RGBPAINT(1)

💖 RGBPAINT(1) 💖

okay bestie, welcome to the rgbpaint manual — that's a section 1 page from Mark Tyler's painting program, and it's lowkey iconic. grab a snack, we're doing this. 🎀

---

✨ NAME ✨

rgbpaint — a simple pixel-based painting program. that's it, that's the whole vibe. 🎨

---

🌈 SYNOPSIS 🌈

rgbpaint [options] [image-file] [-stamps file ...]

---

🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

so rgbPaint is a very basic painting program, created by forking mtPaint at version 3.09 and then simplifying the user interface. it runs on a small but modifiable palette for pixel-based image editing. no cap. 💅

images can be saved in ICO, JPEG and PNG formats. files in other image formats can be loaded, but — and this is important — they cannot be saved back in the original format. it's giving "you can look but you can't keep it that way". 😭

---

✨ OPTIONS ✨

the program accepts the following options, and yes we're going through all of them, no skipping:

• --help — prints usage information. your little "how do i even" button. 🫶
• -d dir — use dir as the default directory for loading and saving image files.
• -s — grab a screen shot during launch. 📸
• -stamps — any file names remaining on the command line will be loaded as stamps.
• -svg dir — load program icons in SVG format from the directory dir.
• -thumb size — set the size in pixels that stamp thumbnails should be scaled to (up or down, depending on the original size). the default is 40 pixels on a side; permitted values are in the range 32–256.
• -u limit — set the maximum size of the undo buffer to limit MB. the default is 32 MB; permitted values are in the range 1–500.
• --version — print version information. ⭐

---

🌸 APPEARANCE 🌸

when you launch it, rgbpaint uses most of its available window area to present a view of a large Canvas. up at the top there's a Tasks panel, and a Brushes/Colours panel sits at the left edge. it's also possible for a rather narrow Stamps panel — containing iconised images — to be inset at the bottom edge. it's a whole layout moment. 👑

---

💖 THE TASKS PANEL 💖

this panel is for picking actions, and every single one of them is also reachable via a keyboard shortcut (iykyk). the available actions split into these groups:

• New image, Load image file, Save image file, Save image file as
• Paint, Flood fill, Make selection
• Cut, Copy, Paste, Paste text
• Undo, Redo, Transform colour, Pan window, Scaling

the first group 🎀

this one is all about creating new blank images and reading from / writing to image files. each action runs its own safety check so you don't lose unsaved data — thank you queen. also worth remembering: a fresh canvas is white, and it's surrounded by greyish borders if the canvas is smaller than the available window area. a simple dialogue also pops up for choosing the size of any new, blank image.

the second group 🖌️

this picks the main mode rgbpaint should enter. in Paint mode the cursor becomes a pencil symbol, while Fill mode shows up as a bucket being emptied. Selection mode is more complicated — it uses more than one icon, so go read the section MAKING AND USING SELECTIONS below. it's giving main character energy, honestly.

the third group ✂️

these actions operate on a selected portion of the canvas:

• Cutting out a shape from the canvas
• making a Copy in memory of the content inside the marked area
• Pasting the copy back from memory onto the canvas
• opening a dialogue window for Text, which deploys a new selection area just large enough to hold the snippet of text you specified in that dialogue window

the final group 🦋

miscellaneous actions, the little grab bag:

• Undo an editing step
• Redo an undone step
• Transform the overall colour settings
• Pan the window across the canvas — a miniature window is shown with a pane whose movements are controlled by the arrow keys
• and finally, set the Scaling of the canvas

some of the icons have the property of becoming dimmed if the action isn't accessible at that particular moment. that means rgbpaint is in an inappropriate mode, or no editing steps can be undone/redone, or no in-memory content exists. it's not you, it's the state machine. 💀

---

🎀 MAKING AND USING SELECTIONS 🎀

the Selection main mode is for grabbing and manipulating portions of the full canvas. it can itself be thought of as being divided into three further states:

Resting

indicated by a cross-hairs icon, and it happens when no corner marker has been set.

