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4 Writing new XScreenSaver modules
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9 Generally, the best way to learn how to do something is to find a similar
10 program, and play around with it until you understand it. Another
11 approach is to not worry about understanding it, but to just hack it out.
12 Either way, your best bet is probably to start with one of the existing
13 xscreensaver demos, included in the "hacks/" directory, rename the file,
14 and edit it until it does what you want.
16 The "Greynetic" and "Deluxe" hacks are probably good ones to start with,
17 since they are so very simple. For GL programs, "DangerBall" is a good
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22 Requirements for inclusion with the XScreenSaver collection
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25 If you come up with anything, send it to me! If it's good, I'd love to
26 include it in the xscreensaver distribution. However, there are a few
27 requirements for me to distribute it:
29 - Write in portable ANSI C. No C++. No nonstandard libraries.
31 - Write a .man page describing all command-line options.
33 - Write an .xml file describing the graphical configuration dialog box.
35 - Include a BSD-like copyright/license notice at the top of each source
36 file (preferably, just use the one from "screenhack.h", and include
37 your name and the current year). The GNU GPL is not compatible with
38 the rest of XScreenSaver.
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45 - Start with #include "screenhack.h"
47 - Define 2 global variables:
49 yoursavername_defaults -- Default values for the resources you use.
50 yoursavername_options -- The command-line options you accept.
54 yoursavername_init -- Return an object holding your global state.
55 yoursavername_draw -- Draw a single frame, quickly.
56 yoursavername_free -- Free everything you've allocated.
57 yoursavername_reshape -- Called when the window is resized.
58 yoursavername_event -- Called when a keyboard or mouse event happens.
59 The "reshape" and "event" functions are only
60 called when running in a window (not as a
61 screen saver). It's ok for them to do nothing.
63 - All other functions should be static.
65 - The last line of the file should be
66 XSCREENSAVER_MODULE ("YourSaverName", yoursavername)
68 - Finally, edit the Makefile to add a rule for your program.
69 Just cut-and-paste one of the existing rules.
71 Your "draw" must not run for more than a fraction of a second without
72 returning. This means "don't call usleep()". Everything has to be a
75 You may not store global state in global variables, or in function-local
76 static variables. All of your runtime state must be encapsulted in the
77 "state" object created by your "init" function. If you use global or
78 static variables, your screen saver will not work properly on MacOS.
80 Do not call XSync() or XFlush(). If you think you need to do that, it
81 probably means that you are you are relying on the speed of the graphics
82 card for timing, which probably means that your "draw" function is
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90 Some of the display modes that come with xscreensaver were ported from
91 XLock, and so, for historical reasons, they follow a slightly different
92 programming convention. For newly-written Xlib programs, you'd be
93 better off following the pattern used in hacks like "Deluxe" than in
94 hacks like "Flag". The XLockMore ones are the ones that begin with
95 "#ifdef STANDALONE" and #include "xlockmore.h".
97 All of the OpenGL screen savers follow the XLockMore API.
99 The XLockMore API is similar to the XScreenSaver API, in that you define
100 (roughly) the same set of functions, but the naming conventions are
101 slightly different. Instead of "hackname_init", it's "init_hackname",
102 and it should be preceeded with the pseudo-declaration ENTRYPOINT.
104 One annoying mis-feature of the XLockMore API is that it *requires* you
105 to make use of global variables for two things: first, for each of your
106 command line options; and second, for an array that holds your global
107 state objects. These are the only exceptions to the "never use global
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115 - Your screen saver should look reasonable at 20-30 frames per second.
116 That is, do not assume that your "draw" function will be called more
117 than 20 times a second. Even if you return a smaller requested delay
118 than that, you might not get it. Likewise, if your "draw" function
119 takes longer than 1/20th of a second to run, your screen saver may be
120 consuming too much CPU.
122 - Don't make assumptions about the depth of the display, or whether it
123 is colormapped. You must allocate all your colors explicitly: do not
124 assume you can construct an RGB value and use that as a pixel value
125 directly. Use the utility routines provided by "utils/colors.h" to
126 simplify color allocation.
128 - It is better to eliminate flicker by double-buffering to a Pixmap
129 than by erasing and re-drawing objects. Do not use drawing tricks
132 - If you use double-buffering, have a resource to turn it off. (MacOS
133 has double-buffering built in, so you'd be triple-buffering.)
135 - Understand the differences between Pixmaps and XImages, and keep in
136 mind which operations are happening in client memory and which are in
137 server memory, and which cause latency due to server round-trips.
138 Sometimes using the Shared Memory extension can be helpful, but
139 probably not as often as you might think.
141 - On modern machines, OpenGL will always run faster than Xlib. It's
142 also more portable. Consider writing in OpenGL whenever possible.
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149 Though XScreenSaver started its life as an X11 program, it also now runs
150 on MacOS X. If you do your development on an X11 system, and follow the
151 usual XScreenSaver APIs, you shouldn't need to do anything special for
152 it to also work on MacOS.
154 The preprocessor macro HAVE_COCOA will be defined when being compiled in
155 a MacOS (Cocoa/Quartz) environment, and will be undefined when compiling
158 To compile on MacOS, use the XCode project included in the source
159 distribution. You shouldn't need to have X11 installed, and shouldn't
160 need to run "configure" first. MacOS 10.4.0 and XCode 2.5 or newer are
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