full-screen mode - Linux

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full-screen mode - Linux

Chris Muller-3
Does anyone like full-screen mode besides me?  Years ago, when I used
Windows, I would always run my Squeak images full-screen because there
is something zen-like about being totally immersed into the image
environment - it can be nicer experience than running with OS window
and the start-bar cruft showing.

But now I'm using Linux and, under that VM, full-screen mode does not
allow any other windows to be displayed over full-screen Squeak.  For
example, I can't press Alt+Tab to bring my command-window to the top,
it appears for a split second but then Squeak paints right back over
it, but without keyboard focus!  The only way to access any other
program is to bring Squeak out of full-screen mode.

Which is why the button to go full-screen was recently put to the
upper-right corner - to facilitate the constant switching needed to be
able to run full-screen.

However, there is a danger with going full-screen.  Cog is not very
friendly to being interrupted - doing so often seems to lock the image
- and this is a bad situation in full-screen mode since you can't get
to any other windows to kill the process.  The only option is a
hard-power off - an ungraceful shutdown - losing all unsaved data in
all applications - ouch!

Would it be difficult for the Linux VM to behave similarly to the
Windows VM w.r.t. full-screen mode?

 - Chris

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Re: full-screen mode - Linux

Bert Freudenberg

On 05.07.2011, at 21:51, Chris Muller wrote:

> Does anyone like full-screen mode besides me?  Years ago, when I used
> Windows, I would always run my Squeak images full-screen because there
> is something zen-like about being totally immersed into the image
> environment - it can be nicer experience than running with OS window
> and the start-bar cruft showing.
>
> But now I'm using Linux and, under that VM, full-screen mode does not
> allow any other windows to be displayed over full-screen Squeak.  For
> example, I can't press Alt+Tab to bring my command-window to the top,
> it appears for a split second but then Squeak paints right back over
> it, but without keyboard focus!  The only way to access any other
> program is to bring Squeak out of full-screen mode.
>
> Which is why the button to go full-screen was recently put to the
> upper-right corner - to facilitate the constant switching needed to be
> able to run full-screen.
>
> However, there is a danger with going full-screen.  Cog is not very
> friendly to being interrupted - doing so often seems to lock the image
> - and this is a bad situation in full-screen mode since you can't get
> to any other windows to kill the process.  The only option is a
> hard-power off - an ungraceful shutdown - losing all unsaved data in
> all applications - ouch!
>
> Would it be difficult for the Linux VM to behave similarly to the
> Windows VM w.r.t. full-screen mode?

It's much harder under Linux than on Windows or Mac because there is a gazillion of window managers, not a single UI. Making it work in a specific environment might be doable. In particular if you could point out another program that does it the way you like - do you know any? You could inspect its window properties using xprop.

- Bert -



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Re: full-screen mode - Linux

Tom Rushworth-2
In reply to this post by Chris Muller-3
It's been a while since I used Linux, but it should still have multiple
console support (alt+Fn or alt+ctrl+Fn or something like that to go to
screen n).  You should be able to get multiple Xservers/window managers
up on the different consoles, and then leave one in squeak full screen
and another in the regular desktop.  I've never tried the multiple
X-server part, but unless the first console is somehow very special
(e.g. it's the only one with graphics) you shouldn't have too much trouble.

On 11/07/05 12:51, Chris Muller wrote:

> Does anyone like full-screen mode besides me?  Years ago, when I used
> Windows, I would always run my Squeak images full-screen because there
> is something zen-like about being totally immersed into the image
> environment - it can be nicer experience than running with OS window
> and the start-bar cruft showing.
>
> But now I'm using Linux and, under that VM, full-screen mode does not
> allow any other windows to be displayed over full-screen Squeak.  For
> example, I can't press Alt+Tab to bring my command-window to the top,
> it appears for a split second but then Squeak paints right back over
> it, but without keyboard focus!  The only way to access any other
> program is to bring Squeak out of full-screen mode.
>
> Which is why the button to go full-screen was recently put to the
> upper-right corner - to facilitate the constant switching needed to be
> able to run full-screen.
>
> However, there is a danger with going full-screen.  Cog is not very
> friendly to being interrupted - doing so often seems to lock the image
> - and this is a bad situation in full-screen mode since you can't get
> to any other windows to kill the process.  The only option is a
> hard-power off - an ungraceful shutdown - losing all unsaved data in
> all applications - ouch!
>
> Would it be difficult for the Linux VM to behave similarly to the
> Windows VM w.r.t. full-screen mode?
>
>  - Chris
>
>


--
Tom Rushworth

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Re: full-screen mode - Linux

Brad Fuller-4
On Tue, Jul 5, 2011 at 15:41, Tom Rushworth <[hidden email]> wrote:
> It's been a while since I used Linux, but it should still have multiple
> console support (alt+Fn or alt+ctrl+Fn or something like that to go to
> screen n).  You should be able to get multiple Xservers/window managers
> up on the different consoles, and then leave one in squeak full screen
> and another in the regular desktop.  I've never tried the multiple
> X-server part, but unless the first console is somehow very special
> (e.g. it's the only one with graphics) you shouldn't have too much trouble.

