Hardware icons for window managing
From JLiMe.com
Contents |
What is it about?
HP Jornadas 6xx/7xx have an interesting feature - touchscreen is a bit larger than the screen itself. The margin on the right side is used for something called 'hardware icons'. Original Windows CE software linked some actions with these icons. Underneath the touchscreen there is a surface with four icons printed on it. This document is about an idea of replacing this printout with a custom one with icons more suitable for jlime.
Rationale
The problem with Jornada screens is that they are wide, but short. If we could move some operations from window manager decorations to hardware icons, we could get rid of window manager decorations altogether. Additionally we could add some other nice features.
Example
Icons are (from top left):
- minimize active window
- close active window
- maximize active window
- make active window full screen
- decrease/increase sound volume
- decrease/increase display brightness
- decrease/increase display contrast
- launch a web browser
- configure network connections
- show main applications menu
Tools
X probably won't allow for offscreen pointer coordinates, so software for this has to be independent from X. jinputd (available in feeds) can support these icons. Window manager interaction can be handled with [wmctrl], volume management with amixer, and display contrast/brightness with simple shell oneliners echoing values into /sys.
Some OSD utility would be VERY recommended with this (for feedback).
Other possible improvements
- area which would work like a scroll area of a PC laptop touchpad?
