TTDT(1)

💖 TTDT — the ttdt manual, bestie edition 💖

okay so you opened the manual for ttdt (that's the <rainbow>Tool for Transaction Decomposition Tables</rainbow>, fr fr) and honestly? iconic. it lives in the General Commands Manual, and we're gonna go through the whole thing together, no skips, no skimming. grab a snack 🍓

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✨ NAME ✨

ttdt — Tool for Transaction Decomposition Tables. that's the whole name, that's the whole vibe.

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🎀 SYNOPSIS 🎀

ttdt [options] [document]

so it's options first, document optional, and we move 💅

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🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

bestie. ttdt is an X11/Motif based graphical editor for drawing transaction decomposition tables. you know, the fun kind. 🦋

documents can be loaded from and stored to a file. it can print documents to a PostScript printer, or save as PostScript to a file. two paths, both slay.

and here's the lore: ttdt is part of The Toolkit for Conceptual Modeling (TCM). so if you see "TCM" floating around everywhere in this page, that's why. it's a family thing 👑

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💅 ARGUMENTS 💅

you can call ttdt with a single document name as argument. here's the tea:

• if that argument is an existing file → ttdt tries to load a document from it
• if it does not exist → a new document is created, with the argument as the document name

ttdt files should have suffix *.tdt. that's the house style, don't fight it.

no document name at all? no problem. ttdt creates a new transaction decomposition table named untitled.tdt. cute, default, on brand 🎀

and on top of the standard X11 toolkit options (go peek at X11(7)), ttdt also accepts these options, listed below:

• -cell widthxheight — sets the minimal cell size of the editor to width pixels wide and height pixels high. the cells in the initial table get the minimal size. so like, your starting table is snug. 📐
• -drawing widthxheight — creates a drawing area of width pixels wide and height pixels high. you're literally choosing how much canvas the girl gets.
• -help — writes all available options to standard output and quits. the "who even am I" button, but helpful. ✨
• -maxdrawing widthxheight — the drawing area can not be larger than width pixels wide and height pixels high. it's a ceiling. a hard ceiling. respect it. 🚫
• -priv_cmap — starts the editor with a private colormap. fancy. exclusive. main character energy 👑
• -projdir directory — sets the project directory (that's the current working directory, bestie) to directory.
• -table rowsxcolumns — the table editor gets initialized with a table having rows rows and columns columns. and ngl, the default is 7 rows and 7 columns. lucky seven, twice. 🍀
• -toEPS [file.eps] — generates EPS (to file.eps, or to stdout when no file name was given) and quits. no file name? it just yells into your terminal. loud and proud. 📣
• -toFig [file.fig] [-latex] — generates Fig format (to file.fig, or to stdout when no file name was given) and quits. when the -latex option is given, LaTeX fonts are generated; otherwise normal PostScript fonts are generated. and btw, the Fig format can be read by xfig(1) and fig2dev(1), so it plays nice with the neighbors 🫶
• -toPNG file.png — generates PNG format to file.png and quits. pixels!! 🌈
• -toPS [file.ps] — generates PostScript (to file.ps, or to stdout when no file name was given) and quits.
• -version — writes the TCM version to standard output and quits. the receipts, literally.

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🧚 ENVIRONMENT 🧚

these are the environment variables, and yeah, they matter:

• TCM_HOME — should be the directory where the TCM files are installed. this is the home base, the anchor, the whole foundation.
• PATH — should include $TCM_HOME/bin. so your shell can actually find things, bestie.
• MANPATH — should include $TCM_HOME/man. so your man pages can find you.
• PRINTER — the name of the default printer that is used by ttdt. set it, or print into the void 🖨️
• LD_LIBRARY_PATH — should include $TCM_HOME/lib when the distribution contains shared object libraries in $TCM_HOME/lib. runtime linking tea. don't skip it.

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🦋 FILES 🦋

quick heads up: the following relative files are relative to $TCM_HOME. so prepend that in your head every time, okay? 😌

• bin/ttdt — the transaction decomposition table editor. the star of the show.
• bin/psf — a program to filter PostScript output.
• lib/banner.ps — PostScript banner page that can be used when the printer does not print a banner page. cover art for your print job 💖
• lib/help/* — the help directory contains a collection of text files for the on-line help.
• lib/TCM — X Resources (the same as the ones that are built-in). you can customize the fonts and colors by setting resources in your X defaults database. each string of the form TCM.resource:definition sets a resource. go off, personalize her ✨
• /tmp/tcmXXXXXX — pseudo random temporary file, for PostScript output. that's not a placeholder typo, that's literally the name, six X's and all.
• lib/tcm.conf — the TCM editor configuration file. this file contains values for some of the editor defaults like the page size, the default fonts, etc. and it's read by each editor upon startup. every single time. committed. 🫶
• $HOME/.tcmrc — each user of TCM can override some of the options of tcm.conf by its own configuration file, installed in $HOME/.tcmrc. your personal remix, bestie 🎧

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🌈 SEE ALSO 🌈

Frank Dehne, Roel Wieringa and Henk van de Zandschulp — TCM (Toolkit for Conceptual Modeling), User's Guide and Reference. this document is available as PostScript and HTML in $TCM_HOME/doc, or as HTML via the URL http://www.cs.utwente.nl/~tcm/tcm-usersguide.html.

also, the friend group:

• tcm(1)
• X11(7)
• xfig(1)
• fig2dev(1)

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👑 AUTHOR 👑

Frank Dehne (frank@cs.vu.nl). the mastermind. we stan.

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💀 BUGS 💀

please send bug reports to tcm@cs.utwente.nl. do not suffer in silence, that's not the vibe 🙈

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and that's the whole page, bestie — it's from the General Commands Manual, and the date on this edition is 9 January 2000. yeah, she's vintage. vintage is iconic. periodt 💅✨