Could you also put the Squeak window full on a separate desktop?
Still, you don't get the Alt-Tab results, I suppose.

>
> On 11/07/05 12:51, Chris Muller wrote:
>> Does anyone like full-screen mode besides me?  Years ago, when I used
>> Windows, I would always run my Squeak images full-screen because there
>> is something zen-like about being totally immersed into the image
>> environment - it can be nicer experience than running with OS window
>> and the start-bar cruft showing.
>>
>> But now I'm using Linux and, under that VM, full-screen mode does not
>> allow any other windows to be displayed over full-screen Squeak.  For
>> example, I can't press Alt+Tab to bring my command-window to the top,
>> it appears for a split second but then Squeak paints right back over
>> it, but without keyboard focus!  The only way to access any other
>> program is to bring Squeak out of full-screen mode.
>>
>> Which is why the button to go full-screen was recently put to the
>> upper-right corner - to facilitate the constant switching needed to be
>> able to run full-screen.
>>
>> However, there is a danger with going full-screen.  Cog is not very
>> friendly to being interrupted - doing so often seems to lock the image
>> - and this is a bad situation in full-screen mode since you can't get
>> to any other windows to kill the process.  The only option is a
>> hard-power off - an ungraceful shutdown - losing all unsaved data in
>> all applications - ouch!
>>
>> Would it be difficult for the Linux VM to behave similarly to the
>> Windows VM w.r.t. full-screen mode?
>>
>>  - Chris
>>
>>
>
>
> --
> Tom Rushworth
>
>

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Re: full-screen mode - Linux

Chris Muller-4
In reply to this post by Tom Rushworth-2
On Tue, Jul 5, 2011 at 5:41 PM, Tom Rushworth <[hidden email]> wrote:
> It's been a while since I used Linux, but it should still have multiple
> console support (alt+Fn or alt+ctrl+Fn or something like that to go to
> screen n).  You should be able to get multiple Xservers/window managers
> up on the different consoles, and then leave one in squeak full screen
> and another in the regular desktop.  I've never tried the multiple
> X-server part, but unless the first console is somehow very special
> (e.g. it's the only one with graphics) you shouldn't have too much trouble.

Ah, thanks for reminding me about that!  That would certainly be
useful to be able to get to a terminal to kill the squeak process.

Launching squeak under X from one of the other terminals is an
interesting idea but would still suffer from the same modality problem
- e.g., I'm in "Squeak mode" or I'm not, and drag-and-drop interaction
from other OS windows (e.g., file-manager) wouldn't be possible.




> On 11/07/05 12:51, Chris Muller wrote:
>> Does anyone like full-screen mode besides me?  Years ago, when I used
>> Windows, I would always run my Squeak images full-screen because there
>> is something zen-like about being totally immersed into the image
>> environment - it can be nicer experience than running with OS window
>> and the start-bar cruft showing.
>>
>> But now I'm using Linux and, under that VM, full-screen mode does not
>> allow any other windows to be displayed over full-screen Squeak.  For
>> example, I can't press Alt+Tab to bring my command-window to the top,
>> it appears for a split second but then Squeak paints right back over
>> it, but without keyboard focus!  The only way to access any other
>> program is to bring Squeak out of full-screen mode.
>>
>> Which is why the button to go full-screen was recently put to the
>> upper-right corner - to facilitate the constant switching needed to be
>> able to run full-screen.
>>
>> However, there is a danger with going full-screen.  Cog is not very
>> friendly to being interrupted - doing so often seems to lock the image
>> - and this is a bad situation in full-screen mode since you can't get
>> to any other windows to kill the process.  The only option is a
>> hard-power off - an ungraceful shutdown - losing all unsaved data in
>> all applications - ouch!
>>
>> Would it be difficult for the Linux VM to behave similarly to the
>> Windows VM w.r.t. full-screen mode?
>>
>>  - Chris
>>
>>
>
>
> --
> Tom Rushworth
>

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Re: full-screen mode - Linux

David T. Lewis
On Tue, Jul 05, 2011 at 09:07:46PM -0500, Chris Muller wrote:

> On Tue, Jul 5, 2011 at 5:41 PM, Tom Rushworth <[hidden email]> wrote:
> > It's been a while since I used Linux, but it should still have multiple
> > console support (alt+Fn or alt+ctrl+Fn or something like that to go to
> > screen n). ?You should be able to get multiple Xservers/window managers
> > up on the different consoles, and then leave one in squeak full screen
> > and another in the regular desktop. ?I've never tried the multiple
> > X-server part, but unless the first console is somehow very special
> > (e.g. it's the only one with graphics) you shouldn't have too much trouble.
>
> Ah, thanks for reminding me about that!  That would certainly be
> useful to be able to get to a terminal to kill the squeak process.

