[Suggestion] Dual screen support : detached window

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MagicBuzz
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[Suggestion] Dual screen support : detached window

Post by MagicBuzz »

Hello,

I use to play with Microsoft Flight Simulator.
On my laptop, I have a 15.1" screen, and when I play in my room, I connect to it a 24" screen.

With Microsoft Flight Simulator, I can right-click on a window, then hit "detach" menu. The ingame window become a real windows window, so I can drag it to the second screen.
This is really usefull, as I can control my GPS/radios/flight plan on the 15.1" screen, while I can seen the environment on the 24" screen.

I think some people have dual screens two, and fullscreen support on those configuration is really badly supported on OTTD (only the principal screen display something, while the second one display a black screen).
If I switch to windowed mode, then the second screen is useless for OpenTTD, as I can't drag ingame windows (finance, vehicle groups, etc.) on the second screen.

If I change the window size to fill both screens, then I have a problem : as the 15.1" screen is only 800 pixels height, while the 24" one is 1200, I have a portion of 1280x400 pixels that is inaccessible (at least, not visible). When I open new windows, any window that appear in this portion is hidden... Not really easy to play in those conditions.

So here is the suggestion : it that possible to improve the dual (or more) screen support ?

This should be done by 2 ways :
- The best one would be like FS : using a "detach" option on the ingame windows. Like this way, I could maximize the gane on the 24" screen, while I may put some usefull windows on the 15.1" one.
- Another easier solution would be to exclude the "back zone" from the available ingame windows positions. This way, I could maximize the game on both screens, but the game would understand there are zone where the game is actually not displayed, and avoid drawing anything there.

Solution 1 - Something like this :
Image

Solution 2 - (see attached files) :
Exclude the red zone from the available ingame windows position.
Attachments
You may take care of the position of the screens, it can be changed by the user.
You may take care of the position of the screens, it can be changed by the user.
dual screen 1.png (51.7 KiB) Viewed 4302 times
dual screen 2.png
dual screen 2.png (54.95 KiB) Viewed 278 times
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MagicBuzz
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Re: [Suggestion] Dual screen support : detached window

Post by MagicBuzz »

Here is a video to help understanding what I call "detach" a window.

With Google Chrome, you just have to drag a tab on a screen to detach it to a new window.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhjNAYJ4Fzc
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Re: [Suggestion] Dual screen support : detached window

Post by Alberth »

you could play a MP game at your local machine :)

It costs more resources (you'd run the same game twice), but it can give you the interface that you want.
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Re: [Suggestion] Dual screen support : detached window

Post by MagicBuzz »

Hmmm, lol, you're right, it *could* be a solution :D
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Re: [Suggestion] Dual screen support : detached window

Post by Eddi »

if someone bothers to find out how to open a second window with GDI and/or SDL, then one could open a secondary viewport in the separate window (e.g V => open viewport in main window, Ctrl+V => open viewport in secondary window)
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Re: [Suggestion] Dual screen support : detached window

Post by peter1138 »

I'm pretty sure it's impossible to open a second window with SDL (1.2)
He's like, some kind of OpenTTD developer.
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Re: [Suggestion] Dual screen support : detached window

Post by planetmaker »

Topic moved to suggestions forum. When some actual work is done on it, a new thread in the development forum can be opened.
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Re: [Suggestion] Dual screen support : detached window

Post by Zuu »

I have no clue if a multi threaded application maybe could use two instances of the SDL library in some way even if SDL is a static C library. Otherwise the only way is separate processes which we already have through mulitplayer. A concept of master and slave processes with some inter-process communication could maybe be used to implement something that is more tailored for dual monitors so that eg. the news and economy window show on only the master and not the slave. However, it is not something I would spend my time on.
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Re: [Suggestion] Dual screen support : detached window

Post by svierkant »

This options would be awsome! I would like to have some windows (profit/company value, vehicle/station list, etc.) on my second screen.

Running a second instance of OpenTTD is not an option, because clicking an item on a list (i.e. station, train or bus) does not open it on my primary screen.
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Re: [Suggestion] Dual screen support : detached window

Post by YNM »

I think just moving over a viewport to the other one is enough ?
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Re: [Suggestion] Dual screen support : detached window

Post by svierkant »

YNM wrote:I think just moving over a viewport to the other one is enough ?
What do you mean? I don't understand you answer.
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