BITMAP(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 rectan-
gular 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 pat-
terns.
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 ini-
tially 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, bitmap 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 character repre-
sents a 0 bit and the second character represents a 1 bit. The de-
fault 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 posi-
tive values are allowed. By default, no hotspot information is in-
cluded.
-yhot number
This option specifies the Y coordinate of the hotspot. Only posi-
tive values are allowed. By default, no hotspot information is in-
cluded.
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 ap-
pear 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 determines where the
cursor is actually pointing. For cursors with sharp tips (such as ar-
rows 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 con-
stants 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 grid 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 re-
sources. 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 dif-
ferent 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 command has two alterna-
tive behaviors. If you click a mouse button inside the marked area,
you will be able to drag the rectangle 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 horizon-
tal axes. If a marked area of the grid is highlighted, it will op-
erate 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 ef-
fect.
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 highlighted,
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 con-
tinuous. If your system is slow or bitmap receives very few mouse
motion events, it might behave quite strangely.
Line
This command will change the grid 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 ef-
fect, and the highlighted line will disappear.
Rectangle
This command will change the grid squares in a rectangle between two
squares. Once you press a mouse button in the grid window, bitmap
will highlight the rectangle from the square where the mouse button
was initially pressed to the square where the mouse pointer is lo-
cated. By releasing the mouse button you will cause the change to
take effect, and the highlighted rectangle will disappear.
Filled Rectangle
This command is identical to Rectangle, except at the end the rec-
tangle will be filled rather than outlined.
Circle
This command will change the grid 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 ef-
fect, 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. Diagonally 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 an-
other 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 edi-
tor. 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 in-
side 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 filename, 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 an-
other 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 im-
age 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 resource (8 by
default), the grid will be automatically turned off. It can be en-
forced 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 ac-
tivating 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 image. They are
provided to aid user when constructing symmetrical images, or when-
ever 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 in-
ternal cut and paste buffer and copy it to the image. To place the
copied image, click in the editing window and drag the outlined im-
age 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 ed-
itor 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 at-
tempt 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 pur-
pose as well. It can be freely incorporated with other applications and
used as a standard editing tool. The following are the resources pro-
vided 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 1.1.0 BITMAP(1)
Generated by dwww version 1.16 on Sat Oct 3 05:38:23 CEST 2026.