gltext — draws text spinning around in 3D

Synopsis

gltext [-display host:display.screen] [-window] [-root] [-visual visual] [-delay microseconds] [-text string] [-program command] [-wander] [-no-wander] [-spin axes] [-no-spin] [-front] [-no-front] [-wireframe] [-fps]

Description

The gltext program draws some text spinning around in 3D, using a font that appears to be made of solid tubes.

Options

gltext accepts the following options:
-window
Draw on a newly-created window. This is the default.
-root
Draw on the root window.
-install
Install a private colormap for the window.
-visual visual
Specify which visual to use. Legal values are the name of a visual class, or the id number (decimal or hex) of a specific visual.
-text string
The text to display. This may contain newlines, but it shouldn't be very long. The default is to display the machine name and OS version.

This may also be a format string acceptable to date(1) and strftime(3), in which case, it will be updated once a second. So to make this program display a spinning digital clock, you could do this:

gltext -text "%A%n%d %b %Y%n%l:%M:%S %p"

To include a literal `%', you must double it: `%%'.

See the man page for strftime(3) for more details.

-program command
The given program is run, and its output is displayed. If specified, this overrides -text. The program will be re-run every 5 seconds to re-generate the text. It should run quickly, and shouldn't generate too much text.
-wander
Move the text around the screen. This is the default.
-no-wander
Keep the text centered on the screen.
-spin
Which axes around which the text should spin. The default is "XYZ", meaning rotate it freely in space. "-spin Z" would rotate the text in the plane of the screen while not rotating it into or out of the screen; etc.
-no-spin
Don't spin the text at all: the same as -spin "".
-front
When spinning, never spin all the way around or upside down: always face mostly forward so that the text is easily readable.
-no-front
Allow spins to go all the way around or upside down. This is the default.
-wireframe
Render in wireframe instead of solid.
-fps
Display the current frame rate, CPU load, and polygon count.

Environment

DISPLAY
to get the default host and display number.
XENVIRONMENT
to get the name of a resource file that overrides the global resources stored in the RESOURCE_MANAGER property.

Author

Jamie Zawinski <jwz@jwz.org>