chompytower(6)

📦
version 6.15 · 2 versions
, in alpine 3.24, arch rolling, nixpkgs unstable

💅 chompytower — like, the manual, bestie 🦋

Okay so welcome to chompytower(6), a page from the XScreenSaver manual, and honestly? Iconic. Sit down, grab a strawberry, and let me tell you about a tree that has, and I cannot stress this enough, teeth. 🍓✨

✨ NAME ✨

chompytower — it's a tree. With teeth. That's the whole thing. That's the vibe. 🦷🌳

🎀 SYNOPSIS 🎀

chompytower [--display host:display.screen] [--visual visual] [--window]
[--root] [--window-id number] [--delay number] [--speed number]
[--resolution number] [--no-spin] [--wander] [--no-tilt] [--no-smooth]
[--wireframe] [--fps]

Lowkey that's a lot of brackets but you're gonna slay, I promise. 💅

🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

This tree's got teeth!

That's it. That's the description. I'm not even being dramatic, that's literally what the page says and honestly it ate. 🌈🌳

👑 OPTIONS 👑

Okay bestie, here's the full menu. Every single one. No skipping. 🫶

  • --visual visual — tells it which visual to use. Legal values are either the name of a visual class, or the id number (decimal or hex, either is fine, we don't judge) of a specific visual.
  • --window — draw on a newly-created window. This is the default, so it's the main character. ✨
  • --root — draw on the root window instead.
  • --window-id number — draw on the window you specify. Your window, your rules. 👑
  • --delay number — the per-frame delay, in microseconds. Default is 30000, which is 0.03 seconds. Tiny little nap between frames. 😴
  • --speed number — animation speed. 2.0 means twice as fast, 0.5 means half as fast. Math girlies rise. 🔥
  • --resolution number — how many polygons to use on the trunk. 2.0 means twice as many, 0.5 means half as many. Trunk detail, basically. 🌳
  • --spin / --no-spin — whether the tree should slowly rotate. Rotating tree = main character energy, tbh.
  • --wander / --no-wander — whether the object should wander around the screen. Going places. Literally. 🦋
  • --tilt / --no-tilt — whether the observer should look up and down. Peek up. Peek down. 🙈
  • --smooth / --no-smooth — Smooth. Boolean. That's genuinely all it says, and I'm not gonna invent lore about it. 😭
  • --wireframe / --no-wireframe — render in wireframe instead of solid. Line-art era. 🎀
  • --fps / --no-fps — whether to show a frames-per-second display at the bottom of the screen. Numbers! At the bottom! For the stats girlies. 📊

🌈 ENVIRONMENT 🌈

The env vars it peeks at, in order of appearance:

  • 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.
  • XSCREENSAVER_WINDOW — the window ID to use with --root. iykyk. 💜

🧚 SEE ALSO 🧚

Go read those too, they're the parents of this whole situation. 🫶

Copyright © 2022 by Jamie Zawinski.

Permission to use, copy, modify, distribute, and sell this software and its documentation for any purpose is hereby granted without fee, provided that the above copyright notice appear in all copies and that both that copyright notice and this permission notice appear in supporting documentation. No representations are made about the suitability of this software for any purpose. It is provided "as is" without express or implied warranty.

Okay so tl;dr on that: go off, do whatever, just keep the copyright notice and the permission notice in there and don't come for anybody if it breaks. It's "as is", no warranty, express or implied. That's real. 💀

💖 AUTHOR 💖

Jamie Zawinski.

Okay that's the whole page, you're officially a chompytower expert, no cap. 🎀✨

X Version 11 · 6.15 (30-Mar-2026) — mwah, that's the version and date, and that's the sign-off, bestie, go run it 💅🦋

📦 where this page comes from