Blinkensim 2.2 - the next generation Blinkenlights simulator
------------------------------------------------------------

If you have no clue what Blinkenlights is, take a look at
http://www.blinkenlights.de/ first.

Blinkensim is a Blinkenlights simulator. The first version used to
speak spoke the network that we used in the real thing. If you haven't
seen the real thing, you missed something, but this simulator will
probably make you understand the Blinkenhype.

This version is built upon blib and thus speaks the next generation
Blinkenlights protocol. Since almost all functionality is in blib,
there is only very few code here.

There are two version of blinkensim:

- blinkensim-directfb uses DirectFB to draw to the Linux frame buffer
  device.

- blinkensim-gtk uses GTK+-2.0 and is thus mainly targetted at the
  X11 window system. It should however be possible to compile a
  version for Win32.

You also need pkg-config, a small utility that helps to locate
installed software such as DirectFB. pkg-config is available from
http://www.freedesktop.org/software/pkgconfig/. If you installed blib
into a different prefix than pkg-config, you may need to adapt the
PKG_CONFIG_PATH environment variable. See the pkg-config(1) man-page.

The simulators need blinkenthemes to work so you will also want to
install the blinkenthemes package.


Installation
------------

Change to the toplevel source directory and type

  ./configure
  make
  make install

You can pass the usual options to configure (try ./configure --help).


Usage
-----

Usage is very simple, just start it and pass it a theme on the
command-line. For example:

  blinkensim-gtk hdl-640x480

Themes are by default searched first in the current directory, then in
the blinkentheme path as defined by blib ($prefix/share/blib-1.0/themes).
Or, if the environment variable B_THEME_PATH is set, in the directories
defined therein. You can use the --list command-line option to get a
list of available themes.

blinkensim-directfb also supports the usual options for DirectFB
applications (use --dfb-help to get a list). This version defaults to
fullscreen mode and exits when either the Q or ESC keys are pressed.

The GTK+ version creates a window the size of the theme. If you use
GTK+-2.2 you can switch to full-screen mode by pressing the F key.


But it doesn't blink
--------------------

blinkensim implements only one half of the Blinkenlights setup. You
still need a source for UDP packets. A good choice is the utility
bsend that you can find in the blinkentools package.


Have Blinkenfun,
	Sven Neumann  <sven@gimp.org>
