Hi guys, I ran across something useful this morning in fixing a kiosk-type system. This is a machine that I spec'd to be an always-on, Firefox-is-the-only-thing-you-can-run desktop for our library to use as a card catalog system. The problem was that this morning when I booted it, Firefox opened in a box about 1.5" square in the upper left corner of the screen. Not usable, and since firefox is invoked at startup, there are no controls available to drag it to size or maximize or minimize the window.
This machine runs on Xubuntu Karmic since I only need a light window manager, and has been stripped of nearly all the fluff with which *buntu comes installed. Adding to the pain, Karmic (and Jaunty, I believe) do things a little different than prior versions, with no /etc/inittab to edit. My solution: edit the 'exec' line in the /etc/X11/Xsession.d/99x11-common_start script, and add a bit of JavaScript to help. By default, the line reads: exec $STARTUP which boots the standard startup scripts, something we don't want to happen in this case. All I wanted was for X to start and run Firefox, with the Firefox window maximized. So now the line reads: exec firefox javascript:%20resizeTo\(1024,768\) which works perfectly. It invokes Firefox rather than the usual startup scripts, and through JavaScript's resizeTo function, forces the window to open at 1024 x 768. I don't know if this method would work on earlier versions of *buntu or Debian & derivatives, but I would imagine that any invoked startup program could be sized out this way if it can process the JS command. Jim Peterson Technology Coordinator Goodnight Memorial Library 203 S. Main St. Franklin, KY 42134 (270) 586-8397 www.gmpl.org Tweet me @GMLGeek Library Technology Blog --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "NLUG" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/nlug-talk?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
