[SDL] About focusing out of a fullscreen game (alt-tab or minimize)

[Benjamin Shadwick]

I have to agree that said behavior is unacceptable in my opinion. The main
problem for me with SDL grabbing all input in fullscreen on X is that it
locks out the ability to adjust the sound volume via the multimedia keys on
my laptop and keyboard. I've had to resort to telling X not to handle those
keys, and instead run a daemon (which itself is an abandoned project that
doesn't even compile on modern Linux without patching) that handles them
for me.

It's partly X.org's fault I think, as I'm pretty sure that Windows doesn't
allow this without some significant hacking.

On Fri, Jan 20, 2012 at 2:22 AM, Forest Hale <havoc at ghdigital.com> wrote:

> My own experience suggests the desired behavior in 99% of cases on Linux
> is the following:
> 1. do not resize the desktop in any way (on Linux this tends to kill
> secondary monitors, and shuffle icons and windows around to fit the small
> space, both are very annoying).
> 2. open a maximized window and request the window manager to make it
> borderless (there's an Atom to negotiate for this).
> 3. grab mouse only, do not grab keyboard.
>
> This works well for me in my native (non-SDL) GLX game engine port, the
> SDL version has the undesirable behaviors being discussed here.
>
> This issue in SDL is the single reason I do not play fullscreen SDL games
> on Linux, I always switch them to a windowed mode (to get back my secondary
> monitors, and to not mess up my desktop layout)
> and I also do not play any SDL games that do not have an easy way to
> release the input grab (which disables alt-tab, alt-f4, my volume control
> keys, my mute key, my previous/next music track keys and
> other such features of my keyboard).
>
> I would go as far as saying there is no valid excuse for this behavior.
>
> --
> LordHavoc
> Author of DarkPlaces Quake1 engine -
> http://icculus.org/twilight/darkplaces
> Co-designer <http://icculus.org/twilight/darkplaces%0ACo-designer> of
> Nexuiz - http://alientrap.org/nexuiz
> "War does not prove who is right, it proves who is left." - Unknown
> "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged
> demo." - James Klass
> "A game is a series of interesting choices." - Sid Meier
>
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>



-- 
- Ben S.
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