<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><title>4.10. libcaca – Color ASCII Art library</title><link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="default.css"><meta name="generator" content="DocBook XSL Stylesheets V1.76.1"><link rel="home" href="index.html" title="MPlayer - The Movie Player"><link rel="up" href="video.html" title="Chapter 4. Video output devices"><link rel="prev" href="aalib.html" title="4.9. AAlib – text mode displaying"><link rel="next" href="vesa.html" title="4.11. VESA - output to VESA BIOS"><link rel="preface" href="howtoread.html" title="How to read this documentation"><link rel="chapter" href="intro.html" title="Chapter 1. Introduction"><link rel="chapter" href="install.html" title="Chapter 2. Installation"><link rel="chapter" href="usage.html" title="Chapter 3. Usage"><link rel="chapter" href="video.html" title="Chapter 4. Video output devices"><link rel="chapter" href="ports.html" title="Chapter 5. Ports"><link rel="chapter" href="mencoder.html" title="Chapter 6. Basic usage of MEncoder"><link rel="chapter" href="encoding-guide.html" title="Chapter 7. Encoding with MEncoder"><link rel="chapter" href="faq.html" title="Chapter 8. Frequently Asked Questions"><link rel="appendix" href="bugreports.html" title="Appendix A. How to report bugs"><link rel="appendix" href="skin.html" title="Appendix B. MPlayer skin format"></head><body bgcolor="white" text="black" link="#0000FF" vlink="#840084" alink="#0000FF"><div class="navheader"><table width="100%" summary="Navigation header"><tr><th colspan="3" align="center">4.10.
<code class="systemitem">libcaca</code> – Color ASCII Art library
</th></tr><tr><td width="20%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="aalib.html">Prev</a> </td><th width="60%" align="center">Chapter 4. Video output devices</th><td width="20%" align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href="vesa.html">Next</a></td></tr></table><hr></div><div class="sect1" title="4.10. libcaca – Color ASCII Art library"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h2 class="title" style="clear: both"><a name="caca"></a>4.10.
<code class="systemitem">libcaca</code> – Color ASCII Art library
</h2></div></div></div><p>
The <a class="ulink" href="http://sam.zoy.org/projects/libcaca/" target="_top"><code class="systemitem">libcaca</code></a>
library is a graphics library that outputs text instead of pixels, so that it
can work on older video cards or text terminals. It is not unlike the famous
<code class="systemitem">AAlib</code> library.
<code class="systemitem">libcaca</code> needs a terminal to work, thus
it should work on all Unix systems (including Mac OS X) using either the
<code class="systemitem">slang</code> library or the
<code class="systemitem">ncurses</code> library, on DOS using the
<code class="systemitem">conio.h</code> library, and on Windows systems
using either <code class="systemitem">slang</code> or
<code class="systemitem">ncurses</code> (through Cygwin emulation) or
<code class="systemitem">conio.h</code>. If
<tt class="filename">./configure</tt>
detects <code class="systemitem">libcaca</code>, the caca libvo driver
will be built.
</p><div class="itemizedlist" title="The differences with AAlib are the following:"><p class="title"><b>The differences with <code class="systemitem">AAlib</code> are
the following:</b></p><ul class="itemizedlist" type="disc"><li class="listitem"><p>
16 available colors for character output (256 color pairs)
</p></li><li class="listitem"><p>
color image dithering
</p></li></ul></div><div class="itemizedlist" title="But libcaca also has the following limitations:"><p class="title"><b>But <code class="systemitem">libcaca</code> also has the
following limitations:</b></p><ul class="itemizedlist" type="disc"><li class="listitem"><p>
no support for brightness, contrast, gamma
</p></li></ul></div><p>
You can use some keys in the caca window to change rendering options:
</p><div class="informaltable"><table border="1"><colgroup><col><col></colgroup><thead><tr><th>Key</th><th>Action</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td><span class="keycap"><b>d</b></span></td><td>
Toggle <code class="systemitem">libcaca</code> dithering methods.
</td></tr><tr><td><span class="keycap"><b>a</b></span></td><td>
Toggle <code class="systemitem">libcaca</code> antialiasing.
</td></tr><tr><td><span class="keycap"><b>b</b></span></td><td>
Toggle <code class="systemitem">libcaca</code> background.
</td></tr></tbody></table></div><div class="variablelist" title="libcaca will also look for certain environment variables:"><p class="title"><b><code class="systemitem">libcaca</code> will also look for
certain environment variables:</b></p><dl><dt><span class="term"><tt class="option">CACA_DRIVER</tt></span></dt><dd><p>
Set recommended caca driver. e.g. ncurses, slang, x11.
</p></dd><dt><span class="term"><tt class="option">CACA_GEOMETRY (X11 only)</tt></span></dt><dd><p>
Specifies the number of rows and columns. e.g. 128x50.
</p></dd><dt><span class="term"><tt class="option">CACA_FONT (X11 only)</tt></span></dt><dd><p>
Specifies the font to use. e.g. fixed, nexus.
</p></dd></dl></div><p>
Use the <tt class="option">-framedrop</tt> option if your computer is not fast
enough to render all frames.
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