Department of Computing Imperial College
X applications and utilities

These are some of the applications and utilities that can be run from the command line on the Linux systems. These and other features may be available from the taskbar depending on which window manager you use.

Applications

xbiff
The xbiff program displays a little image of a mailbox. When there is no mail, the flag on the mailbox is down. When mail arrives, the flag goes up and the mailbox beeps. By default, pressing any mouse button in the image forces xbiff to remember the current size of the mail file as being the ``empty'' size and to lower the flag.

xcalc
Xcalc is a scientific calculator desktop accessory that can emulate a TI-30 or an HP-10C.

xclipboard
The xclipboard program is used to collect and display text selections that are sent to the CLIPBOARD by other clients. It is typically used to save CLIPBOARD selections for later use.

xclock
The xclock program displays the time in analog or digital form. The time is continuously updated at a frequency which may be specified by the user.

xdvi
Xdvi is a program which runs under the X window system. It is used to preview DVI files, such as are produced by TeX.

This program has the capability of showing the file shrunken by various (integer) factors, and also has a ``magnifying glass'' which allows one to see a small part of the unshrunk image momentarily.

xedit
A simple text editor.

editres
Editres is a tool that allows users and application developers to view the full widget hierarchy of any X Toolkit client that speaks the Editres protocol. In addition editres will help the user construct resource specifications, allow the user to apply the resource to the application and view the results dynamically. Once the user is happy with a resource specification editres will append the resource string to the user's X Resources file.

xeyes
This is a mouse demonstration program. A pair of eyes track your mouse around the desktop.

xfontsel
The xfontsel application provides a simple way to display the fonts known to your X server, examine samples of each, and retrieve the X Logical Font Description full name for a font.

xfig
Xfig is a menu-driven tool that allows the user to draw and manipulate objects interactively in an X window.

xload
The xload program displays a periodically updating histogram of the system load average. Load is defined as the average number of runnable processes on the system. In general, the higher the load, the slower your processes will run.

xlock
xlock locks the X server till the user enters their password at the keyboard. While xlock is running, all new server connections are refused. The screen saver is disabled. The mouse cursor is turned off. The screen is blanked and a changing pattern is put on the screen. If a key or a mouse button is pressed then the user is prompted for the password of the user who started xlock. This can be run from the Start menu.

xman
Xman is a manual page browser. The default size of the initial xman window is small so that you can leave it running throughout your entire login session. In the initial window there are three options: Help will pop up a window with online help, Quit will exit, and Manual Page will pop up a window with a manual page browser in it. You may pop up more than one manual page browser window from a single execution of xman.

xterm
The xterm program is a terminal emulator for the X Window System. It provides DEC VT102 and Tektronix 4014 compatible terminals for programs that can't use the window system directly.

xv
The xv program displays images in the GIF, JPEG, TIFF, PBM, PGM, PPM, X11 bitmap, Utah Raster Toolkit RLE, PDS/VICAR, Sun Rasterfile, BMP, PCX, IRIS RGB, XPM, Targa, XWD, possibly PostScript, and PM formats on workstations and terminals running the X Window System.

Utilities

xwd
Xwd is an X Window System window dumping utility. Xwd allows X users to store window images in a specially formatted dump file. This file can then be read by various other X utilities for redisplay, printing, editing, formatting, archiving, image processing, etc. The target window is selected by clicking the mouse in the desired window. The keyboard bell is rung once at the beginning of the dump and twice when the dump is completed.

xwud
Xwud is an X Window System image undumping utility. Xwud allows X users to display in a window an image saved in a specially formatted dump file, such as produced by xwd.

xmodmap
The xmodmap program is used to edit and display the keyboard modifier map and keymap table that are used by client applications to convert event keycodes into keysyms. It is usually run from the user's session startup script to configure the keyboard according to personal tastes.

xrdb
Xrdb is used to get or set the contents of the X resource Database, these allow you to modify the look and feel of your display. You would normally run this program from your X startup file.

xset
This program is used to set various user preference options of the display, including mouse speed, bell pitch and duration, autorepeat settings etc.

xsetroot
The setroot program allows you to tailor the appearance of the background ("root") window on a workstation display running X. Normally, you experiment with xsetroot until you find a personalized look that you like, then put the xsetroot command that produces it into your X startup file.

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