NAME
xbelld — X daemon
that performs an action every time the bell is rung
SYNOPSIS
xbelld |
[-bDT] [-t
delay] [-F
freq] [-v
vol] [-d
duration] |
xbelld |
[-bDTc] [-t
delay] -f
file |
xbelld |
[-bDT] [-t
delay] -e
prog... |
DESCRIPTION
xbelld is a tiny utility to aid people
who either don't like the default PC speaker beep, or (like me) use an ALSA
driver that doesn't yet have support for the PC speaker (e.g. the AD1981
chipset in the snd_hda_intel driver, as of 2008-04-06).
xbelld performs a given action every time
the X bell is rung. The actions xbelld can currently
perform include running a specified program, emulating the PC speaker beep
using your sound card (default), or playing a PCM encoded WAVE file. The
actions involving the sound card are only available if
xbelld is compiled with ALSA support. To convert
your favourite files to a PCM encoded WAVE file, use
mplayer -vo null -vc null -ao pcm:fast:file=out.wav audio_file
xbelld can also throttle the bell if it is
rung too often (e.g. some terminal program goes crazy), and/or disable the
audible bell (so that you don't get the annoying PC speaker beep in addition
to your xbelld action).
OPTIONS
Common
Options
-b- Run in background
-D- Don't disable audio bell on startup. The default is to disable the audio
bell. That way if you have a working PC speaker, you won't hear two beeps.
You can always enable / disable the bell using
xset(1)
-t
interval- Interval (ms) during which subsequent bells are throttled.
-T- Ring a test bell on startup. If you're experimenting with your PC speaker
values, then you can try something like
pkill xbelld; xbelld -TF400 -v100 -d100 &
and play with the numbers until you're satisfied with the
sound.
-h- Print help and exit
Options
to play an audio file
-c- Cache audio file in memory (less lags, especially when the disk is
busy).
-f
file- Name of file to play when bell is rung. The file must be a PCM encoded
wave file.
Options
to produce a beep
The default values of these options are from the bell parameters
of the server. (These can be set via
xset(1)
for instance). These options are only read on startup, and not every time the
bell is played. So if you change your bell parameters, you should restart
xbelld for the change to take effect.
-d
duration- Duration of the beep.
-F
freq- Frequency of the beep.
-v
vol- Volume of the beep (0 -- 127).
Options
to execute an external command
-e
cmd...- Command to execute when bell is rung. This must be last option.
SEE
ALSO
http://code.google.com/p/xbelld/
