How to create a pixmap scrollbar for mlterm

1. Introduction

This document provides a simple guide for creating pixmap scrollbar for mlterm using a pixmap_engine plugin. The pixmap_engine has been a part of mlterm since version 2.8.0.

2. Image file

To create the pixmap scrollbar, you will need making images which construct a scrollbar as the below figure. The images must be formatted as PNG, and you must not change the file name. You need not make all images. For example, in case of the below figure, there are not bg_top.png and bg_bottom.png.

3. Location and 'rc' file

The pixmap scrollbar location is $PREFIX/share/mlterm/scrollbars/[scrollbar_name]/ or $HOME/.mlterm/scrollbars/[scrollbar_name]/. The first thing you will need to do is to put the file called 'rc' into the [scrollbar_name] directory. The 'rc' file is a simple text file. It has some parameters which configure how the pixmap scrollbar is shown. In the 'rc' file, lines starting with '#' are ignored and the first line must be the following line:

engine = pixmap_engine

4. Parameter

For minimum configuration, you need the following parameters:

key type default description
witdh decimal number 0 width of scrollbar (pixel)
button_up_height decimal number 0 height of button_up.png (pixel)
button_down_height decimal number 0 height of button_down.png (pixel)
top_margin decimal number 0 top margin for movable area of scrollbar (pixel)
bottom_margin decimal number 0 bottom margin for movable area of scrollbar (pixel)

Also, for more flexible design, optional parameters are available.

key type default description
button_layout string "none" layout of button ("none", "northgravity", "southgravity")
bg_tile string "true" bg_body.png is tiled or scaled ("true", "false")
slider_tile string "false" slider_body.png is tiled or scaled ("true", "false")
bg_enable_trans string "false" use transparent background ("true", "false")