Is it possible to use GTK without a valid X display?
I want to use GTK with Webkit, but for now I'm only interested in using the DOM functions to experiment, so I have no need to actually display anything. It's very convenient for me to do this over an SSH connection on a server that has no display.
But, without a DISPLAY environment variable, gtk_init() simply fails with the message:
Gtk-WARNING **: cannot open display:
Is there anyway to use GTK without a display?
There is an X server called Xvfb which provides a valid DISPLAY and sends the output to a file instead of to graphics hardware. You can run that on the same machine that's running your gtk client, and gtk will be able to do whatever it wants to do without using any of your network bandwidth. As a bonus, you can read Xvfb's output buffer from the file, allowing you to get a screenshot of what would be on the screen.
While it's not an direct answer to your question, I think what you are looking for is a “headless” web browser. There's one based on WebKit, called PhantomJS. It doesn't require any GUI stack, and you can freely experiment with DOM there.
Gtk+ 3 (well, GDK) has support for multiple backends now, but still requires X11, Wayland, or Broadway (experimental HTML5 backend) to run.
DISPLAY doesn't necessarily need actual hardware; you can run a fake X server such as Xvfb or Xvnc.
I'm glad I read the docs deeper and didn't just believe this answer.
gtk_init_check()
This function does the same work as gtk_init() with only a single change: It does not terminate the program if the windowing system can’t be initialized. Instead it returns FALSE on failure.
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I am currently using a remote software to access a computer of mine. The problem is now: I dont want anyone to see what I am doing, so I am trying to write a little tool or script that will blank out the screen.
The software is accessing the picture data using the MIT-SHM extension of X11, so I seek a possiblity to keep X11 rendering the data into the SHM, but simply not forward it to the Monitor (as if the monitor is turned off). Is there any way? As a last resort I would use XVFB, but I would rather not...
P.S.: I am seeking a programmatic attempt. Either via BASH script or C/C++.
x11vnc has options like -clientdpms, -forcedpms.
What they essentially do is - to call dpms commands to blank out display, every time there is a mouse/keyboard action. So, the monitor is unblanked & blanked again. This is not really visible to eyes, because of the hysteresis of the monitor.
NOW, if you have access to that proprietary software's code, you can add a code to blank using dpms commands, after every kbd/mouse event.
Alternately, you can use a dirty hack to keep x11vnc -forcedpms -forever -allow 127.0.0.1 -clip 1x1+0+0 running in the background.
I am a beginner is C++. I am trying to find, is it possible to run my program in both in QT window and Linux based. When the user logins into my system, the user can select GUI or terminal mode to run the system.
Thus, I would like to know is it possible to do it. If possible how can I proceed on? What command should I use to switch from a QT window to a terminal?
Do I need to create a separate set of project for both individually or using the same set of classes?
All Linux programs (unless explicitly disabled) print out text to a terminal. If you run the program in a graphical environment you will probably not run it from a console, therefore you won't see the output, but it will be still there.
If you want your program to be usable from a console, just test whether you could create the main window and if not, fallback to simple text output.
Note that the binary will still require the X server and Qt libraries to be installed.
You can construct your application with or without the GUI enabled through the QApplication constructor. Consult the example in Qt's documentation:
http://qt-project.org/doc/qt-4.8/qapplication.html#QApplication-2
Though, it should be noted that everything in Let_Me_Be's response is correct. In fact, the Qt example does exactly what he's suggesting. Please take the time to understand his answer before you plunge into coding.
I wish to use the functions of autohotkey within a C++ program.
I am currently running my scripts triggered by the c++ program- I just run them as a .bat file. This works well but the problem is that I cannot return values from the script to the c++ program.
I wish to be able to read the position of the mouse from the script and make decisions based upon this in my C++ program. My scripts do quite complex things- so doing this in autohotkey is the best solution for me- I have knowledge of C, but little of C++.
I have read about the Autohotkey .DLL - I know how to trigger it but not how to read values from it. If anyone could instruct me or even post example code of a .dll being loaded and a value sent to a script and a value returned- I would be eternally grateful!!
I have spent hours on this and to no avail!
to return a value, could this possibly work http://www.autohotkey.net/~tinku99/ahkdll/functions/ahkgetvar.htm
I'm not sure about the dll, but you could just write your own application in Autohotkey and package it along with your C++.
