7   X-META-X Option VARIO

7.1 Operation
7.2 Configuration
      7.2.1 Screen
      7.2.2 Compensation for X Window client and server bugs

7.1   Operation

With the option VARIO you can scale up or down a screen in horizontal or vertical direction. Thus, a meta screen with dimensions of 1278×1022 pixels can fill the display area of a wall display with dimensions of 1920×1440 pixels. Vice versa, a meta screen sized 1278×1022 pixels can be displayed entirely on a smaller monitor sized 1152×900 pixels.

In addition the option allows to rotate each screen individually by multiples of 90 degrees. The direction of the mouse pointer movement is rotated accordingly. Depending on the displaying X Window server smooth mouse movements may require additional server configuration (5 Configuration of the X Window servers).

7.2   Configuration

The statement

options [+|-]vario 

enables or disables the option. However, only options which are covered by the license key (3 Licensing) may be enabled. The default setting - no additional options - corresponds to the X-META-X base product.

7.2.1   Screen

7.2.1.1   Zooming a screen

The screen sub-statements

    clipX horizontal_position_in_pixels
    clipY vertical_position_in_pixels
    clipWidth width_in_pixels
    clipHeight height_in_pixels
    clipGeometry widthxheight
        [+horizontal_position+vertical_position] 

determine the dimensions of the meta screen area to be displayed on the screen. Both the horizontal and the vertical dimensions can be zoomed independently. All X11 requests are scaled up or down correspondingly. Especially with non-integer zoom factors scalable fonts should be used.

The default value of 0 for all scalar parameters and 0x0+0+0 for clipGeometry, respectively, mean that the parameters displayWidth and displayHeight (6.12.4 Dimensions of a screen) are taken, and thus the screen is not zoomed.

If the screen is zoomed, then the screen sub-statement

    minimumTextSize height_in_pixels 

determines the minimum font height for text output. Text to be displayed with a smaller font is represented by rectangles. The default value of 0 means normal text output.

7.2.1.2   Rotating a screen

The screen sub-statements

    rotate|rotation 0|none
    rotate|rotation 90|quarter|oneQuarter [noPointer]
    rotate|rotation 180|half|twoQuarter|twoQuarters [noPointer]
    rotate|rotation 270|threeQuarter|threeQuarters [noPointer] 

rotate the screen contents by 0 degrees (default), 90 degrees, 180 degrees, or 270 degrees counter-clockwise. All X11 requests are rotated correspondingly. If noPointer is not specified, the movements of pointer devices are adapted.

7.2.2   Compensation for X Window client and server bugs

7.2.2.1   Faulty pointer coordinates mode

If a screen is to be rotated the X-META-X proxy uses a virtual input device for direct control of the pointer image. Some X Window servers report absolute instead of relative mouse pointer coordinates

The statement

workarounds absoluteInputDeviceMode 

lets the xmetax program interpret the pointer coordinates relatively instead of absolutely.