Documentation can be found at http://www.purl.org/tcl/home/man/tcl8.4/TkCmd/bitmap.htm .

A bitmap is monochromatic representation.  
Use a [photo] [image] when you want color or greyscale images or icons (aka a [pixmap]).

[Tk] uses bitmaps in two senses: directly (via various widgets' '''-bitmap''' options) and indirectly through the `bitmap` [image] type. ''They are different!'' Bitmap images are, first and foremost, images. Naked bitmaps are distinctly uncommon, as well as being difficult to work with in practice.

If you want to edit the bitmap image, it's easier to use a [photo] with just two colors.
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"[How to edit an executable's desktop icon]"

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Sometimes people want to know how to edit an X bitmap or to create a new one.
See [Paul Obermeier]'s http://www.posoft.de/ 's poBitmap, part of [poSoft utilities] for one tool.

[KPV] See [Bitmap Editor] for a simple tool to create and edit bitmaps.

Also  http://www.sfu.ca/~gay/bme.zip
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A variant [Tk]-pertinent sense of "bitmap" is as a permissible argument to specific
[canvas] subcommands.  A model of such uses is
    .canvas itemconfig rectangle -stipple $bitmap
While Tk offers many interesting bitmap capabilities, it can be difficult tracking 
down their documentation.  A good starting point is the distribution man page for
the library entry point Tk_GetBitmap
[http://www.tcl.tk/man/tcl8.4/TkLib/GetBitmap.htm].
Along with much else, it provides a list--"error", "gray50", "question", and so on--of
standard bitmaps built in to Tk.  Apparently Tk provides no script-level [introspection]
to access this list.  
To view these built-ins, therefore, it's necessary to perform something like the script below. Note, however, that the last 16 bitmaps (from document to caution) are only available on the Mac platform.
    set bitmap_list {error gray75 gray50 gray25 gray12 hourglass
	info questhead question warning document stationery edition
	application accessory folder pfolder trash floppy ramdisk
	cdrom preferences querydoc stop note caution}

    eval destroy [winfo children .]

    canvas .c -height 200 -width 200 -background linen
    listbox .l -height [llength $bitmap_list]

    foreach bitmap $bitmap_list {
	.l insert end $bitmap
    }
    pack .c .l -fill x


    bind .l <ButtonRelease-1> show_bitmap

    proc show_bitmap {} {
	set pattern [.l get [.l curselection]]
	.c delete bitmap
	.c create bitmap 100 100 -bitmap $pattern -tags bitmap
    }
Run this and you'll see such pictures as ... 

[http://tcl.typoscriptics.de/misc/bitmap.gif]


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See also:
   * [Tk syntax help]
   * [Arts and crafts of Tcl-Tk programming]
   * [bitmap.to.photo]
   * [bme]
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!!!!!!
%|[Category Command] |[Category Graphics] |%
!!!!!!