Pamx User Manual(1) General Commands Manual Pamx User Manual(1)
NAME
pamx - display Netpbm image in X Window System window
SYNOPSIS
pamx
[-fullscreen] [-install] [-private] [-fit] [-pixmap] [-verbose] [-dis-
play=x-display] [-title=text] [-foreground=color] [-background=color]
[-border=color] [-geometry=x-geometry-string] [-visual=name] netpbm_file
All options can be abbreviated to their shortest unique prefix. You may
use two hyphens instead of one to designate an option. You may use ei-
ther white space or an equals sign between an option name and its value.
DESCRIPTION
This program is part of Netpbm(1).
pamx displays a Netpbm image in an X Window System window. It is like a
very simple version of the classic X image viewer xloadimage.
If you don't specify the input file netpbm_file, the input is from Stan-
dard Input. The input image can be any Netpbm image format. If the in-
put is a multi-image stream, pamx ignores all but the first image.
pamx is not the best choice for general purpose viewing of images, be-
cause it is a traditional simple Netpbm building block. It is a good
thing to build into other programs and can be useful for debugging more
complex systems, but you can get much more powerful viewers that can
display Netpbm images. For example, xloadimage, xli, xzgv, and any web
browser.
The program xwud (X Window Undump) is part of the X Window System and
performs the same basic display function, though with input in the spe-
cial X Window Dump format (for which Netpbm has converters).
The initial window is at most 90% of the size of the display unless the
window manager does not correctly handle window size requests or if
you've used the -fullscreen option. You may move the image around in
the window by dragging with the first mouse button. The cursor will in-
dicate which directions you may drag, if any. You may exit the window
by typing 'q' or control-C when the keyboard focus is on the window.
ppmsvgalib is a similar program that displays an image on a Linux system
without the need for the X Window System.
X RESOURCE CLASS
pamx uses the resource class name Xloadimage for window managers which
need this resource set. This is, of course, the same resource class
that the conventional viewer program xloadimage uses.
OPTIONS
In addition to the options common to all programs based on libnetpbm
(most notably -quiet, see ]8;;index.html#commonoptions\ Common Options]8;;\ ), pamx recognizes the follow-
ing command line options:
-border=color
This sets the background portion of the window which is not cov-
ered by any images to be color.
-display=display_name
This names the X display in which to put the window. E.g. 0:0.
-fit Force image to use the default visual and colormap. This is use-
ful if you do not want technicolor effects when the colormap fo-
cus is inside the image window, but it may reduce the quality of
the displayed image.
-fullscreen
Use the entire screen to display the image.
-geometry=WxH[{+,-}X{+,-}Y
This sets the size and position of the window in which pamx dis-
plays the image.
By default, the window size exactly matches the image size, ex-
cept that if you don't specify -fullscreen, the maximum is 90% of
the screen dimensions.
-install
Forcibly install the image's colormap when the window is focused.
This violates ICCCM standards and only exists to allow operation
with naive window managers. Use this option only if your window
manager does not install colormaps properly.
-pixmap
Force the use of a pixmap as backing-store. This is provided for
servers where backing-store is broken (such as some versions of
the AIXWindows server). It may improve scrolling performance on
servers which provide backing-store.
-private
Force pamx to use of a private colormap. By default, pamx allo-
cates colors shared unless there are not enough colors available.
-verbose
Causes pamx to print various information about what it's doing to
Standard Error.
-visual=visual_name
Force the use of a specific visual type to display an image. By
default, pamx tries to pick the best available image for a par-
ticular image type. The available visual types are: DirectColor,
TrueColor, PseudoColor, StaticColor, GrayScale, and StaticGray.
You may use the shortest unique prefix of these names, and case
is not significant.
-background=color
Use color as the background color instead of the default (usually
white but this depends on the image type) if you are transferring
a monochrome image to a color display.
-foreground=color
Use color as the foreground color instead of black if you are
transferring a monochrome image to a color display. You can also
use this to invert the foreground and background colors of a
monochrome image.
-title=text
Set the title bar title of the window. Default is the file name
of the input file, or "stdin" if the image is from Standard In-
put.
SEE ALSO
ppmsvgalib(1), pam(1), pnm(1), xzgv, xwud, xloadimage, xli
AUTHOR
pamx is by Bryan Henderson, in March 2006, based on xloadimage by Jim
Frost, Centerline Software, jimf@centerline.com, 1989-1993.
Jim's code contained the following copyright notice and license:
Copyright 1989, 1993 Jim Frost
Permission to use, copy, modify, distribute, and sell this soft-
ware 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 permis-
sion notice appear in supporting documentation. The author makes
no representations about the suitability of this software for any
purpose. It is provided "as is" without express or implied war-
ranty.
THE AUTHOR DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES WITH REGARD TO THIS SOFTWARE,
INCLUDING ALL IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS,
IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHOR BE LIABLE FOR ANY SPECIAL, INDIRECT
OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES OR ANY DAMAGES WHATSOEVER RESULTING FROM
LOSS OF USE, DATA OR PROFITS, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT,
NEGLIGENCE OR OTHER TORTIOUS ACTION, ARISING OUT OF OR IN CONNEC-
TION WITH THE USE OR PERFORMANCE OF THIS SOFTWARE.
Lots of other people contributed to Xloadimage, and they are listed in
the file COPYRIGHT in the source code.
HISTORY
pamx was new in Netpbm 10.34 (May 2006).
pamx is essentially based on the classic X displayer program xloadimage
by Jim Frost, 1989. Bryan Henderson stripped it down and adapted it to
Netpbm in March 2006.
The following features of xloadimage are left out of pamx, to be more
compatible with Netpbm's philosophy of simple building blocks. Note
that there are other programs in Netpbm that do most of these things:
• zoom in/out
• ability to accept formats other than Netpbm
• image transformations (brightening, clipping, rotating, etc)
• decompressing and other decoding of input
• ability to display on the root window
• slide show
pamx also differs from xloadimage in that it uses Libnetpbm.
There is virtually no code from xloadimage actually in pamx, because
Bryan rewrote it all to make it easier to understand.
DOCUMENT SOURCE
This manual page was generated by the Netpbm tool 'makeman' from HTML
source. The master documentation is at
http://netpbm.sourceforge.net/doc/pamx.html
netpbm documentation 02 July 2011 Pamx User Manual(1)
Generated by dwww version 1.16 on Tue Dec 16 03:57:32 CET 2025.