[verified] merge experimental into nested AT-SPI fix

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JakeGreen2145 committed 2026-10-04 17:38:33 -04:00
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@@ -20,6 +20,16 @@ When the VR launcher starts the desktop, it inherits the Steam client's environm
The nested session also starts an AT-SPI accessibility registry through `session/ft-atspi` in Plasma's autostart. It discovers the bus from this session, ignores an inherited host accessibility address, and leaves an existing registry alone. Accessibility errors do not stop the desktop. This supplies the registry infrastructure for apps that expose AT-SPI trees; it does not enable gaze snapping or force Chromium/Electron accessibility. After an approved desktop restart, an AT-SPI-aware app should be visible on the nested bus. See [design.md](design.md#nested-accessibility) for native activation, fallback lifecycle, and the isolated test command.
KWin's blur and background contrast effects and its animations are off in this desktop, because KWin draws on the headset's GPU, which SteamVR needs. The session script turns them off once, the first time it starts (it leaves a setting you already have alone, and marks it done in `~/.config/frametop/frametoprc`), so turning them back on sticks. In the Frametop desktop, System Settings → Window Management → Desktop Effects has Blur and Background Contrast, and General Behavior has Animation speed. Or from a terminal, then restart the desktop:
```
kwriteconfig6 --file ~/.config/frametop/kwinrc --group Plugins --key blurEnabled true
kwriteconfig6 --file ~/.config/frametop/kwinrc --group Plugins --key contrastEnabled true
kwriteconfig6 --file ~/.config/frametop/kdeglobals --group KDE --key AnimationDurationFactor 1
```
Two of the system's autostart programs don't start in this desktop: Discover's update notifier (`org.kde.discover.notifier`), which starts Discover to check for updates, and IBus (`ibus`), which can't reach the desktop's apps because KWin's input method is `input/ft-textinput`. The session script puts copies with `Hidden=true` in `~/.config/frametop/autostart` once (marked in `frametoprc`), and skips a name you already have a file for. Delete a copy to start that program again.
Settings are in two files, and Frametop Display Settings edits both. The screens (resolution, width in metres, scale, curve, which one has the taskbar) and their layout are in `~/.config/frametop-layout.json`. The backend, remote desktop, and pointer settings are in `~/.config/frametop.conf`; `session/frametop.conf.example` lists every key.
Restarting the desktop closes its windows. Before the unit stops, `session/keep-apps.sh` moves every program started in the desktop into a systemd scope of its own, so background work such as servers, tmux, and builds keeps running. An app that shuts down its own helper processes when its window closes will still lose them; run that kind of work outside the desktop, for example as a systemd user service.
@@ -30,12 +40,13 @@ Restarting the desktop closes its windows. Before the unit stops, `session/keep-
Each KWin window is one screen. ft-screens sets its size with an `xdg_toplevel` configure and KWin resizes the output to match, live. Frames arrive as DMA-BUFs and go to SteamVR through OpenVR's `IVRIPCResourceManagerClient::ImportDmabuf`, with no copy and no size limit.
Every screen is an overlay named `frametop.screen.N` with four controls:
Every screen is an overlay named `frametop.screen.N` with five controls:
- `.bar` moves the screen. Drag it with any laser or with the 3D mouse, whose right-drag tilts. Scrolling while you drag pushes the screen away or pulls it closer, along the line from your head.
- `.curve` bends the screen into a cylinder around you, using your current distance as the radius, or makes it flat again.
- `.roll` rolls the screen when you drag it sideways, like a knob. It snaps level within 2.5°, and scrolling on it turns 5° per notch.
- `.resize`, the tab on the bottom right corner, sets the width. Screens go down to 15 cm wide.
- `.reset`, left of the bar, puts every screen back in its layout around where you are now, like Meta+Shift+R (`ft-layout apply`).
The controls are sized from both the screen's width and its distance from you, follow the surface of a curved screen, and stay invisible until a laser or the 3D mouse's cursor lands on one or comes within about 1.5 times a button's size of it. While invisible they're still there, fully transparent, so SteamVR's laser can find them. They're translucent until a laser is on them, like SteamVR's own window controls.
