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.TH FACE 6

.SH NAME

face \- face files

.SH DESCRIPTION

The directories

.B /usr/$user/lib/face

and

.B /lib/face

contain a hierarchy of images of people.

In those directories are subdirectories named by the sizes of

the corresponding image files:

.B 48x48x1

(48 by 48 pixels, one bit per pixel);

.B 48x48x2

(48 by 48 pixels, two (grey) bits per pixel);

.B 48x48x4

(48 by 48 pixels, four (grey) bits per pixel);

.B 48x48x8

(48 by 48 pixels, eight (color-mapped) bits per pixel);

.B 512x512x8

(512 by 512 pixels, eight (color-mapped) bits per pixel);

.B 512x512x24

(512 by 512 pixels, twenty-four bits per pixel (3 times 8 bits

per color)).

The large files serve no special purpose; they are stored

as images

(see

.IR image (6)).

The small files are the `icons'  displayed by

.B faces

and

.B seemail

(see

.IR faces (1));

for depths less than 4, their format is special.

.PP

One- and two-bit deep icons are stored as text, one line of the file to one scan line

of display.

Each line is divided into 8-bit, 16-bit, or 32-bit big-endian words,

stored as a list of comma-separated hexadecimal C constants,

such as:

.IP

.EX

0x9200, 0x1bb0, 0x003e,

.EE

.PP

This odd format is historical and the programs that read it

are somewhat forgiving about blanks and the need for commas.

.PP

The files

.BR  lib/face/*/.dict

hold a correspondence between users at machines

and face files.

The format is

.IP

.EX

.I machine\fB/\fPuser directory\fB/\fPfile\fB.\fPver

.EE

.PP

The

.I machine

is the domain name of the machine sending the message,

and

.I user

the name of the user sending it, as recorded in

.BR /sys/log/mail .

The

.I directory

is a further subdirectory of (say)

.BR /lib/face/48x48x1 ,

named by a single letter corresponding to the first character

of the user names.  The

.I file

is the name of the file, typically but not always the user name,

and

.I ver

is a number to distinguish different images, for example to

distinguish the image for Bill Gates from the image for Bill Joy,

both of which might otherwise be called

.BR b/bill .

For example, Bill Gates might be represented by the line

.IP

.EX

microsoft.com/bill b/bill.1

.EE

.PP

If multiple entries exist for a user in the various

.B .dict

files,

.I faces

chooses the highest pixel size less than or equal to that of the

display on which it is running.

.PP

Finally, or rather firstly, the file

.B /lib/face/.machinelist

contains a list of machine/domain pairs, one per line,

to map any of a set of machines to a single domain name to

be looked up in the

.B .dict

files.  The machine name may be a regular expression,

so for example the entry

.IP

.EX

\&.*research\e.bell-labs\e.com    astro

.EE

.PP

maps any of the machines in Bell Labs Research into the

shorthand name

.BR astro ,

which then appears as a domain name in the

.B .dict

files.

.SH "SEE ALSO"

.IR mail (1),

.IR tweak (1),

.IR image (6)