3.5 Invoking avatarsay

The format for running avatarsay is:

     avatarsay [options] [textfiles]
     avatarsay [options] --execute program [program options]

If textfiles is - then the input is read from stdin and the program doesn't loop.

The program avatarsay supports the following options:

--help

-h

show a short summary about the invocation of avatarsay

--version

-v

show the version of the command

--terminal

-t

terminal mode, ie. run a shell in the balloon

--execute

-x

-e

execute program in the balloon

A program name must be given. Options after the program name are options for the executed program.

--nocolor

-b

no color for executed programs and the terminal mode

--window

-w

try to run the program in a window (default)

--fullscreen

-f

try to run the program in fullscreen mode

--fullfullscreen

-F

like -f, but use the current display size

This option is also useful when there is only a fullscreen mode, but switching the screen resolution doesn't work; for example with the VESA framebuffer device of the kernel Linux

This option is only supported with SDL version 1.2.10 or newer.

--encoding=name

the input data is encoded in the encoding name

It depends on your systems iconv implementation, which encodings are supported. On some systems you can get a list with the command iconv -l.

--latin1

-l

the input data is encoded in Latin-1

--utf-8

--utf8

-u8

-u

the input data is encoded in UTF-8

--once

-1

run only once (don't loop)

--popup

-p

popup, ie. don’t move the avatar in

Use this for a fast popup text. Use the command .stop to also get a fast end.

--no-delay

-n

don't delay the text output

--raw

-r

output raw text (don't handle any commands or striplines)

--ignoreeof

-i

ignore end of file conditions; use this when the input is not a file

3.5.1 Environment variables

The command avatarsay supports the following environment variables:

AVATARIMAGE

image file with an avatar with the full path

DATADIR

the directory, where images and audio files are located (has no influence on the environment variable AVATARIMAGE)

LC_ALL

LC_CTYPE

LANG

these variables influence the default encoding and the language

SHELL

the shell for the terminal-mode

HOME

the starting directory for the teminal-mode

3.5.2 Configuration file

You can also use a configuration file with the name /etc/avatarsay to set values for AVATARIMAGE and DATADIR.

for example:

     AVATARIMAGE=/usr/local/share/pixmaps/myavatar.bmp
     AVATARDATADIR=/usr/local/share/akfavatar

See Different avatar image.