mapscroller - Man Page

a slowly-scrolling map of a random place on Earth.

Synopsis

mapscroller [--display host:display.screen] [--visual visual] [--window] [--root] [--window-id number] [--delay number] [--speed number] [--duration seconds] [--map-level number] [--url-template URL] [--origin LAT/LON] [--no-titles] [--no-arrow] [--fps]

Description

A slowly-scrolling map of a random place on Earth.  The map images are loaded from openstreetmap.org, or any compatible service.

The Earth is very big, and full of Things.

As you ponder these maps, remember that traffic always expands to fill all available lanes, every car is a policy failure, and the concept of "jaywalking" was invented for profit by auto industry lobbyists in the 1920s.

Options

--visual visual

Specify which visual to use.  Legal values are the name of a visual class, or the id number (decimal or hex) of a specific visual.

--window

Draw on a newly-created window.  This is the default.

--root

Draw on the root window.

--window-id number

Draw on the specified window.

--delay number

Per-frame delay, in microseconds.  Default: 30000 (0.03 seconds).

--speed number

Scrolling speed.  2.0 means twice as fast, 0.5 means half as fast.

--duration seconds

When in one of the random modes, re-select the map position every N seconds.  Default 20 minutes.

--map-level number

Larger numbers are zoomed in more. 5 - 18, default 15.

--url-template URL

The map tile server to use. Default: Open Street Map.  You can find others here:

https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tiles#Servers

--origin location

"Random" means a fully random location somewhere on Earth, excluding the oceans.

"Random-city" means to select from a built-in list of several hundred major cities.  This is the default.

Otherwise, this must be a latitude/longitude pair, as floats.

--titles | --no-titles

Whether to show the current coordinates in the upper left.  Default true.

--arrow | --no-arrow

Whether to show a directional arrow in the middle of the screen.  Default true.

--fps | --no-fps

Whether to show a frames-per-second display at the bottom of the screen.

Files

The map tile images are loaded from the network and cached on disk. Up to 20MB of them are retained.  Depending on your operating system, the cache directory will be one of:

        $HOME/.cache/xscreensaver/mapscroller/
        $HOME/tmp/.xscreensaver-mapscroller/
        $HOME/.xscreensaver-mapscroller.cache/
        $HOME/Library/Caches/org.jwz.xscreensaver.mapscroller/

Bugs

Some parts of the world are boring.

Environment

DISPLAY

to get the default host and display number.

XENVIRONMENT

to get the name of a resource file that overrides the global resources stored in the RESOURCE_MANAGER property.

XSCREENSAVER_WINDOW

The window ID to use with --root.

HTTP_PROXY, HTTPS_PROXY, http_proxy, or https_proxy

to get the default proxy host and port.

See Also

X(1), xscreensaver(1), https://www.openstreetmap.org/

Author

Jamie Zawinski.

Info

6.08-2.fc40 (27-Jan-2024) X Version 11 XScreenSaver manual