xcowsay - Display a cute cow and speech bubble.
xcowsay [-h] [-t time] [-r
speed] [-d] [-f font] [text]...
Display a cow with a speech bubble containing some text. If
text is specified it will be displayed in the bubble. Otherwise the
text will be read from the standard input and displayed when end of file is
encountered.
The cow is displayed for either a fixed amount of time, or an
amount of time calculated from the size of the text. Click on the cow to
dismiss it immediately.
If xcowsay is started with --daemon it will fork
away from the terminal and run in daemon mode. The daemon provides a DBus
service uk.me.doof.Cowsay that responds to ShowCow requests.
The daemon can queue up any number of requests and displays them in
order.
When xcowsay starts it checks to see if a daemon is
running, and if it is, sends a ShowCow request and returns
immediately. Otherwise xcowsay will block until the cow has
disappeared.
xcowsay reads a configuration file on startup. The configuration
file can be stored in the XDG compliant location
$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/xcowsayrc (which will default to
$HOME/.config/xcowsayrc) or in your home directory at
$HOME/.xcowsayrc. If the --config=FILE command line
option is passed FILE will be processed after your personal
configuration file.
The configuration file consists of 'option = value' pairs, one per
line. The valid keys are given in the next section. For example, the
following line sets display time to 10 seconds:
display_time = 10000
The character '#' begins a comment which lasts until the end of
the line.
Values containing spaces should be enclosed in quotes. For
example:
font = "mono 28"
Note that these options override any settings in the config
file.
- -h, --help
- Display usage information.
- -t time,
--time=time
- Display the cow for time seconds. This overrides any value set for
reading_speed. Setting time to zero displays the cow until
it is clicked. The corresponding config file option is
display_time.
- -r speed,
--reading-speed=speed
- Number of milliseconds to display the cow for each word in the input text.
This is clamped to a minimum of min_display_time and a maximum of
max_display_time. The defaults are 1 second and 30 seconds
respectively. The corresponding config file option is
reading_speed.
- -f font,
--font=font
- Font for the speech bubble text. Accepts Pango font strings. The
corresponding config file option is font.
- -d file,
--dream=file
- Display an image instead of text in the cow's bubble. The
dream_time config file option sets the numer of milliseconds to
display the image for. The default is 10 seconds.
- --think
- Display a thought bubble instead of a speech bubble.
- --daemon
- Run xcowsay in daemon mode if DBus support has been enabled. See the
description for more information.
- --cow-size=size
- Size of the cow image. Current choices are small, med, or
large. The corresponding config file option is
cow_size.
- --image=file
- Use a different image instead of the cow. The corresponding config file
option is alt_image.
- --monitor=N
- Make the cow appear on monitor N.
- --at=X,Y
- Force that cow to appear at screen location (X,Y). The config file options
are at_x and at_y.
- --bubble-at=X,Y
- Change position of bubble relative to where it would normally appear. This
is most useful when combined with the alt_image option to create
your own characters. The config file options are bubble_x and
bubble_y.
- --no-wrap
- Disable word wrapping when the bubble is too wide to fit on the screen.
The config file option wrap can be set to true or
false to set this explicitly.
- -l, --left
- Make the bubble appear on the left hand side of the cow. This is useful if
you are using your own image.
- --debug
- Print messages about what xcowsay is doing. Useful for finding out
why the daemon fails.
- --release
- Close window on release event instead of press. The corresponding config
file option is close_event=button-release-event.
- -v, --version
- Print version information.
Report all bugs to nick@nickg.me.uk The xcowsay home page is
<http://www.doof.me.uk/xcowsay>