# The XPM
Frequently Asked Questions

This article contains the answers to some Frequently Asked Questions about the XPM format and/or library. If you don't find the answer to your problem here, then you can mail either to lehors@sophia.inria.fr or to the mailing list xpm-talk@sophia.inria.fr.

## Contents

1. How do I convert my images to or from XPM ?
2. Why are my XPM files said to be invalid ?
3. Why does my program core dumps using XPM ?
4. Why does my program core dumps using XPM with a widget ?
5. How can I get a non rectangular icon using XPM ?
6. What exactly triggers the creation of a mask when using XPM ?
7. How should I use the mask ?
8. Is there a string to pixmap converter somewhere ?
9. How can I edit XPM icons ?
10. Is there a collection of icons somewhere ?
11. The documentation fails to print out. Why ?
12. Copyright

## 1. How do I convert my images to or from XPM ?

Netpbm is surely the best image conversion package that I know of. It defines formats for color, gray and monochrome images and provides a set of filters. Thus a GIF image can be converted to XPM with something like:

$ giftoppm youricon.gif | ppmtoxpm > youricon.xpm

The latest release can be found at least from wuarchive.wustl.edu (128.252.135.4), directory /graphics/graphics/packages/NetPBM

## 2. Why are my XPM files said to be invalid ?

There are three official versions of the XPM format. The XPM library since version 3.3 can read all them but writes out only XPM 3. Also the small program called sxpm which is part of the XPM library package can be used to automatically translate XPM 1 and 2 files to XPM 3 with a command such as:

$ sxpm -nod yourxpm1or2file -o yourxpm3file

Also, the XPM format defines "None" to be the color name meaning "transparent", but IXI used to hack the XPM library in its early days to handle transparency as "#Transparent". This makes IXI format not compatible with the official XPM format, and so not readable neither by the official XPM library nor any of the programs built on top of it.

The only solutions are either to stick on IXI programs which can deal with their format or convert your files to the standard XPM format. This can be done simply by changing "#Transparent" to "None".

## 3. Why does my program core dumps using XPM ?

Be sure the XpmAttributes structure you pass by reference has a valid valuemask. You can give NULL instead if you don't want to use an XpmAttributes but if you do, you MUST initialize its valuemask component to some valid value, at least 0, otherwise unpredictable errors can occur.

So instead of doing something like:

          XpmAttributes attrib;

          XpmReadFileToPixmap(dpy, d, filename, &pixmap, &mask, &attrib);

you should do:

          XpmAttributes attrib;

          attrib.valuemask = 0;
          XpmReadFileToPixmap(dpy, d, filename, &pixmap, &mask, &attrib);

## 4. Why does my program core dumps using XPM with a widget ?

- First the XPM library is Xlib level, so don't pass your widget as a Drawable parameter. A Drawable is either a Window or a Pixmap. The widget's window can do the job but:
- Then a widget only gets a Window when realized, so passing XtWindow(widget) with a not yet realized widget is wrong. Either realize you widget first or use another window. Since the Drawable parameter is only used to specify the screen to which the pixmap must be created on, most of the time the default root window is just fine.

## 5. How can I get a non rectangular icon using XPM ?

The X Window System does not support transparent color. However there are several ways you can use to get the same visual effect using XPM:

- First you can use the None color to get a shape mask and use it as explained below (question 7).
- Second you can define a symbolic color name such as "mask" in the XPM format file, then use the color overriding mechanism to set this symbolic color to the color of the underlying object. Note that in this case the XPM library won't create a shape mask, and that if the color of the underlying object is changed then you'll have to create a new pixmap.

## 6. What exactly triggers the creation of a mask when using XPM ?

Basically a mask is created if "None" is used as one of the color of the pixmap. Be aware that this is not only true if it is used in the XPM of the pixmap since the colors can be overridden at load time. So a mask is created if the "None" color is used at load time, coming either from the XPM definition or the color overriding.

## 7. How should I use the mask ?

There are basically two ways of using the mask:

- Use the mask as a shapemask with the X11 Nonrectangular Saphe Window Extension. Typically this is what should be done when the icon is used in a desktop.
- Use the mask as a clipmask in the GC you pass to XCopyArea when drawing the pixmap. So the "transparent" pixels being not actually drawn will get the underlying pixels colors.

## 8. Is there a string to pixmap converter for Motif ?

Yes, Motif 2.0 or later does support XPM pixmaps as well as XBM bitmaps.

## 9. How can I edit XPM icons ?

As listed below several editors either commercial or not are supporting the XPM format. However, pixmap is the one I would recommend since it is freely available and, being fully dedicated to XPM, it allows to edit all the special things, such as the symbolic color names, which makes XPM different from all the other image formats. Pixmap can always be found by ftp from ftp.x.org (contrib) and avahi.inria.fr (pub/pixmap).

