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  • Stop grabbing my keyboard :(

    To all game developers, porters and everyone else,

    please stop grabbing my keyboard, as it get's me very frustrated.

    The other day I was playing World of Goo and found out I couldn't change the sound volume with my keyboard, so I tried to alt+tab, but guess what..
    The game grabs the whole keyboard, I had to go to windowed mode to do anything. I got angry and kept wondering why the hell a game that only uses the mouse has to grab my keyboard.

    But that isn't the only game, I found out almost every game on linux grabs the whole input.
    How come? no idea, please tell me.

    I know of etswitch, but that doesn't work for every game (like warsow).
    So I fixed it myself http://www.warsow.net/forum/viewtopic.php?id=20771
    for warsow.

    Now I'm planning to do a few other games too (I'm not a good programmer,
    but I learn fast).
    So if anyone has a favorite game to fix, I might do that one next.
    Because I think this is one of the things that keeps the windows users from using (playing games on) linux.

  • #2
    eduke32 does this too. It's a huge pain.

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    • #3
      @blablabla

      That's really annoying even when you play caster3d, when you use wine then it works...

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      • #4
        Wow do I know what you mean...
        Fortunately HoN got it right, even though everything is horribly slow when you alt+tab out.
        AFAIK this is some limitation in SDL (I seem to remember Svartalf saying something like that). I'm no expert though...

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        • #5
          I don't think sdl grabs all the imput all the time.
          But others games not using sdl do the same.

          Anyway, as I said, this is one of the things that keep people from using linux.
          Because in windows it's a common thing to alt+tab out of a game.

          A lot of gamers use irc while gaming, are on teamspeak (push button to talk) and want to quickly alt+tab out of the game to look up soem console command.

          All these things can't be done when an application grabs the keyboard (mouse), you can't even change the volume of your system because of the grab.

          So we definitely need to do something about this.
          I'll be doing some other games too, but I'm a little busy atm.

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          • #6
            Originally posted by blablabla View Post
            Anyway, as I said, this is one of the things that keep people from using linux.
            Because in windows it's a common thing to alt+tab out of a game.
            In what kind of dream world are you living? In windows it's one of the main problems that you can't alt-tab out of a game. Either you can't get out of it or once you do you can't get safely back into it. Under Linux this is a lot less of a problem. If I want to I can totally override a hotkey of an application in Linux which I can't in windows.

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            • #7
              Originally posted by Dragonlord View Post
              In what kind of dream world are you living? In windows it's one of the main problems that you can't alt-tab out of a game. Either you can't get out of it or once you do you can't get safely back into it. Under Linux this is a lot less of a problem. If I want to I can totally override a hotkey of an application in Linux which I can't in windows.
              Huh? I alt-tab all the time out of games in windows to read walk-thru (yes I get stuck in games and cheat occasionally.).

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              • #8
                Originally posted by Dragonlord View Post
                In what kind of dream world are you living? In windows it's one of the main problems that you can't alt-tab out of a game. Either you can't get out of it or once you do you can't get safely back into it. Under Linux this is a lot less of a problem. If I want to I can totally override a hotkey of an application in Linux which I can't in windows.
                Seems then you are one of the only people in the real world then.
                What you are saying maybe true for some games, but in most games (I played) it just works.

                Anyway, you have to admit that it's a much bigger problem in linux where almost every game grabs the keyboard.

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                • #9
                  There needs to be a better balance for convenience. Using common combos like ALT + TAB, ALT + F4, and audio controls need to work for sure.
                  However, some key combos will disrupt gaming, such as workspace switching ( CTRL + ALT + <DIRECTION> ).
                  Now that combo really pisses me off when I'm using dosbox which does not grab the screen.


                  To work around these shortcomings, I like to create scripts for all my games to launch in a seperate X Displays. Unfortunately, those SDL games, like ut2004, world of goo, etc.., don't like it and refuse to run.

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                  • #10
                    Originally posted by deanjo View Post
                    Huh? I alt-tab all the time out of games in windows to read walk-thru (yes I get stuck in games and cheat occasionally.).
                    Windows games use most of the time DirectX for input processing which bypasses the windows input processing. As a result the games can totally block you from getting out of them or get in trouble if you manage to escape them. Under Linux input goes through X and you do not bypass the input ( if the game is written in a sane way ). You can avoid DX for input processing on Windows which puts you up on the same level as Linux doing proper input handling. Besides there is no sane reason to try to bypass X input in Linux to do a game.

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