scaling display in X

gerryk

I have a kiosk app which uses a 1024x768 display, but on two kiosks, the display is 800x600. Is there any straightforward way of downscaling the display to fit on the 800x600 screen.
Getting new screens is not an option, since that would entail replacing the housing too... etc etc... just loads of hassle. I also don't fancy having to rescale all the graphics and displays... again, hassle, hassle hassle.
I've had a bit of a dig around, but nothing seems to be presenting itself.

fractal

Go to /etc/X11/XF86Config (that should be the location of the X config file anyways)

Now make a copy of this file in case you make a balls of it..

Open file.. Search for a section like this:

Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen0"
Device "Videocard0"
Monitor "Monitor0"
DefaultDepth 24
SubSection "Display"
Depth 24
Modes "800x600"
EndSubSection
EndSection

Now edit the Modes line to read "1024x768" "800x600"

You may also need to set different refresh rates in the "monitor" section.. But thats screen dependant..

Assuming everyhting supports that res all should be good.

gerryk

See, that's the thing, the monitor doesn't. It's a 12" 800x600 lcd, but the kiosk display is 1024x768, I'm looking for a way to squeeze the full display onto the small screen. A little like the opposite of a virtual desktop.

niallb

How does the application run?
What's it written in?

On the offchance it's a web application,
you could try a copy of Opera which supports resizing the whole page.

A more general approach might be to run a VNC X display &1024x768 and see can you find a vncviewer with a resize option.
I know the PDA VNC clients support image scaling, so it's
quote possible that you'll find one that'll work, though I haven't in the one I use - tightvnc.
I'll post back if I come across one that works for sure.

Just 2¢, you don't have to get X to do the rescaling.

Niall B.

Typedef

There's some horrible setting for X where

a 1024x768 screen for example get displayed in an 800x600 window and when you bring the pointer to the side of the screen, the screen shifts horizontally/vertically.

This happens when you answer (Y) to do you want to have a screen larger then the physical display in xf86config... I think.

gerryk

Niallb, it's a mozilla XUL application, so yes, is a web app in that it's written in XML/Javascript but only mozilla can display it and sadly moz doesn't do scaling.

Typedef, yeah, that's the virtual display thing. It works, but it wouldn't do for my purposes. Basically with scaling, some of the stuff will fall off the screen, and no offence to J. Random Public, but usability is a big factor.

I really don't fancy hacking x servers to make this work, my social life wouldn't survive

Thanks for the suggestions