
button2Function Button2Function DrawingFunction Invert
button3Function Button3Function DrawingFunction Clear
button4Function Button4Function DrawingFunction Invert
button5Function Button5Function DrawingFunction Invert
filename Filename String None ("")
basename Basename String None ("")
AUTHOR
Davor Matic, MIT X Consortium
X Version 11 bitmap 1.0.8 BITMAP(1)
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