Display-drivers stretching hack for small screens

[Matthieu]

Hi,

I made some small translation contibution for doctor windows years ago and had this account as a thank's from DC but never used it but now i'm realy needing something so i dare asking!

I've been searching for a long time already some software that would allow the use of a greater size desktop on a limitted display hardware.

I posted a thread about this on driverheaven.net, http://www.hardwareh...x768-resolution.html

The main idea would be to have the graphic card to make some stretching over all displayed pixels making an emulated 1600x1024 or such resolution on a 1280x800 MAX screen....

My laptop screen gives me like as much workspace as if i wanted to build a titanic replica in a shoes box.

I saw some softwares meant for distant assistance ... Teamviewer. It can display any size screen from a distant place inside anything smaller screen, stretching all pixels, and the result is quite appreciable. Text is readable, images are well ballanced and makes no glitches.

I guess that DC is the best place to push the idea in as you seems like motivated programmers

Another request would be to find help for another coder who made some very awesome and useful software that makes windoes snaps to borders, to each others, taskbar and all whitch makes it easier to align multiple windoes... The author, Ivan Heckman, http://allsnap.org/ , is having a harsh time with it as he cant run both x86 and x64 versions at the same time... X64 based windowses uses both 32 bit and 64 bits applications but only one type or the other can be made snappable.  If you guys could assist him into developping the app, it could become a worldwide used software easily

About making some resolution double-sizing... I guess that the best place to start hacking at would be the generic screen drivers... I'm realy unsure about the rest as i aint no professionnal but i whish my guess is right

I'll come back to that thread from time to time ounce in a while so i may see if it progresses

Farewell!

-Matt

[app103]

Have you tried an application that can create virtual desktops?

Here is 3 free ones I have found:

Virtual Dimension (open source)
VirtuaWin (open source)
Dexpot (free for personal use)

[Jimdoria]

I know some laptops have the ability to view a desktop "window" that scrolls around a larger virtual desktop when your mouse reaches the edge of the screen. (This may be built into the hardware?)

Also, GoToMyPC.com does this on their viewer, so that you can view desktops larger than the one you are using for remote access. VNC allows you resize a large screen to fit on a smaller screen, and the results are sometimes usable, if not gorgeous.

Not sure how easy this would be to implement though. You might need to write a virtual device driver that would get in between Windows and the actual display driver. That's some really heavy duty coding, partly because device drivers are just heavy duty, and partly because later versions of Windows (Vista + 7) will probably block such a device, as it could be used to circumvent copy protection.

I may be wrong, though. I'm not a coder, so maybe I'm missing an obvious alternative.

[slowmaker]

GimeSpace (cheap payware) has an approach that might work for you. It gives the effect of an infinite screen that you are looking at through a monitor-sized portal.

Moving the mouse against the edges pushes your view left/right/up/down, or at least I assume it does (the trial only allows left/right).  Note that I am not referring to discrete virtual desktops, like virtuaWin, dexpot, etc.  When you shove your mouse against the right side of the screen, for instance, everything steadily floats off to the left, just as if you were turning your head to the right slowly.

There is a popup window with a sort of map you can use to find windows if you lose them off in virtual space somewhere.

Pretty light on resources, I think. It doesn't actually hack any drivers or anything; as far as I can tell it just moves all windows as necessary to simulate the 'infinite' desktop.

I've been thinking about buying it myself, but I can't make up my mind whether I like the way it handles maximized windows or not. It's also not portable, or rather the portable version is the limited (left/right only) version.

[f0dder]

slowmaker: if GimeSpace doesn't use drivers (or integration with Vista-and-later windows manager) but simply does MoveWindow() on all visible windows, there's a good chance that it won't be a 100% smooth experience with all applications. How does it work wrt. maximized windows, for instance?

[slowmaker]

slowmaker: if GimeSpace doesn't use drivers (or integration with Vista-and-later windows manager) but simply does MoveWindow() on all visible windows, there's a good chance that it won't be a 100% smooth experience with all applications. How does it work wrt. maximized windows, for instance?

-f0dder (January 09, 2010, 03:34 AM)

Pretty well, actually. They scroll off/on the screen just as smoothly as any others.

The thing I don't care for is the fact that, because they remain at maximized size, scrolling them back fully into the screen can be finicky; there's always that last tiny little bit hanging off on one side or the other that I reflexively want to keep fiddling with until I get it all aligned perfectly again. However, I remember that being an issue with the driver-based virtual screens also; I guess that's more an issue with me than with the software .

I believe the software offered some sort of exclusion list as well, though I didn't investigate it.

[f0dder]

So the applications *stay* maximize and at the position you left them at? They don't follow the scrolling around, or get reverted to non-maximized-but-same-size-as-when-maximized?

[slowmaker]

So the applications *stay* maximize and at the position you left them at? They don't follow the scrolling around, or get reverted to non-maximized-but-same-size-as-when-maximized?

-f0dder (January 09, 2010, 02:20 PM)

Err, maybe? I'm not sure I understand your phrasing, but I'll try to answer:
apps *stay* maximized in the sense that they retain their maximized *size*

they stay at the position you left them at in the same sense as other windows stay at the position you left them at

I think the above may have answered the second sentence of your post as well, or maybe not; as I said, I'm not confident I understood the question.

All I can tell you is that the times I've tried it, *all* windows - maximized or not - slid on/off the screen as you would intuitively expect them to in response to the appropriate mouse movements.

The only things that did not go off/on screen were the taskbar and desktop icons, and presumably any windows you add to the exclusion list.

That's about it for my knowledge of this program. It has a downloadable demo that might answer your questions more clearly.

[f0dder]

It answered my second question, not the first

Maximized applications have special state - the most important being that you can't drag them around (well, not until Win7 anyway). So if you can move them around after having scrolled using GimeSpace, their maximized state is not being preserved... this could lead to some inconsistencies, though I can't think of any off top of my head; I'm mainly asking out of curiosity