Marking

shows one out of four corner icons. they all indicate how the next point you select will be used to lay down a rectangle together with the previously set corner. to get a feeling for this, it's best to experiment a little by moving the pointer around. 🖱️

a corner is set by left clicking, and two set corners show up as a rectangle outlined by dashed lines. a right click cancels all corners and returns you to the resting state.

Moving

means the pointer is hovering above a selected area, and that this area may be moved around. the icon is two crossed double-ended arrows, but it can look similar to a diamond shape with four small, internal squares.

the selected area can be moved around using the keyboard shortcuts (see KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS), or by holding the left mouse button down and moving the pointer around. 💅

---

🌈 THE BRUSHES/COLOURS PANEL 🌈

here you choose a brush and colour for painting — or colour only, for flood filling. 🎨

the upper part of the panel holds the ten different brushes: six solid and four thin ones. the solid brushes can give a square or a round outline in any of three thicknesses. out of the four available thin brushes, the smallest is so thin it paints one pixel at a time, making very accurate brush work possible. the other three are larger sizes, but they all colour pixels in a random fashion within their outline, so they act somewhat like staining a surface. obsessed. ✨

in the lower part of the panel there are twenty buttons displaying a palette of available colours. clicking any of them chooses the corresponding colour for painting, until it gets replaced.

an elongated button between the upper and lower areas always displays the active colour, and it has a further useful function: clicking the left mouse button on it summons a colour editor. this lets you blend a new colour, which — once accepted — replaces the colour that was previously active. ✨

---

🧚 THE STAMPS PANEL 🧚

this extra panel, at the bottom of the program window, comes to life only if rgbpaint was launched using the command line switch -stamps, followed by the names of existing image files. the displayed size of any thumbnail image is determined by the switch -thumb, or set to 40 pixels in both width and height. 📏

if you left-click on a thumbnail image, a copy of the image appears in the middle of the canvas — with the size of the original image, not that of the thumbnail. the copy is in fact only a marked area (see MAKING AND USING SELECTIONS), and it can be moved around at will with the left mouse button, until a final right click deposits a copy on the canvas. the marked area is still sitting on top, so it may again be moved around to make additional imprints. stamp stamp stamp. 🍓

---

💜 COPYING, CUTTING, AND PASTING 💜

rgbPaint handles cut-and-paste a little differently from most similar applications. to make it easier to avoid mistakes, here's how to manipulate chunks of the canvas:

• when a rectangular portion of the canvas has been selected, you can perform Copy. it takes the content of the marked area and saves it in-memory for later access.
• when doing a Cut, the marked area is emptied of its content, so it appears as a black rectangle — but the removed portion is remembered as in-memory content which remains available for pasting back.

heads up bestie: copying and cutting can only be performed in Selection mode, since a selected area must exist for either action to be sensible. 🫶

the act of Pasting, on the other hand, is possible in Paint mode as well as in Fill mode. when the pasting action is triggered (by icon or by key stroke), the in-memory content is dropped onto the window and lies centred on the canvas. it is not yet painted on the canvas — it's only casting a shadow to display its contents — but it's ready to be moved into position before being imprinted on the canvas. the movement itself was described in MAKING AND USING SELECTIONS. ✨

---

⭐ KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS ⭐

some handy keyboard shortcuts are available, and honestly? learn them. your hands will thank you.

the keys 1–9 change image scaling in pre-determined steps. the keys + and - give a fine-grained scaling up or down.

any Arrow key moves the mouse pointer in small steps across the canvas; steps which can be made larger by pressing Shift-Arrow. when instead using Ctrl-Arrow, the whole canvas shifts in the implied direction. 🦋

