beats(6x)

📦
version 6.17 · 11 versions
, in fedora 44

💖 beats(6x) — the XScreenSaver manual, but make it a group chat 💖

okay so bestie, welcome to beats(6x), one of the little screensaver hacks that ships with the XScreenSaver manual. she's cute, she's chaotic, she's lowkey hypnotic, and honestly? she ate. 🫶

✨ NAME ✨

beats — create offset beating figures 🎀

like. that's it. that's her whole job. and she does it beautifully. 💅

🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

beats [--display host:display.screen] [--visual visual] [--window]
[--root] [--window-id number] [--delay number] [--count number] [--cycle
number] [--wireframe] [--fps]

🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

so the way that beats works is genuinely iconic: it draws a bunch of balls that move around at a slightly different rate from each other. not a huge difference, just a tiny little offset — and that tiny little offset is what makes interesting chaotic and ordered beating patterns appear. it's giving physics demo. it's giving lava lamp. it's giving main character energy. ✨

and here's the clever part, the bit that makes it not just a random mess: each cycle / pattern is created such that it finishes as a single line of balls at the top of the screen. that's on purpose, bestie. it's so the patterns can smoothly transition between each other. no jarring jump cuts. no weird glitch. just vibes, flowing into vibes. 🧚

💅 OPTIONS 💅

  • --visual visual — pick which visual to use. legal values are either the name of a visual class, or the id number of a specific visual — and that number can be decimal or hex, so go off. 😌
  • --window — draw on a newly-created window. this is the default, so if you do nothing at all, congrats, you get this one. 🎀
  • --root — draw on the root window instead. classic screensaver move.
  • --window-id number — draw on the specified window. you gotta tell her which one though, she's not a mind reader. 🔮
  • --delay number — per-frame delay, in microseconds. default: 30000 (that's 0.03 seconds, for the people who don't think in microseconds, which is most of us honestly). ⏱️
  • --count number — number of balls. default: 30. thirty little guys. thirty little orbiters. obsessed. 🔥
  • --cycle number — cycle type to use. default: -1. your choices are:
  -1 - pseudo-random based on current time
   0 - clockwise
   1 - rain dance
   2 - metronome
   3 - galaxy

rain dance?? galaxy?? whoever named these was having a day and I respect it immensely. 🌧️🌌

  • --tick | --no-tick — add a tick for the 'clockwise' and 'galaxy' patterns. yes, specifically those two. the others don't get a tick. it's a whole thing. ✅
  • --blur | --no-blur — add motion blur to the ball movement. makes it look like it's moving at the speed of light, or at least the speed of a very pretty smear. 💫
  • --wireframe | --no-wireframe — render in wireframe instead of solid. skeleton mode. bones out. 💀 (affectionate)
  • --fps — display the current frame rate, CPU load, and polygon count. numbers!! on your screen!! for the nerds who need to know. 👑

🌈 ENVIRONMENT 🌈

  • DISPLAY — to get the default host and display number. she needs to know where to show up, okay?
  • XENVIRONMENT — to get the name of a resource file that overrides the global resources stored in the RESOURCE_MANAGER property. fancy override behaviour, iykyk. 💜
  • XSCREENSAVER_WINDOW — the window ID to use with --root. 🪟

⭐ SEE ALSO ⭐

X(1), xscreensaver(1) — go read those too, bestie, they're the whole ecosystem. 🫶

Copyright © 2020 by David Eccles. 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.

fr fr, read that one: it's "as is", no promises, no warranty, express or implied. she's a screensaver not a guarantee. 😭

✨ AUTHOR ✨

David Eccles (gringer) <hacking@gringene.org>, 2020-Feb-04. 🎀

and that's the whole page, babe. 💖

signing off with the receipts: this is from X Version 11, build 6.17-1.fc44, dated 13-Oct-2026, and the page is beats(6x), straight out of the XScreenSaver manual. periodt. 👑🌸

📦 where this page comes from