bitmap, bmtoa, atobm - bitmap editor and converter utilities
for the X Window System
bitmap [-options...] [filename] [basename]
bmtoa [-chars ...] [filename]
atobm [-chars cc] [-name variable] [-xhot number] [-yhot
number] [filename]
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.
bitmap supports the standard X Toolkit command line arguments
(see X(1X)). The following additional arguments are
supported as well. Specifies size of the grid in squares.
Specifies the width of squares in pixels. Specifies the
height of squares in pixels. Grid tolerance. If the
square dimensions fall below the specified value, grid
will be automatically turned off. Turns on or off the
grid lines. Turns on or off the major axes. Turns on or
off dashing for the frame and grid lines. Turns on or off
stippling of highlighted squares. 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. Specifies the bitmap to be used as a
stipple for dashing. Specifies the bitmap to be used as a
stipple for highlighting. Specifies the color used for
highlighting. Specifies the color used for the frame and
grid lines. Specifies the bitmap to be initially loaded
into the program. If the file does not exist, bitmap will
assume it is a new file. 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: 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: This option specifies
the pair of characters to use when converting string
bitmaps into arrays of numbers. The first character 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. 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. This option specifies the X coordinate of the
hotspot. Only positive values are allowed. By default,
no hotspot information is included. This option specifies
the Y coordinate of the hotspot. Only positive values are
allowed. By default, no hotspot information is included.
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 determines 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.
To edit a bitmap image simply click on one of the buttons
with drawing commands (Point, Curve, Line, Rectangle, and
so forth.) 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
and so forth.
The button function applies to all drawing commands,
including copying, moving and pasting, flood filling and
setting the hot spot.
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. 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. 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. 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.
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,
and so forth.) 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. This command will cause the marked area
to vanish. The same effect can be achieved by pressing
Shift-MouseButton3. 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
alternative 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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.
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. 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. 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. This command
will change the gird 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 located. By releasing the mouse button
you will cause the change to take effect, and the
highlighted rectangle will disappear. This command is
identical to Rectangle, except at the end the rectangle
will be filled rather than outlined. 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. This command is identical to Circle,
except at the end the circle will be filled rather
than outlined. 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. 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. This command removes any designated hot spot
from the bitmap image. This command will undo the last
executed command. It has depth one, that is, pressing
Undo after Undo will undo itself.
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 and so forth. 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.
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. 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.
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. This command will save the
bitmap image after prompting for a new filename. It
should be used if you want to change the filename. 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. 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. 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. This command is used to change the basename,
if a different one from the specified filename is
desired. 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.
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, and so forth. 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. 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 enforced by explicitly
activating this command. 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. 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 whenever having
the main axes highlighted helps your editing. 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.
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. 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. This commands cuts the
contents of the highlighted image area into the internal
cut and paste buffer. This command copies the contents of
the highlighted image area into the internal cut and paste
buffer. 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.
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, and so forth.) 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.
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
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 appdefaults
color customization file:
<XRoot>/lib/X11/app-defaults/Bitmap-color
where <XRoot> refers to the root of the X11 install tree.
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 ()
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Davor Matic, MIT X Consortium
bitmap(1X)
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