Is there a way to open a full screen window with SFML on a 2nd monitor?
I'm afraid the answer is no. Here's a quote from a different part of that site:
SFML doesn't explicitely manage multiple monitors. As a consequence, you won't be able to choose which monitor a window appears on, and you won't be able to create more than one fullscreen window. This should be improved in a future version.
Related
I'm writing a desktop. I already know the basics of Qt and GTK+ through Python but I don't understand how to display the finished Desktop. How do you make it the root window of a Window Manager, or is there a method for displaying the desktop I'm not familiar with?
You don't make it the root window. X has one root window which you can't change. There are a number of ways to do what you want
X Root window
The old way was that the desktop was just the standard X root window. Icons were just individual borderless windows.
Desktop Window
Now most systems open a large window, and mark it as being a desktop window. Most window managers then know never to raise it above any other windows. The X root window is still behind it, but it is hidden. This means you can do anything you want on this window, draw to it, include icons or widgets or anything else your toolkit can do.
If you are using Gtk+ then the relevant information is found in the GdkWindowTypeHint enum, specifically the GDK_WINDOW_TYPE_HINT_DESKTOP. The documentation can be found here: GdkWindow
Compositor
However, there is a newer way that desktops like Gnome3 or Unity use, which is called the Compositor Overlay Window. When a compositor is running there is an overlay window which covers all the windows on the system. It is then up to the compositor to draw the actual contents of the windows on this overlay. However, the overlay can draw whatever it wishes on this overlay window. For example, in Gnome3 when you enter the window selector and the windows arrange themselves into a grid the windows aren't really moving and shrinking, the compositor has just decided to draw them that way. In reality, the windows are still in the same position they were before, but hidden under this overlay.
This is a very advanced way to do things, and certainly not for the novice developer. You probably want to be focusing on the second method.
I've seen things like this and I was wondering if this was possible, say I run my application
and it will show the render on whatever is below it.
So basically, rendering on the screen without a window.
Possible or a lie?
Note: Want to do this on windows and in c++.
It is possible to use your application to draw on other application's windows. Once you have found the window you want, you have it's HWND, you can then use it just like it was your own window for the purposes of drawing. But since that window doesn't know you have done this, it will probably mess up whatever you have drawn on it when it tries to redraw itself.
There are some very complicated ways of getting around this, some of them involve using windows "hooks" to intercept drawing messages to that window so you know when it has redrawn so that you can do your redrawing as well.
Another option is to use clipping regions on a window. This can allow you to give your window an unusual shape, and have everything behind it still look correct.
There are also ways to take over drawing of the desktop background window, and you can actually run an application that draws animations and stuff on the desktop background (while the desktop is still usable). At least, this was possible up through XP, not sure if it has changed in Vista/Win7.
Unfortunately, all of these options are too very complex to go in depth without more information on what you are trying to do.
You can use GetDesktopWindow(), to get the HWND of the desktop. But as a previous answer says (SoapBox), be careful, you may mess up the desktop because the OS expects that it owns it.
I wrote an open source project a few years ago to achieve this on the desktop background. It's called Uberdash. If you follow the window hierarchy, the desktop is just a window in a sort of "background" container. Then there is a main container and a front container. The front container is how windows become full screen or "always on top." You may be able to use Aero composition to render a window with alpha in the front container, but you will need to pass events on to the lower windows. It won't be pretty.
Also, there's a technology in some video cards called overlays/underlays. You used to be able to render directly to an overlay. Your GPU would apply it directly, with no interference to main memory. So even if you took a screen capture, your overlay/underlay would not show up in the screen cap. Unfortunately MS banned that technology in Vista...
I'm coding a short game in C++ and Win32, and I want to be able to make it in fullscreen with a fixed size. I also want the user to be able to switch focus between the game window and other windows as much as he/she wants without any weird screen glitches.
So far I know of the ChangeDisplaySettings function and creating the window with the WS_POPUP style at initialization to make it fullscreen. To detect the user switching focus to other windows by way of alt+tab or otherwise, what messages should I be handling on the window's WndProc or should I be using another function? When loss of focus is detected should I only call ChangeDisplaySettings(NULL, 0); or are there other functions I should call as well? And what method should I use to handle focus back into the window?
Also can anyone give me some info on how to make it work smoothly for different screen sizes?
Thanks for any help.
If you want an exclusive full screen window, use DirectX.
But I don't recommend it. Changing the display mode causes glitches, rearranges the users icons and so on. Whether done by you, or Direct X.
Rather create a normal window at your native res, and let the user maximize it if wanted.
You could also use the GDI+ library of Windows XP (and newer) to use hardware-accelerated stretching (draw in 640x480, let GDI+ resize it to the native resolution). Then you don't need exclusive mode of DirectDraw nor ChangeDisplaySettings.
Also drawing into a 640x480 big background buffer and bit blitting it on the drawing surface via StretchBlt can be a performant solution.
I'm trying to create a fullscreen application using Win32 and OpenGL. I change the resolution using EnumDisplaySettings and ChangeDisplaySettings and the OpenGL functions work fine. On its WndProc I handle WM_ACTIVATEAPP and detect when the user switched focus to another window, then I minimize the application's window. When the window is maximized again, the window doesn't display properly at all. What could I include to make the application work even after minimizing?
From the question I cannot still say what you are missing and what you already have. Refer to the http://nehe.gamedev.net/. There is a section Opengl base code to setup a window in full screen and switch back to window mode. See if you can get something from there.
I have an application with an OpenGL window as a child window of the main window.
When I display a dialog box above the OpenGL window, it doesn't get drawn. It's like it's not getting WM_PAINT messages. If I can guess the title bar position of the dialog box, I can drag it and it's still responsive.
I realise this might be a vague question, but I was wondering if anyone else has seen this sort of behaviour before and knew of a solution?
I wondered if the Pixel Format Descriptor would make a difference - I had PFD_DRAW_TO_WINDOW, but changing to PDF_DRAW_TO_BITMAP didn't make any difference. I'm not sure what else I should be looking at?
Bugger. Should have given all the details. I was running Windows in a virtual machine on Mac OS X using Parallels. I upgrade from Parallels 3 to 4 and now everything is working fine. I suspect a Parallels video driver issue.
Thanks to all those who answered with suggestions.
Is your opengl window constantly rendering. It is possible that the 3D hardware is simply rendering into an overlay that is overdrawing your dialog box. If you position the dialog box so it overlaps your main window, can you see some of it?
Try to pause rendering into the main display to see if it effects the results.
You will also need to make sure that your window style ensures the results are clipped...
cs.style |= WS_CLIPSIBLINGS | WS_CLIPCHILDREN ;
You should check though all the items mentioned in this MSDN article, as it covers a lot of the basics for getting opengl rendering in a window correctly.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms970745.aspx
You may need to switch overlay off. It can be done via forcing back buffer presenting method to copy instead of swap.
Use wglChoosePixelFormatARB and one of parameters should be
WGL_SWAP_METHOD_ARB with value WGL_SWAP_COPY_ARB
This may seems stupid but are you sure your OpenGL window is not flagged "topmost" ?
Does the dialog box disappear also behind borders of your window or just behind the OpenGL rendering rectangle ?