Native K5 + PW: Getting debian stuff to run "FrontMost" Natively.

[twobob]

K5 + PW

Okay so I have been working on ripping stuff out of debian for a while now.
That is going well, can get a large majority now "extracted and running" natively. (There are a still a few tough ones that I will need to look into further)

But: Getting them extracted and running is one thing: There is of course one "major" hurdle. Titling. Without the correct title things just end up being backgrounded. That is to say "You can't see them"

So...

I have put together a system that gets around this restriction.

• Without making any adjustments to system files.
• No re-compiling from source required.
• Works for most things I tried so far.

I shan't bore you with details. I just use a few basic utilities in conjunction.

Sufficed to say that with a touch more love I will be able to get a lot of things running "Upfront" now - WITHOUT XEPHYR - That we just couldn't before.

There are caveats. (That I'm working on) -

• Sub-menus sometimes require re-running the "re-titling" process
  "About" menus often do for example. This can leave the UI seeming "frozen"
  
• Menus that are "many-deep" (3 wide for example) can pop under each other. (I'm working on making the screen dynamically rotatable to beat those use-cases)
  
• High score popups don't "push forward"
  
• Menus that are REALLY long just go off the end of the screen (maybe I can fix this with gtk resources... not sure yet)
  
• Non full-screen applications leave the old UI in the background.

However. in the main it's a nice system and with a little thought and ingenuity no doubt even those niggles can be beaten. The lack of buttons on the later devices just make it "That bit harder" to figure out nice solutions but HEY if it was easy someone would have done it before right?

When I have a TIDY solution I'll share it. But the general principle appears solid enough.

Pictured: Extra hard to handle menu that exhibits both problems.
And some native games.

And YES Brian, I did this mainly for you

[brianinmaine]

Originally Posted by twobob

K5 + PW
And YES Brian, I did this mainly for you

Holy cow, you are almost ready to rule the world!