wmsetbg(1)

🌸 wmsetbg — the girlboss of root windows 💅

okay so bestie, we're in the wmsetbg(1) zone, General Commands Manual energy, and I am so ready to explain this. this is the little icon that sets your X11 background. periodt.

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

wmsetbg [-display display] [--update-domain domain|--update-wmaker]
[options] [image]

💖 DESCRIPTION 💖

so wmsetbg takes the image you hand it — literally any format the WRaster library can read, she's flexible like that — and drops it on the root window. iconic behavior honestly.

then she either scales it or tiles it so it actually fits your root window. no awkward gaps, no weird stretching, we don't do that here.

and here's the tea: Window Maker uses this command internally to set the root window image on start up. so she's not just out here doing side quests, she's the main character. 🎀

🦋 OPTIONS 🦋

• --back-color, -b color — this color becomes the background color for the texture. Window Maker temporarily sets the background to this color while it's loading and processing the texture (like a lil placeholder glow-up ✨). you can give colors as their X11 names, or as an RGB triplet — either "rgb:RR/GG/BB" or "#RRGGBB" (reference to appropriate manpage should be here, love that for us). in the latter case, color is a quoted string, so don't forget the quotes bestie.
• --center, -e — centers the image in the screen. balanced. symmetrical. slay.
• --colors, -c count — limits the number of colors per channel to use for the image.
• -display display — connect to the X display. that's the vibe check for where to actually draw.
• --dither, -d — enables color dithering on the image. fancy pixel trickery, we'll get to it below 👇
• --fillscale, -f — scales the specified image to fill the screen while preserving aspect ratio. fills it all the way up, no squishing.
• --help, -h — prints a help message with the list of options. she's helpful AND pretty.
• --match, -m — uses the best-matching-color algorithm when converting the image to an indexed color palette.
• --maxscale, -a — scales the specified image to fit inside the screen while preserving its aspect ratio. cozy, contained, no cropping drama.
• --parse, -p texture — parses the specified texture as a proplist style texture. very "i speak fluent Window Maker" of her.
• --scale, -s — scales the specified image to fill the screen. this one is the default, so if you don't pick anything, this is what you get. no cap.
• --smooth, -S — uses a smooth scaling algorithm when resizing the image. soft, glowy, blessed ✨
• --tile, -t — tiles the specified image. pattern girlies rise up.
• --update-domain, -D domain — updates the specified domain database.
• --update-wmaker, -u — updates the Window Maker defaults database.
• --version, -v — prints the version of Window Maker from which the program comes. receipts! 🧾
• --workspace, -w workspace — updates the background only for the specified workspace. one room at a time, we respect boundaries.
• --xinerama, -X — stretches the image across Xinerama heads. multi-monitor girlies, she sees you 🫶

🌈 INDEXED COLOR SCREENS 🌈

okay so this part is important, listen up.

if your screen is not in a True Color configuration (the kind generally sold as 16,777,216 colors) but is instead in an indexed color mode (256 colors, 16 colors, ... the ones that are based on a ColorMap) — then Window Maker may need to process the image to convert it down to a limited number of colors before it can use it as a background image. it's giving budget era, but we make it work 💅

there are two options for which algorithm you want:

• --match or -m — searches for the closest matching color from the current colormap. this is the fastest algorithm, but it may lead to a less good-looking result. speed over beauty, sometimes that's the move.
• --dither or -d — uses a more complex algorithm which modifies surrounding pixels to get a closer-looking color on average. this is slower but provides better looking images. she takes her time but she delivers.

if none is specified, then it is Window Maker's configuration choice that will be used. so it's not you deciding, it's the config deciding. iykyk.

you can also use the option --colors to reduce the total number of colors in the image before the algorithm is applied. the value you specify with this option defines the number of possible values for each primary color (red, green and blue). for example, 8 would reduce the image to use only 8*8*8=512 colors before applying the conversion algorithm. math ate, honestly. 🔥

👀 SEE ALSO 👀

wmaker(1)

👑 AUTHOR 👑

this man page was written by Marcelo Magallon <mmagallo@debian.org>.

Window Maker was written by Alfredo K. Kojima <kojima@windowmaker.info>.

wmsetbg was written by Dan Pascu <dan@windowmaker.info>.

okay bestie that's the whole page, you're officially educated 💖

and a lil sign-off moment for the credits at the bottom: this page is dated April 2015 and it lives in the wmsetbg(1) section of the manual. mwah, bye 🎀✨