---
name: "decayscreen"
section: "1"
platform: "linux"
package: "xscreensaver"
version: "3.34-3"
release: "Debian 3.0 (Woody)"
platforms: ["linux"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/decayscreen"
---

# decayscreen(1)

make a screen meltdown.

## NAME

decayscreen - make a screen meltdown.

## SYNOPSIS

**decayscreen** \[-display *host:display.screen*\] \[-window\] \[-root\] \[-mono\] \[-install\] \[-visual *visual*\] \[-delay *usecs*\] \[-mode *mode*\]

## DESCRIPTION

The *decayscreen* program creates a melting effect by randomly shifting rectangles around the screen.

The image that it manipulates will be grabbed from the portion of the screen underlying the window, or from the system's video input,  or from a random file on disk, as indicated by  the *grabDesktopImages*, *grabVideoFrames*,  and *chooseRandomImages* options in the *~/.xscreensaver* file; see [**xscreensaver-demo**(1)](/xscreensaver-demo/1.md) for more details.

## OPTIONS

*decayscreen* accepts the following options:

- **-window**

  Draw on a newly-created window.  This is the default.

- **-root**

  Draw on the root window.

- **-mono**

  If on a color display, pretend we're on a monochrome display.

- **-install**

  Install a private colormap for the window.

- **-visual *visual***

  Specify which visual to use.  Legal values are the name of a visual class, or the id number (decimal or hex) of a specific visual.

- **-delay *microseconds***

  Slow it down.

- **-mode *mode***

  The direction in which the image should tend to slide.  Legal values are *random* (meaning pick one), *up*, *left*, *right*,  *down*, *upleft*, *downleft*, *upright*, *downright*,  *shuffle* (meaning perfer no particular direction), *in* (meaning move things toward the center), *out* (meaning move things away from the center), *melt* (meaning melt straight  downward),  *stretch* (meaning stretch the screen downward), and *fuzz* (meaning go blurry instead of melty).

## ENVIRONMENT

- **DISPLAY**

  to get the default host and display number.

- **XENVIRONMENT**

  to get the name of a resource file that overrides the global resources stored in the RESOURCE\_MANAGER property.

## SEE ALSO

**X**(1), [**xscreensaver**(1)](/xscreensaver/1.md), [**xscreensaver-demo**(1)](/xscreensaver-demo/1.md), [**xscreensaver-getimage**(1)](/xscreensaver-getimage/1.md)

## COPYRIGHT

Copyright 1992 by Vivek Khera.  Permission to use, copy, modify, distribute,  and sell this software and its documentation for any purpose is hereby granted without fee, provided that the above copyright notice appear in all copies and that both that copyright notice and this permission notice appear in  supporting documentation.  No representations are made about the suitability of this software for any purpose.  It is provided "as is" without express or implied warranty.

## AUTHOR

Vivek Khera \<khera@cs.duke.edu\>, 05-Aug-93; based on code by David Wald, 1988. Modified by jwz, 28-Nov-97.   Modified by Rick Schultz \<rick@skapunx.net\> 05-Apr-1999.