@@ -53,7 +64,7 @@ The Visibility & pins tab of Frametop Display Settings decides when the screens
In the last three modes the hotkey shows the screens anyway. A screen can also be hidden on its own (Screens shown on the same tab, or `ft-layout hide N`): it stays hidden whatever the mode or the hotkey says, until it's shown again there. Windows on it stay put, and a new window that would open on it floats instead (ft-floatd). Profiles use this to show only some screens. Two more settings on the same tab cover VR games, which ft-screens detects as SteamVR scene apps:
- During VR games, the Always mode hides the screens unless the dashboard is open (the default), or leaves them up.
- Controllers on the screens. Visible screens can keep SteamVR's laser mouse on, so controllers work them with the dashboard closed, but that also takes the controllers away from a game. By default this is off while a VR game runs, and the 3D mouse or the dashboard works the screens. The other choices are always on, or only with the dashboard open, which also suits flatscreen games since they aren't scene apps.
- Controllers on the screens. Visible screens can keep SteamVR's laser mouse on, so controllers work them with the dashboard closed, but that also takes the controllers away from a game. By default this is off while a VR game runs, and the 3D mouse or the dashboard works the screens. Pointing a controller at a screen, a floating window, or the keyboard still turns its laser on, like SteamVR's own floating windows, and pointing away gives the game the controllers back. The other choices are always on, or only with the dashboard open, which also suits flatscreen games since they aren't scene apps.
Input from the lasers reaches KWin through ft-screens' own seat. Keys come from the input relay, from pass-through keyboards and any key a pointer device passes through. Typing follows your last click: after a click on a screen it goes to the desktop, even with the SteamVR dashboard open, and after a mouse click on any other panel (the dashboard, Steam, an app like Spotify) it goes there instead. While it goes to the desktop, the relay grabs pass-through keyboards so gamescope, which reads every keyboard itself, doesn't type them into the Steam app too. A program that watches every keyboard for a hotkey loses a grabbed one; with `SHARE_KEYS=1` in `~/.config/frametop.conf`, their keys also go to `@frametop_keys` for it. That's off by default, since any local process that binds the name first would get everything typed into the desktop. Hidden screens don't take typing.
@@ -68,12 +79,15 @@ place N x y z yaw pitch roll width N metres curve N radius|on|off
pin N|all left|right|head [matrix] unpin N|all size N w h
get N screens head state key code value scale N s vrkeyboard show|hide|toggle|close
visibility always|dashboard|gesture|toggle wrist degrees gesture left|right degrees
hide | show | toggle controllers always|outside_games|dashboard ingames hide|visible
hide | show | toggle controllers always|outside_games|dashboard ingames hide|visible pause on|off|state
conceal N|all reveal N|all concealed cutouts on|off|state cutouts predict on|off cutouts lead ms
float N mpp x y w h title unfloat N pose N matrix sub N k x y w h | sub N k off minimized N 0|1 carry N
rates focused in_view hidden rates? watch seconds phase ms
```
`conceal` and `reveal` hide and show one screen on its own (`ft-layout hide` and `show` send them), and `concealed` lists those screens. `cutouts` turns the hand cutouts on and off (`ft-handsctl cutouts`). The last line is ft-floatd's, for floating windows: N is a floating window's panel, numbered on from the screens, one per spare output. `float` gives the window's rectangle in its output, metres per pixel, and the title bar's height, and shows the panel; `unfloat` hides it. `pose` places it (a 3x4 matrix, standing universe), `sub` shows popup or dialog k over it, `minimized` hides it while its window is minimized, and `carry` moves it with the laser that pressed the window's own title bar.
