Vncdesk

Vncdesk was originally developed for scaling up applications on high DPI screens. Applications run in VNC desktops.

Usage

Configuration for each desktop goes into a numbered directory below ~/.vncdesk. For example the configuration in ~/.vncdesk/2/ can be run with:

vncdesk 2 Examples/nikke.fig

Optional arguments, here nikke.fig, are passed to the startup script which may pass it on to an application:

Files:

settings.ini, by example:
```
[desktop]
width = 1024
height = 768
depth = 24

[window]
title = Xfig
name = xfig in vncdesk
class = FigInVncdesk
scale_factor = 2
smoothing = false
```
The option depth is optional, and so is the entire section window.

Consider that GDK 3 will also scale the VNC viewer via the environment variable GDK_SCALE. You may want to disable GDK scaling in case you run into display errors.

Set smoothing to false to get rid of blur when scaling. This option requires gtk-vnc release 0.7.0 or newer.
startup: Startup script, executable by the user.

Environment variables provided:
- WIDTH, HEIGHT: Desktop size.
- DISPLAY: Display of the VNC server.
- GUEST_DISPLAY: Display of the VNC client.
- INVOCATION_DIR: Directory in which vncdesk was started.
- Arguments passed when calling vncdesk.
Examples:
- Xfig in full screen mode:
```
#!/bin/sh
xrdb -merge Xresources
cd "$INVOCATION_DIR"
exec xfig -geometry ${WIDTH}x$HEIGHT+0+0 "$@"
```
- Xfig in Fluxbox window manager:
```
#!/bin/sh
cd "$INVOCATION_DIR"
exec fluxbox &
xterm -e command
```

Application specific files, for example Xresources:

xfig*image_editor: DISPLAY=$GUEST_DISPLAY xdg-open
xfig*pdfviewer: DISPLAY=$GUEST_DISPLAY xdg-open
xfig*browser: DISPLAY=$GUEST_DISPLAY xdg-open

.password: Generated every time anew, to password protect the connection also from other users on the same system.
.Xauthority: Generated every time anew.

Installation

Download a release from GitHub.
Install dependencies:
- Python_3
- a compatible VNC server such as TigerVNC 1.4, TightVNC 1.3, or RealVNC 4.1
- gtk-vnc 0.5 or compatible
- GObject introspection data for gtk-vnc (if not already installed as part of gtk-vnc)

If you want to set up an explicit font path for the VNC server, at the same level as __init__.py create font_path.py. Example contents:

font_path = ','.join(['/usr/share/fonts/misc/',
                      '/usr/share/fonts/75dpi/',
                      '/usr/share/fonts/100dpi/',
                      '/usr/share/fonts/Type1/'])

Run with sufficient permissions:
```
python setup.py install
```
Or, if you have pip:
```
pip3 install .
```

Releasing a new version

Test, e.g. by:

pip3 install --upgrade --user .; ~/.local/bin/vncdesk 2

Use versioning scheme: major.minor.patch
Set version in: vncdesk/version.py
Tag version in Git.

Coding convertions

Maximum line length: 80 characters
Comments in reStructuredText.

License

Except where noted otherwise, files are licensed under the WTFPL.

This work is free. You can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the Do What The Fuck You Want To Public License, Version 2, as published by Sam Hocevar. See the COPYING file for more details.