NAME

       glyphs - format of .glyphs files

DESCRIPTION

       Glyph  files  (``.glyph'' extension) are used to store commonly-used bit patterns (glyphs)
       for Magic.  Right now, the bit patterns are used for two purposes in Magic.   First,  they
       specify patterns for programmable cursors:  each cursor shape (e.g. the arrow used for the
       wiring tool) is read in as a glyph from a glyph file.  Second,  glyphs  are  used  by  the
       window  manager  to  represent the icons displayed at the ends of scroll bars.  Glyph file
       names normally have the extension .glyph.

       Glyph files are stored in ASCII format.  Lines beginning with ``#'' are considered  to  be
       comments  and are ignored.  Blank lines are also ignored.  The first non-comment line in a
       glyph file must have the syntax size nGlyphs width height The  nGlyphs  field  must  be  a
       number  giving the total number of glyphs stored in the file.  The width and height fields
       give the dimensions of each glyph in pixels.  All glyphs in the same file  must  have  the
       same size.

       The size line is followed by a description for each of the glyphs.  Each glyph consists of
       height lines each containing 2×width characters. Each pair of characters corresponds to  a
       bit position in the glyph, with the leftmost pair on the topmost line corresponding to the
       upper-left pixel in the glyph.

       The first character of each pair specifies the color to appear in that pixel.   The  color
       is  represented  as as a single character, which must be the short name of a display style
       in the current display style file.  Some commonly-used characters are K for black,  W  for
       white,  and  .  for  the  background color (when . is used in a cursor, it means that that
       pixel position is transparent:  the underlying picture appears through the  cursor).   See
       ``Magic  Maintainer's  Manual  #3:  Display  Styles,  Color  Maps,  and  Glyphs'' for more
       information.

       The second character of each pair is normally blank, except for one pixel per glyph  which
       may  contain  a ``*'' in the second character.  The ``*'' is used for programmable cursors
       to indicate the hot-spot:  the pixel corresponding to the ``*'' is the one that the cursor
       is considered to point to.

       For an example of a glyph file, see ∼cad/lib/magic/sys/color.glyphs.

SEE ALSO

       magic(1), dstyle(5)