Each screen draws at a frame rate for how much of it you see. KWin draws a screen only after ft-screens gives it a frame callback, and its apps wait for theirs, so the rate of callbacks is the screen's frame rate, for KWin and the apps on it alike. A screen is focused while you look at it (within 12 degrees of where your head points), while a laser or the mouse is on it or was in the last 1.5 seconds, while it's carried, and while you type on it; it gets every display frame. The rest of what you can see (within 60 degrees) gets 15 frames a second, and a hidden screen, one behind you, and everything while paused get one a second. A level goes up at once and comes down after a moment (1.5 s from focused, 0.5 s from in view). A video, or anything moving over a large part of a screen (6% or more of it, redrawn on 8 commits in a row, 10 or more a second), keeps every frame while in view. A floating window is a screen of its own here. Nothing that stands still costs anything at any rate: KWin sends a frame only when something on the screen changed. `rates F V H` sets the three rates in Hz (0: every display frame; default `0 15 1`, also `ft-screens --rates 0,15,1`), and `rates?` shows them, the display's rate, and for each screen its level, its milliseconds between frames, and whether it counts as a video. `watch S` gives every screen full rate for S seconds: remote desktop renews it while a VNC client is connected, since a viewer sees what KWin draws. The ticks (SteamVR events and the callbacks) come once per display frame, 1 ms after the vsync (`phase ms` changes that, for tuning), in step with the display rather than on a timer that drifted through the frame.
`conceal` and `reveal` hide and show one screen on its own (`ft-layout hide` and `show` send them), and `concealed` lists those screens. `pause on` (from the input relay, when Frametop pauses for a VR game) hides every screen and floating window whatever else says, and slows the desktop down; `pause off` undoes it. `cutouts` turns the hand cutouts on and off (`ft-handsctl cutouts`). The last line is ft-floatd's, for floating windows: N is a floating window's panel, numbered on from the screens, one per spare output. `float` gives the window's rectangle in its output, metres per pixel, and the title bar's height, and shows the panel; `unfloat` hides it. `pose` places it (a 3x4 matrix, standing universe), `sub` shows popup or dialog k over it, `minimized` hides it while its window is minimized, and `carry` moves it with the laser that pressed the window's own title bar.
## Input relay
@@ -87,6 +101,8 @@ The relay also owns the volume keys, on every device that has them, the headset'
desktops.sh relay install # enable it (starts with the next reboot or SteamVR start)
desktops.sh relay status | log | uninstall
input/input-relay.py --no-grab # try it without taking devices from SteamVR
input/test/keys-test.py # key combinations and modifier taps, against fake devices (safe next to the live relay)
steam/ft-steam menu # what Open Steam menu does; ft-steam check: Steam's UI still has the calls
```
The first time, the relay has to start before SteamVR, so reboot or restart SteamVR after installing it. After that it's safe to restart on its own: systemd keeps the virtual devices open in its file descriptor store (`FileDescriptorStorePreserve=yes`), so SteamVR keeps the same devices.
@@ -101,7 +117,7 @@ A mouse drives SteamVR the way a controller's laser does, but shows up as a smal
Whichever device you used last wins. Picking up a controller hands the laser back at once, and moving the mouse takes it again. When the headset comes off, the pointer lets go, so the displays can sleep, and it stays off until you're wearing the headset again.
To move a floating panel, left-drag its grab bar. The scroll wheel pushes and pulls it while you drag. Hold the right button while dragging and move the mouse to tilt the panel around the grab point; the right press isn't sent as a click. The tilt stays for the rest of the drag, and releasing the left button drops the panel as it is. A mapped Toggle dashboard button (or a Meta tap, with `META_DASHBOARD=1`) wakes the pointer if needed and holds the virtual system button for 0.12 s, because SteamVR ignores a press and release in the same instant.
To move a floating panel, left-drag its grab bar. The scroll wheel pushes and pulls it while you drag. Hold the right button while dragging and move the mouse to tilt the panel around the grab point; the right press isn't sent as a click. The tilt stays for the rest of the drag, and releasing the left button drops the panel as it is. A mapped Toggle dashboard button wakes the pointer if needed and holds the virtual system button for 0.12 s, because SteamVR ignores a press and release in the same instant. Open Steam menu / close dashboard (`steam_menu`) needs no pointer: `steam/ft-steam menu` asks Steam's UI, over its debugging port (`steam/steamui.py`), to show its dashboard overlay and focus the Steam frame's menu, or to hide the dashboard if it's up.