Yes, this is the most straightforward way to get access to a good
old-fashioned terminal if the GUI gets hosed for some reason.

> Launching squeak under X from one of the other terminals is an
> interesting idea but would still suffer from the same modality problem
> - e.g., I'm in "Squeak mode" or I'm not, and drag-and-drop interaction
> from other OS windows (e.g., file-manager) wouldn't be possible.

This also will work (multiple X displays assigned to multiple virtual
terminals). But it is not very useful in this case, because just
opening an text terminal <ctl><alt><F2> gives you all the access
you need to kill the offending Squeak VM process, and <ctl><alt><F7>
will take you back to the virtual terminal that is running X11.

But it sounds like the underlying issue is that we may be having
trouble interrupting the image reliably, especially when running
under Cog. My guess is that this is not a Cog issue; it's more likely
to be an issue with responsiveness of the user interrupt handler
that gets aggrivated when running under a faster VM. This is only
speculation, but I suspect that our time might be better spent on
making user interrupt handling behave more reliably, as opposed
to finding ways to work around the problem in the X11 window manager.

Dave


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Re: full-screen mode - Linux

Bert Freudenberg
On 06.07.2011, at 04:30, David T. Lewis wrote:

> On Tue, Jul 05, 2011 at 09:07:46PM -0500, Chris Muller wrote:
>> On Tue, Jul 5, 2011 at 5:41 PM, Tom Rushworth <[hidden email]> wrote:
>>> It's been a while since I used Linux, but it should still have multiple
>>> console support (alt+Fn or alt+ctrl+Fn or something like that to go to
>>> screen n). ?You should be able to get multiple Xservers/window managers
>>> up on the different consoles, and then leave one in squeak full screen
>>> and another in the regular desktop. ?I've never tried the multiple
>>> X-server part, but unless the first console is somehow very special
>>> (e.g. it's the only one with graphics) you shouldn't have too much trouble.
>>
>> Ah, thanks for reminding me about that!  That would certainly be
>> useful to be able to get to a terminal to kill the squeak process.
>
> Yes, this is the most straightforward way to get access to a good
> old-fashioned terminal if the GUI gets hosed for some reason.
>
>> Launching squeak under X from one of the other terminals is an
>> interesting idea but would still suffer from the same modality problem
>> - e.g., I'm in "Squeak mode" or I'm not, and drag-and-drop interaction
>> from other OS windows (e.g., file-manager) wouldn't be possible.
>
> This also will work (multiple X displays assigned to multiple virtual
> terminals). But it is not very useful in this case, because just
> opening an text terminal <ctl><alt><F2> gives you all the access
> you need to kill the offending Squeak VM process, and <ctl><alt><F7>
> will take you back to the virtual terminal that is running X11.
>
> But it sounds like the underlying issue is that we may be having
> trouble interrupting the image reliably, especially when running
> under Cog.

That is an issue, but mostly unrelated to this one.

On other platforms it's just really convenient to be able to alt-tab quickly to another application and alt-tab back to your full-screen Squeak workspace. Like, for googling something. I do that all the time.

- Bert -



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Re: full-screen mode - Linux

Derek O'Connell-3
In reply to this post by Chris Muller-3
On 05/07/11 20:51, Chris Muller wrote:
> The only option is a
> hard-power off - an ungraceful shutdown - losing all unsaved data in
> all applications - ouch!

As others have said, use a terminal to kill the vm, but also keep an ssh
server running, very useful on the rare occasion that the system appears
unresponsive to input.

-D

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Re: full-screen mode - Linux

Tony Garnock-Jones-3
In reply to this post by Bert Freudenberg
On 2011-07-06 3:51 AM, Bert Freudenberg wrote:
> On other platforms it's just really convenient to be able to alt-tab
> quickly to another application and alt-tab back to your full-screen
> Squeak workspace. Like, for googling something. I do that all the
> time.

I haven't been able to use the Linux VM's full-screen support for years.
Instead I have had to configure my window manager (Sawfish) to recognise
Squeak windows by X class, and to draw them without any window
decorations. Once Squeak is open, I press my "maximise window" shortcut
key which makes it roughly full-screen. Definitely a poor-man's solution.

