xbelld(1)                 BSD General Commands Manual                xbelld(1)

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...
     xbelld -h

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, emulat-
     ing the PC speaker beep using your sound card (default), or playing a PCM
     encoded  WAVE  file. The actions involving the sound card are only avail-
     able 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 ter-
     minal 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
     If none of these options are specified, the defaults are  read  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/

AUTHOR
     Gautam Iyer <gi1242@users.sourceforge.net>

X Version 11                    April 13, 2008                    X Version 11