[legolator]

Hi, I'm gonna start of by explaining my current setup and go on to explain what my goal is with the new setup and eventually get into the problem that I faced.

The setup
My current setup is a Ubuntu Server install of Intrepid, I tried using Jaunty but since I have a ATI card and there where some compability issues with the Xorg version used in Jaunty and ATI's proprietary driver I'm sticking with Intrepid for now (this might be fixed but it's not really a part of the problem). This setup is almost a year old by now, started with Gutsy, and I'm booting straight into X using just xinit to autostart XBMC when X comes up. Brilliant.

The goal
This setup works great but lately there has been some demand from certain household members to be able to use Spotify and maybe do some Youtubing on this HTPC. So my plan was to use Fluxbox and just autostart everything i need (XBMC, Spotify and Firefox) into 3 different workspaces. I am familiar with Fluxbox from using it for something like 7-8 years on my workstation so I figured it was going to be pretty easy setting up.

The problem
But the problem is that when XBMC is running the keyboard is not responding to my ALT+F(num) combinations so I can't swap workspaces. The old trustworthy CTRL+ALT+F1 however works and sends me out to tty1 like I would expect it too, but just using the standard keys like I mentioned and also ALT+TAB wont do anything either.

So I think my question is pretty obvious by now: What can I do to fix this? And even though some of you might think "Install gnome kekek.." I wont, I dont' want it bloated I want it slim and nice and tidy. Just the fact that I'm agreeing to defile this HTPC by making it into some half-htpc-half-surfstation is really pushing it already. Any help is appreciated thanks.

[lcapriotti]

what about starting XBMC windowed and bring it in full screen only when needed?

[legolator]

Well for whatever reason XBMC won't start in Windowed mode, I figured there was a parameter i could add (like --windowed or something) so it goes straight into fullscreen. And even if that works, the windowed mode, I'm kind of reluctant to using it like that because it will require whoever is sitting there to learn how to do that. I know it doesn't sound like a big deal but it can become annoying when you have some "special things" you do to make it work. The best would be "Just press ALT+F1 to go to the XBMC, ALT+F2 to go to spotify and ALT+F3 to go to Firefox, easy as that." Instead of "oh yea you gotta put it in window mode and then move to the next workspace to use spotify." and then go back.

I don't know maybe I'm barking up the wrong tree and I can somehow find another way to handle it but the overall feel is that when I'm in fullscreen any shortkeys or whatever from the Window manager get's overrided by XBMC because I can navigate through the menu and all that but I can't get a reaction from Fluxbox. So the question if I can even get back from fullscreen mode to windowed mode might become an issue aswell since I can't get a reaction from the window manager but just from XBMC.

Thanks for your quick reply.

EDIT: Could this have something to do with the 'standalone' mode that the Linux client uses? Or is that just for the XBMC Live version that the 'standalone' is the default mode?

[Maxim]

This has to do with the X server itself since you're loading XBMC straight up using X. The workspaces (Alt+F#) you're talking about are handled by the desktop environment, Gnome, KDE, Xfce4. However with your configuration you're loading XBMC instead of a desktop environment and thus can only run one application because that's all that XBMC is designed for.

There are two options to you, instead of loading XBMC load a desktop environment and operate it in the fashion you're looking for. Depending on the desktop environment and window manager you should be able to specify what applications load, and in what location and form they're loaded in. I know that KDE has these features in it's metacity window manager (Right click on a window and select advanced and an many options are available).

The other option is to load multiple X servers, and switch using Ctrl+Alt+F# instead. This would most likely be the best option because it will minimize the amount configuration time required to get everything correct. I don't know how to specify, however, which virtual terminal X should load on, it has a default that the first X will load on but i'm not sure if it will load an additional X server on the next available or not.

The standalone deals with features of XBMC. In standalone mode certain features are disabled or act differently.

[legolator]

Well after some testing and I found that the fullscreen really is what does it, when in fullscreen I cannot use the ALT+F# keys just like you said however if I "\" so it goes into the windowed mode of XBMC then that works just fine. And this is even if I start X (startx) and open a terminal and run xbmc from there so it's really just the fullscreen mode that is the "problem" and I can't really get passed that other then to put it into windowed mode.

So I'd call this a solved issue more or less, it wont work like I expected it to at first and the solution is to exit fullscreen mode using "\" or whatever other key you want to bind that function too in the keymap.xml and then swap workspace. The idea of running multiple X sessions is of course also an option and probably closer to the "clean" setup I have been aiming for, atleast user-experience-wise.