The program's command-line grammar is as follows:
TELLTALE [<option>][<option>]...[<option>]
An <option> can be:
| - | Short form to set "error" (red) parameters. |
|---|---|
| = | Short form to set "mediocre" (amber) parameters. |
| + | Short form to set "good" (green) parameters. |
| -a | Create an active window. |
| -k | Kill all siblings and exit. (No tell-tale is displayed.) |
| -m | Create a maximised window. |
| -v | Make taskbar button visible. (Also affects use of ALT-TAB.) |
| -i<number> | Set flash period in milliseconds. |
| -w<number> | Set inter-program (or PING) period in milliseconds. |
| -u<number> | Set group number. |
| -d<text> | Set descriptive centred text that appears in the tell-tale. |
| -f<number>[,<name>] | Set the description text font size and / or font name. |
| -c<colour>[,<colour>] | Specify an additional box and / or text colour. |
| -g<xypair> | Set x and/or y gap from edge of screen. |
| -p<xypair> | Set x and/or y window position. |
| -s<xypair> | Set x and/or y window size. |
| -o<dir>[<number>] | Place a tell-tale into the <number>th position of an array of tell-tales with new items being added in the <dir> direction. |
| -bl | Put window in bottom, left-hand corner of the screen. |
| -br | Put window in bottom, right-hand corner of the screen. |
| -tl | Put window in top, left-hand corner of the screen. |
| -tr | Put window in top, right-hand corner of the screen. |
| -x<command> | Execute and use error level to select colour pair. |
| -n<host>[,<number>] | PING target host name or number and milli-second timeout. |
The <colour> grammar is:
| <name> | AMBER, BLACK, BLUE, CYAN, GRAY, GREEN, HIDE, MAGENTA, RED, WHITE, YELLOW |
|---|---|
| <number> | A colour number in Windows "BGR" format. For example, 0x0000FF for red, 0x00FF00 for green, 0xFF0000 for blue and so on. |
A direction, <dir>, can be one of:
| u | Up |
|---|---|
| d | Down |
| l | Left |
| r | Right |
An <xypair> is one of:
[<number>],[<number>] | |
|---|---|
[<number>];[<number>] | |
[<number>]:[<number>] |
A <number> can be one of:
0x<hexnumber> | |
|---|---|
<hexnumber>h | |
<decimalnumber> |
A <command> is merely a program command-line that returns a sensible error level.