pipes.sh(6)

📦 version 1.3.0, in nixos 26.05, nixpkgs unstable

🦋 pipes.sh(6) — the animated pipes terminal screensaver 🦋

hii bestie 💖 welcome to the pipes.sh man page, section 6 of the manual, aka pipes.sh(6). this is the whole entire page, no skips, no summaries, we're going the full length because you deserve the full length 🫶

✨ NAME ✨

pipes.sh — animated pipes terminal screensaver 🐍✨

🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

pipes.sh [OPTION]...

💅 DESCRIPTION 💅

so it's a bash script. it draws pipes with random paths all over your terminal 🌈. people use it as an actual functional screensaver, or just because it's cute and fun, no cap.

🎀 OPTIONS 🎀

  • -p [1-] — how many pipes you want, bestie. default is 1.
  • -t [0-9] — picks the type of pipe that gets drawn. you can pass multiple arguments. default is 0.

lowkey important caveat: because man pages can't really do the whole Unicode character situation, the list below describes the types in plain text. for the actual Unicode characters and screenshots, go look at the README, fr fr 👀

  • -t 0 — "BOX DRAWING HEAVY"
  • -t 1 — "BOX DRAWING LIGHT" and "BOX DRAWING LIGHT ARC"
  • -t 2 — "BOX DRAWING LIGHT"
  • -t 3 — "BOX DRAWING DOUBLE"
  • -t 4 — "|+ ++-+ +|++ +-"
  • -t 5 — "|/ /-\ |/\ /-"
  • -t 6 — ".. .... .... .."
  • -t 7 — ".o oo.o o.oo o."
  • -t 8 — "-\ /|/ /-/ |" (railway)
  • -t 9 — "BOX DRAWING HEAVY AND LIGHT" (knobby)
  • -t c[16 chars] — custom pipe type, you make it yourself 💫

the table below tells you the order of the characters and what each one represents. heads up: four of those characters are not applicable, because the pipes don't do a 180-turn. so they're just... not used.

  1. Straight up
  2. Up and going right
  3. Not applicable (up and back down), use space
  4. Up and going left
  5. Right and going up
  6. Stright right
  7. Right and going down
  8. Not applicable (right and back left), use space
  9. Not applicable (down and back up), use space
  10. Down and going right
  11. Straight down
  12. Down and going left
  13. Left and going up
  14. Not applicable (left and back right), use space
  15. Left and going down
  16. Straight left
  • -c [0-7] — the colors of your pipes 🌈. multiple arguments allowed. default is 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 0.
  • -f [20-100] — frame rate. default is 75.
  • -s [5-15] — probability of straight fitting. default is 13.
  • -r [LIMIT] — resets the drawing after [LIMIT] characters. if you don't specify a limit, it just takes the value 0. default is 2000.
  • -R — randomize the starting position and direction 🎲
  • -B — no bold effect.
  • -C — no color.
  • -K — no change of colors and types when hitting screen edges.
  • -h — displays a help message.
  • -v — prints the version number.

👑 KEYBOARD CONTROLS 👑

press any key to quit pipes.sh... except these, which are all Shift + key, so hands off unless you mean it:

  • P / O — increase/decrease probability of straight pipes
  • F / D — increase/decrease frame rate
  • B — toggle bold effect
  • C — toggle no colors
  • K — toggle keeping pipe color and type when crossing edges

📜 HISTORY 📜

gather round, we're doing lore 🧚

pipes.sh was originally created by Matthew Simpson and posted to the Arch Linux Forums in early 2010. it was also later posted to Gist and released in the public domain.

in early 2013, Yu-Jie Lin posted a modification of the script to Gist after reading about it on a blog. it was maintained on Gist independently for a period of a few months.

in 2014, the script got its own GitHub repository as a project, which encouraged contributions from other developers. as the project gained more popularity, the decision was made to combine forces with developers of similar projects.

finally in 2015, the MIT License was added and the Pipeseroni collective was formed (see LINKS below) to maintain the project. iconic behavior honestly 👑

  • Website
  • Repository

💀 BUGS 💀

please go look at the current issues on the issue tracker, and report any bugs or request any feature you'd like. we're nice about it, promise 🙈

🌟 AUTHORS 🌟

Pipeseroni/pipes.sh contributors. 🫶

Copyright (c) 2010-2018 Pipeseroni/pipes.sh contributors.

pipes.sh is licensed under the MIT License, see LICENSE file.

that's the whole page bestie, you ate that. now go run it and watch the little pipes go 🐍💨

this was pipes.sh version 1.3.0, dated 25 Feb 2018 — mwah, see you next time 💖✨🎀

📦 where this page comes from