Keith Packard Takes On X.Org Window Scaling With Input Handling

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Keith Packard Takes On X.Org Window Scaling With Input Handling

X.Org/X11 veteran Keith Packard has started working on better support for independent window scaling with the X.Org stack that would also allow for input handling with the scaled windows...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Xorg-Window-Scaling-With-Input

[nuth]

Why do they even bother with it? Just put the xorg into eternal feature freeze with maintenance for time being. The sooner xorg is good and dead the better for everybody, trying to develop it is only prolonging the process for no good reason.

[flower]

neat!
i would use it to play diablo 1 in window mode

[ssokolow]

If we can get it to integrate with a compositor that supports scalers, then this would be amazing as a way to use Wine for old Windows games rather than getting Windows 3.1x or the original release of Windows 95 running inside DOSBox.

As-is, running old 640x480 games on a multi-head desktop is a big pain because I've never found a WM which doesn't leave all my windows smushed onto the primary display when the default resolution is restored after a game set the resolution to "NULL, 640x480, NULL".

In fact, I'm kind of worried about whether there will be a standardized way to lock the desktop resolution when this GeForce GTX750 dies and gets replaced by an AMD card. (I currently use MetaModes to lock the resolution to "1280x1024, 1920x1080, 1280x1024" so games won't scramble up my desktop on that first run before I can disable fullscreen.)

[flower]

In fact, I'm kind of worried about whether there will be a standardized way to lock the desktop resolution when this GeForce GTX750 dies and gets replaced by an AMD card. (I currently use MetaModes to lock the resolution to "1280x1024, 1920x1080, 1280x1024" so games won't scramble up my desktop on that first run before I can disable fullscreen.)

i often use Xephyr with wine to force window mode even for games which doesnt support it.

[linuxgeex]

If we can get it to integrate with a compositor that supports scalers, then this would be amazing as a way to use Wine for old Windows games rather than getting Windows 3.1x or the original release of Windows 95 running inside DOSBox.

Check out https://github.com/kaueraal/run_scaled for that.

I wish Keith would simply modify Xephyr to output to a scalable window... that would allow running anything fullscreen within that window and then scaling that window to any size... it would be a lot more efficient than run_scaled and it would solve all the complex xinput issues that he's going to need to overcome to allow a window to be scaled on the X desktop. It's way more complicated than it sounds.

The way I used to do it was to run an app in Xvnc and then view it with KRDC scaled... that let me run 1920x1080 apps on my 1366x768 chromebook, or run Win95 apps in scaled up windows on my 1920x1080 display - without the stupid fake desktop mode.

[BwackNinja]

And everyone has conveniently forgotten that Compiz could do this literally a decade ago[1] with a feature that allowed arbitrary 3D transformations (freewins) otherwise regarded as "useless bling" while at the same time supporting multiple cursors working independently.

[1] https://smspillaz.wordpress.com/2008...-the-contrary/

[ssokolow]

i often use Xephyr with wine to force window mode even for games which doesnt support it.

I've been meaning to try that. I know Wine has its own desktop window mode but I've found that some applications refuse to run in it when they otherwise run perfectly well.

[tildearrow]

Can this be used for better HiDPI support?

[DanL]

Why do they even bother with it? Just put the xorg into eternal feature freeze with maintenance for time being. The sooner xorg is good and dead the better for everybody, trying to develop it is only prolonging the process for no good reason.

No. Screw that. Some of us like/prefer X. Other than (theoretically) better security, I don't see a lot of advantage to Wayland from a user perspective. Certainly not enough to justify the drawbacks. Maybe it'll be better in 5 years or so.