sane-project-frontends/doc/xscanimage.man

.TH xscanimage 1 "1 Feb 2003"
.IX xscanimage
.SH NAME
xscanimage \- scan an image
.SH SYNOPSIS
.B xscanimage
.RB [ --version | -V ]
.RB [ --help | -h ]
.RB [ --display
.IR d ]
.RB [ --no-xshm ]
.RB [ --sync ]
.RI [ devicename ]
.SH DESCRIPTION
.B xscanimage
provides a graphical user-interface to control an image
acquisition device such as a flatbed scanner or a camera.  It allows
previewing and scanning invidual images and can be invoked either
directly from the command-line or through The GIMP image manipulation
program.  In the former case,
.B xscanimage
acts as a stand-alone program that saves acquired images in a suitable
PNM format (PBM for black-and-white images, PGM for grayscale images,
and PPM for color images).  In the latter case, the images are
directly passed to The GIMP for further processing.

.B xscanimage
accesses image acquisition devices through the SANE (Scanner Access
Now Easy) interface.  The list of available devices depends on
installed hardware and configuration.  When invoked without an
explicit devicename argument,
.B xscanimage
presents a dialog listing of all known and available devices. If the
environment variable SANE_DEFAULT_DEVICE is set to the devicename, the device
is preselected in the dialog. To access an available device that is not known
to the system, the devicename must be specified explicitly. The format of
devicename is backendname:devicefile (e.g. umax:/dev/sga).
.SH RUNNING UNDER THE GIMP
To run
.B xscanimage
under the
.BR gimp (1),
simply copy it to one of the
.BR gimp (1)
plug-ins directories.  If you want to conserve disk-space, you can
create a symlink instead.  For example, for gimp-1.0.x the command
.PP
ln -s @BINDIR@/xscanimage ~/.gimp/plug-ins/
.PP
and for gimp-1.2.x the command
.PP
ln -s @BINDIR@/xscanimage ~/.gimp-1.2/plug-ins/
.PP
adds a symlink for the
.B xscanimage
binary to the user's plug-ins directory.  After creating this symlink,
.B xscanimage
will be queried by
.BR gimp (1)
the next time it's invoked.  From then on,
.B xscanimage
can be invoked through "File->Acquire->Xscanimage->Device dialog..." menu entry.

You'll also find that the "File->Acquire->Xscanimage" menu contains short-cuts
to the SANE devices that were available at the time
.B xscanimage
was queried.  For example, the first PNM pseudo-device is typically
available as the short-cut "File->Acquire->Xscanimage->pnm:0".
Note that
.BR gimp (1)
caches these short-cuts in ~/.gimp/pluginrc.  Thus, when the list of
available devices changes (e.g., a new scanner is installed), then it
is typically desirable to rebuild this cache.  To do this, you can
either
.BR touch (1)
the
.B xscanimage
binary (e.g., "touch @BINDIR@/xscanimage") or delete the plug-ins cache
(e.g., "rm ~/.gimp/plug-ins").  Either way, invoking
.BR gimp (1)
afterwards will cause the pluginrc to be rebuilt.
.SH OPTIONS
.PP
If the
.B --version (-V)
option is given, 
.B xscanimage
will output its version number.
.PP
The
.B --help (-h)
flag prints a short summary of options.
.PP
The
.B --display
flag selects the X11 display used to present the graphical user-interface
(see
.BR X (1)
for details).
.PP
The
.B --no-xshm
flag requests not to use shared memory images.  Shared memory images
usually enhance performance but cause problems with some buggy X11
servers.  Unless your X11 server dies when running this program, there
is no need or advantage to specify this flag.
.PP
The
.B --sync
flag requests a synchronous connection with the X11 server.  This is for
debugging purposes only.
.SH ENVIRONMENT
.TP
.B SANE_DEFAULT_DEVICE
The default device-name. Example: SANE_DEFAULT_DEVICE="hp:/dev/scanner". 
.TP
.B SANE_DEBUG_XSCANIMAGE
This environment variable controls the debug level xscanimage.  Higher
debug levels increase the verbosity of the output.

              Value  Descsription
              0      print fatal errors
              1      print errors
              2      print warnings
              3      print information messages
              4      print everything

              Example:
              SANE_DEBUG_XSCANIMAGE=3
.SH FILES
.TP
.I $HOME/.sane/xscanimage/xscanimage.rc
This files holds the user preferences.  Normally, this file should not
be manipulated directly.  Instead, the user should customize the
program through the "Preferences" dialog.
.TP
.I $HOME/.sane/xscanimage/devicename.rc
For each device, there is one rc-file that holds the saved settings
for that particular device.  Normally, this file should not be
manipulated directly.  Instead, the user should use the
.B xscanimage
interface to select appropriate values and then save the device
settings using the "Preferences->Save Device Settings" menubar entry.
.TP
.I $HOME/.sane/preview-devicename.ppm
After acquiring a preview,
.B xscanimage
normally saves the preview image in this device-specific file.  Thus,
next time the program is started up, the program can present the old
preview image.  This feature can be turned off through the
"Preferences->Preview Options..." dialog.
.TP
.I @DATADIR@/sane-style.rc
This system-wide file controls the aspects of the user-interface such
as colors and fonts.  It is a GTK style file and provides fine control
over the visual aspects of the user-interface.
.TP
.I $HOME/.sane/sane-style.rc
This file serves the same purpose as the system-wide style file.  If
present, it takes precedence over the system wide style file.
.SH "SEE ALSO"
sane(7), gimp(1), xcam(1), scanimage(1), scanadf(1), sane-scsi(5),
sane\-dll(5), sane\-net(5), sane\-"backendname"(5)
.SH AUTHOR
Tristan Tarrant, Andreas Beck, David Mosberger, and Henning Meier-Geinitz