Actions

• 1–9 — change scaling to fixed levels.
• +, - — scale up, scale down.
• Ins — summon the Transform colour dialogue.
• End — summon the Pan Window dialogue.
• f — select Flood fill mode.
• p — select Paint mode.
• q — quit the program.
• s — activate Make Selection mode.
• t — summon the Text paste dialogue.
• Ctrl-C — make an in-memory Copy of the marked area.
• Ctrl-N — prepare a New image, including a sizing dialogue.
• Ctrl-O — open a file dialogue for fetching an image.
• Ctrl-P — paste the in-memory copy onto a marked area of the canvas.
• Ctrl-S — save the image in a file, using the old name.
• Ctrl-Shift-S — save the image in a file, choosing a new name.
• Ctrl-X — cut the selected portion out of the canvas (keeping an in-memory copy).
• Ctrl-Y — redo the most recently undone action.
• Ctrl-Z — undo the most recently completed action.

Movement

• Arrow — move pointer slightly.
• Shift-Arrow — move pointer in larger steps.
• Ctrl-Arrow — move canvas rather than pointer.
• Home — go to the top of the canvas.
• Ctrl-Home — go to the far left of the canvas.
• PgUp, PgDn — move the canvas up or down, one page at a time.
• Ctrl-PgUp, Ctrl-PgDn — move the canvas left or right, one page at a time.

---

👑 CUSTOMISED TASK ICONS 👑

there's a built-in facility for customising the appearance of the task icons as they appear in the Tasks panel. this is mostly an issue for the administrators of kiosk systems or similar — not for the casual user, bestie. 🙈

it can also make sense to use this in the command string registered for rgbpaint within the Debian menu subsystem, on machines where menu access is the only way users are expected to launch the program. see the next section for the details. ✨

---

📁 FILES 💾

okay so bestie, at launch time, rgbpaint will record the current working directory as the default location for fetching and storing image files. that's the directory it suggests every single time a file dialogue is brought into action. no cap, it's giving "default home base" energy fr fr 📂✨

using the command line option -d, it is possible to set another location. a reasonable choice is -d ~ for accessing the home directory of the user. home sweet home 🏠💅 lowkey iconic, highkey useful.

the command line switch -svg allows a directory to be specified where rgbpaint should look for particular vector image files in SVG format. their names must all be of the form stock-XXX.svg, where the XXX is one of the following key words: new, open, save, saveas, cut, copy, paste, undo, redo, text, paint, fill, select, sun, or zoom.

• new ✨
• open 📂
• save 💾
• saveas 💾✨
• cut ✂️
• copy 📋
• paste 📌
• undo ↩️
• redo ↪️
• text 🔤
• paint 🎨
• fill 🪣
• select 🎯
• sun ☀️
• zoom 🔍

each will provide an icon for the corresponding function in the top panel. iconic behavior, honestly ✨

⚠️ but listen: a missing icon will be replaced by a default choice, but there is no guarantee that the fallback icon will be unique, or be relevant for the intended purpose. so maybe don't rely on it being cute or correct, k? 😭

🌐 HOMEPAGE 🏠

http://mtpaint.sourceforge.net/rgbpaint.html

go touch grass on the internet bestie 🦋💖 iykyk. highkey the best place to lurk.

👀 SEE ALSO 🔍

• mtpaint(1) — rgbPaint's more featureful relative. 👑 periodt.

🎨 PROGRAM AUTHORS ✨

• Mark Tyler
• Dmitry Groshev

genius behavior 💖 not me being obsessed with their work.

📝 MANUAL AUTHORS 🖋️

the original manual page stub was taken as starting point for a complete rewrite as Docbook source, and was substantially extended by Mats Erik Andersson and Justin B Rye. the new format was chosen in order to simplify translations, and was originally intended for use by the Debian project, but the text may be used by others. permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the same terms as rgbPaint itself. slay, open source 🫶💅

©️ COPYRIGHT 💖

Copyright © 2010 Mats Erik Andersson

that's the legal bit, bestie 💅

okay that's the whole vibe — brought to you by rgbPaint 0.8.7, dated December 17th, 2010, and filed under RGBPAINT(1). mwah 💋✨