Last Update: 3 August 1994

XPM Icon Editors
Program | Infos | Source/Author | Platforms | SA | XPM | cost
--- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | ---

pixmap

- ftp://ftp.x.org/contrib/application/pixmap/pixmap2.6.tar.gz
- requires 3.4 or higher revision of Xpm lib.
- supports all XPM format features
- current version doesn't work on 24-plane displays

Lionel Mallet

source

yes

3

NC

pixt

- ftp://ftp.x.org/contrib/pixt.tar.Z
- doesn't work on 24-plane displays
- last updated November 1991

J. Michael Flanery

source

yes

1

NC

pixed

- part of X.desktop
- current version doesn't work on 24-plane displays

IXI

Many UNIX

no

3

N/A

olpixmap

- packaged with the OLIT (OpenLook) toolkit

USL

Sun, SVR4.2, UnixWare

no

1

N/A

xfedor

- only uses XLIB
- doesn't work on 24-plane displays

Daniel Dardailler

source

yes

3

NC

SCOpaint

- included with the ODT package

SCO/Wing Eng

ODT

yes

2.8

N/A

pme.icn

- written in the Icon language

Icon Project

source

yes

3

NC

PixEditT

- there is currently no support for editing the colormap

Free Widget Foundation

source

yes

3

NC

xscribble

- requires the FWF, 8-bit pseudocolor
- ftp://ftp.cis.ufl.edu/pub/thoth
- Alpha version (last updated April 1993)

Robert Forsman

source

yes

?

NC

vueicon

- included with Vue3.0

Hewlett-Packard

HP

yes

3

N/A

iconedit V3 |  | SunSoft | Sparc/Sun3 | yes | 2 | N/A

Pixmap Editor

- this is a Widget, not a complete program

ICS

?

yes

?

?

ezX |  | Sunrise Softwarey | ? | ? | ? | N/A

XPaint

- full featured, works on all displays
- current release is 2.1.1 (last update January 1994)

David Koblas

source

yes

3

NC

Phoenix

- full featured, 24-bit painting program, requires Motif.
- ftp://nic.funet.fi/pub/graphics/packages/phoenix
- Beta version (last updated September 1993)

ohtcolor@niksula.hut.fi

source

yes

3

NC

pixed

- pixed is part of the TeleUSE UIMS
- More info is available from service@ignite.alsys.com

Alsys

Many UNIX

yes

3

N/A

display

- ftp://ftp.x.org/contrib/application/ImageMagick/ImageMagick-3.2.tar.gz
- lots of image conversion and manipulation features

John Cristy

source

yes

3

NC

SA - Stand Alone program
NC - No Charge (i.e. free); most programs are copyrighted.
XPM - XPM format supported
source - built from source code; likely works on all standard X platforms
N/A - icon editor is normally distributed with other software

Send updates, additions, corrections, etc. to dan@bristol.com

## 10. Is there a collection of icons somewhere ?

At least there is one freely available: Anthony's X Icon Library. You can found it on several ftp servers, such as server.berkeley.edu/pub/AIcons. It contains only small icons (less than about 100x100 pixels in size) which are stored in groups in a logical way. Color icons are stored in XPM format and Black & White icons in XBM.

## 11. The documentation fails to print out. Why ?

The PostScript documentation file is formatted for US letter paper. Frame Maker tries very hard to ensure that you have the right paper and punts if you don't. However, you can easily work around this problem by applying the following patch. If for some reason applying the patch fails, you can still do it by hand. Just locate the corresponding block in the PS file and remove the lines with a leading '-' character. By the way, this applies to any doc generated by Frame Maker. The corresponding block might be slightly different depending on which version of Frame Maker was used, but it is still easy to locate.

    *** xpm.PS      Wed Sep 11 15:47:43 1996
    --- xpm-A4.PS   Thu Nov 21 09:27:28 1996
    ***************
    *** 647,668 ****
            0 ne /edown exch def
            /yscale exch def
            /xscale exch def
    -       FMLevel1 {
    -               manualfeed {setmanualfeed} if
    -               /FMdicttop countdictstack 1 add def
    -               /FMoptop count def
    -               setpapername
    -               manualfeed {true} {papersize} ifelse
    -               {manualpapersize} {false} ifelse
    -               {desperatepapersize} {false} ifelse
    -               { (Can't select requested paper size for Frame print job!) FMFAILURE } if
    -               count -1 FMoptop {pop pop} for
    -               countdictstack -1 FMdicttop {pop end} for
    -               }
    -               {{1 dict dup /PageSize [paperwidth paperheight]put setpagedevice}stopped
    -               { (Can't select requested paper size for Frame print job!) FMFAILURE } if
    -                {1 dict dup /ManualFeed manualfeed put setpagedevice } stopped pop }
    -       ifelse

            FMPColor {
                    currentcolorscreen
    --- 647,652 ----

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