For me, it'd be ideal if squeak were a regular window, except when in
full-screen mode it is

  - drawn without window decorations, and
  - placed by the VM at 0@0 extent: width@height when full-screen
    mode is entered

without any of the special-purpose single-app-mode "full screen" flags
offered by X window managers.

Regards,
   Tony

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Re: full-screen mode - Linux

Chris Muller-3
In reply to this post by Bert Freudenberg
> It's much harder under Linux than on Windows or Mac because there is a gazillion of window managers, not a single UI. Making it work in a specific environment might be doable. In particular if you could point out another program that does it the way you like - do you know any? You could inspect its window properties using xprop.

Firefox seems to do it mostly right.  Press F11 in Firefox to go
full-screen, I can still bring up other windows via Alt+Tab...

GwenView too..


On Tue, Jul 5, 2011 at 3:02 PM, Bert Freudenberg <[hidden email]> wrote:

>
> On 05.07.2011, at 21:51, Chris Muller wrote:
>
>> Does anyone like full-screen mode besides me?  Years ago, when I used
>> Windows, I would always run my Squeak images full-screen because there
>> is something zen-like about being totally immersed into the image
>> environment - it can be nicer experience than running with OS window
>> and the start-bar cruft showing.
>>
>> But now I'm using Linux and, under that VM, full-screen mode does not
>> allow any other windows to be displayed over full-screen Squeak.  For
>> example, I can't press Alt+Tab to bring my command-window to the top,
>> it appears for a split second but then Squeak paints right back over
>> it, but without keyboard focus!  The only way to access any other
>> program is to bring Squeak out of full-screen mode.
>>
>> Which is why the button to go full-screen was recently put to the
>> upper-right corner - to facilitate the constant switching needed to be
>> able to run full-screen.
>>
>> However, there is a danger with going full-screen.  Cog is not very
>> friendly to being interrupted - doing so often seems to lock the image
>> - and this is a bad situation in full-screen mode since you can't get
>> to any other windows to kill the process.  The only option is a
>> hard-power off - an ungraceful shutdown - losing all unsaved data in
>> all applications - ouch!
>>
>> Would it be difficult for the Linux VM to behave similarly to the
>> Windows VM w.r.t. full-screen mode?
>
> It's much harder under Linux than on Windows or Mac because there is a gazillion of window managers, not a single UI. Making it work in a specific environment might be doable. In particular if you could point out another program that does it the way you like - do you know any? You could inspect its window properties using xprop.
>
> - Bert -
>
>
>
>

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Re: full-screen mode - Linux

Bert Freudenberg

On 06.07.2011, at 16:26, Chris Muller wrote:

>> It's much harder under Linux than on Windows or Mac because there is a gazillion of window managers, not a single UI. Making it work in a specific environment might be doable. In particular if you could point out another program that does it the way you like - do you know any? You could inspect its window properties using xprop.
>
> Firefox seems to do it mostly right.  Press F11 in Firefox to go
> full-screen, I can still bring up other windows via Alt+Tab...
>
> GwenView too..

Good. So what X properties does FireFox set in its fullscreen mode? There must be some, to get stacked above the system toolbar and menu.

- Bert -



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Re: full-screen mode - Linux

K K Subbu
In reply to this post by Tony Garnock-Jones-3
On Wednesday 06 Jul 2011 7:42:46 PM Tony Garnock-Jones wrote:
> I haven't been able to use the Linux VM's full-screen support for years.
> Instead I have had to configure my window manager (Sawfish) to recognise
> Squeak windows by X class, and to draw them without any window
> decorations. Once Squeak is open, I press my "maximise window" shortcut
> key which makes it roughly full-screen. Definitely a poor-man's solution.
Both Squeak and Etoys have worked in fullscreen mode flawlessly for me on Linux
(currently on Kubuntu 10.10, intel graphics driver).  I use World Menu-
>appearance->full screen on/off.

Subbu

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Re: full-screen mode - Linux

K K Subbu
In reply to this post by Chris Muller-3
On Wednesday 06 Jul 2011 1:21:20 AM Chris Muller wrote:
> However, there is a danger with going full-screen.  Cog is not very
> friendly to being interrupted - doing so often seems to lock the image
> - and this is a bad situation in full-screen mode since you can't get
> to any other windows to kill the process.  The only option is a
> hard-power off - an ungraceful shutdown - losing all unsaved data in
> all applications - ouch!
On PC keyboard, you can use the Magic SysRq sequences:
   
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_SysRq_key

ALT+SysRq and press R-E-I-S-U-B in that sequence. This will switch the
keyboard from Raw to translated mode, send SIGTERM signal to all processes
(except init), send SIGKILL signal, sync all mounted filesystems, unmount them
and finally reboot.

Subbu