The communication takes place over a hidden window with an edit control and a button. You use one application to set text in the edit box, and then to click the submit button. The other application owns the window can process whatever is put into the edit control - as if you were passing a variable. Basically, that's it.
Check out this thread where I've explained it in more detail: How to send a command to a running application via commandline
Now, that's not quite what you wanted, but the effect is the same, and you already know all the api.
I'm writing a program in C++ to implement the keyboard backlight feature from OS X on MacBook Pro's running a Linux distro. So far, it turns the backlight on, on boot and if no keyboard and mouse events are registered for 20 seconds, it will turn it back off, and of course turn it on yet again when an event is registered. Next thing I need the program to do, is to capture keypresses on the keyboard-backlight-up/down keys, but I'm not sure how to approach this.
I am currently using XScreenSaverQueryInfo to get the idle time of keyboard and mouse events, so a method using X11 API would be okay. I have done a lot of googling but havent found a way that I felt sure about going with. The problem I'm seeing with lots of the methods I found, is that they use keycode to identify the key, but I dont think that would be a viable solution since the program should work for any keyboard-layout available.
Any idea of a method and API I should go with? What would work the best?
Regards,
The normal way to do this is with XGrabKey(). It uses keycodes, but you wouldn't hardcode the keycode, you'd get it with XKeysymToKeycode(). To be more correct you'd also want to redo the grab when you get a MappingNotify (XMappingEvent). (Note, MappingNotify, not MapNotify.) If there isn't a keysym for these keys - there probably isn't on old X versions, but hopefully newer X.org versions have one - then you just have to hardwire the keycode. Which won't be very robust or portable but probably works for everyone on Linux with the same hardware model.
Be prepared that key grabs are global, so if you try to XGrabKey() and something else has already grabbed that key, you'll get an X error - by default that exits the program. Another quirk of XGrabKey() is that it grabs the key with a precise modifier set. For example, to handle both with and without NumLock, you need to grab twice. See Global Hotkey with X11/Xlib
In a normal Linux setup (if you wanted to get a feature like this into upstream projects), the desktop environments don't want lots of separate apps fighting over the key grabs and getting errors. So there will be some central coordination points, such as the window manager or a special daemon might do all the keybindings and forward commands to other processes as needed. So you would probably want to look at patching the same upstream code that handles other special keys like this, if you were trying to get your feature integrated into distributions by default.
Another thing to be aware of is the Xkb API, which is a lot more complicated. There is some brain-bending way to grab keys with Xkb but I don't know of any advantage to going that route.
If you haven't done that yet, familiarize yourself with xev. Start it, give it the focus, and press the keys, to see what's happening.
I'm trying to read variables from memory. Variables, that doesn't belong to my own program. For instance, let's say I have this Adobe Shockwave (.dcr) application running in browser and I want to read different variables from it. How it's being done? Do I need to hook the process? But it's running under virtual machine, so I don't know how to do it.
This task is pretty much trivial in normal w32 applications (as it is mainly just
CBT-hooking / subclassing), but as I mentioned before, I've got no idea how it's being
done with flash / shockwave.
I'm using C++ (VS9) as my development-environment, in case you wish to know.
Any hints would be highly appreciated, so thank you in advance.
Best regards,
nhaa123
If you're trying to do it manually just for one or two experiments, it's easy.
Try a tool like Cheat engine which is like a free and quick and simple process peeker. Basically it scans the process's memory space for given key values. You can then filter those initial search hits later as well. You can also change those values you do find, live. The link above shows a quick example of using it to find a score or money value in a game, and editing it live as the game runs.
without having debug Binaries/DLLs of the Apps, your only chance is asking some hackers.
Normally you can connect to a process with a debugger, but without the debugging symbols of the binaries you don't see any variable names - just memory addresses.
Further the Flash/Shockwave code runs inside a sandbox inside the browser to prevent security holes by manipulated Flash code. So you don't have a real chance to get access to the running Flash code / to the plugin executing the Flash code - except you have a manipulated version of such a plugin.
So your task is quite hard to solve without using less legal methods. The next hard thing is the virtual machine - this could be solved by implementing your app as a client/server solution, where the "inspector" / watchdog runs as server inside the virtual machine and the client requesting the variable status/content running on your normal host. The communication could be done as simple socket connection.
If you have the chance to write your own Flash/Shockwave plugin, you maybe could be able to see contents of variables.
Sorry, that I cannot help you any further.
ciao,
3DH