```
pointer/driver/build.sh && pointer/driver/install.sh install # then restart SteamVR
@@ -110,16 +126,17 @@ pointer/helper/run.sh status | log | restart
pointer/driver/install.sh probe # devices, hand roles, who owns the dashboard pointer
```
The pointer settings are in `~/.config/frametop.conf`: `POINTER_SENSITIVITY`, `POINTER_IDLE`, `POINTER_WAKE_COUNTS`, `POINTER_CONTROLLER_PICKUP`, `POINTER_DISTANCE`, `POINTER_CURSOR_DEG`, `POINTER_ORIGIN_FRACTION`, `POINTER_ORIGIN_MARGIN`, `POINTER_SCENE_RADIUS`, `POINTER_EDGE_REACH`, `POINTER_LASER_WIDTH`, `POINTER_IGNORE`, the head follow settings `POINTER_FOLLOW`, `POINTER_LEASH_DEG`, `POINTER_LEASH_DELAY`, `POINTER_LEASH_RETURN`, and `POINTER_FOLLOW_REACH`, and the gaze mode settings `POINTER_GAZE`, `POINTER_GAZE_RETAKE`, `POINTER_GAZE_NUDGE_MAX`, `POINTER_GAZE_HOLD`, `POINTER_GAZE_DOT`, `POINTER_GAZE_SHOW`, `POINTER_GAZE_MOUSE`, `POINTER_GAZE_MOUSE_MOVE`, and the keyboard clicks' `POINTER_HEAD_DEADZONE` and `POINTER_KEY_TAP`, and the gaze service's `GAZE_TRACKER` (SteamVR's eye tracker or our own) and `GAZE_EYE` (the eye bias). The example config explains each. Frametop Input Settings changes them live; after editing the file by hand, restart the relay or the helper (the gaze service reads its two again when the file changes).
The pointer settings are in `~/.config/frametop.conf`: `POINTER_SENSITIVITY`, `POINTER_IDLE`, `POINTER_WAKE_COUNTS`, `POINTER_CONTROLLER_PICKUP`, `POINTER_DISTANCE`, `POINTER_CURSOR_DEG`, `POINTER_ORIGIN_FRACTION`, `POINTER_ORIGIN_MARGIN`, `POINTER_SCENE_RADIUS`, `POINTER_EDGE_REACH`, `POINTER_LASER_WIDTH`, `POINTER_IGNORE`, the head follow settings `POINTER_FOLLOW`, `POINTER_LEASH_DEG`, `POINTER_LEASH_DELAY`, `POINTER_LEASH_RETURN`, and `POINTER_FOLLOW_REACH`, and the gaze mode settings `POINTER_GAZE`, `POINTER_GAZE_RETAKE`, `POINTER_GAZE_NUDGE_MAX`, `POINTER_GAZE_HOLD`, `POINTER_GAZE_DOT`, `POINTER_GAZE_SHOW`, `POINTER_GAZE_MOUSE`, `POINTER_GAZE_MOUSE_MOVE`, and the keyboard clicks' `POINTER_HEAD_DEADZONE` and `POINTER_KEY_TAP`, and the gaze service's `GAZE_TRACKER` (`auto`, the default: our own eye tracker when it's installed, else SteamVR's; or `own` or `steam`) and `GAZE_EYE` (the eye bias). The example config explains each. Frametop Input Settings changes them live; after editing the file by hand, restart the relay or the helper (the gaze service reads its two again when the file changes).
## Frametop Input Settings
A Kirigami app with a Python backend, in the Plasma menu under Settings. It runs in the `dev` container and talks to the relay over its control socket, `@frametop_relay`. It has eight pages:
A Kirigami app with a Python backend, in the Plasma menu under Settings. It runs in the `dev` container and talks to the relay over its control socket, `@frametop_relay`. It has nine pages:
- Devices lists every USB and Bluetooth mouse and keyboard, with a light that flashes when the device is used. Each device gets a role: 3D pointer (grabbed, drives the pointer; the default for anything with a mouse), Pass through (grabbed only while typing goes to the desktop; the default for keyboards, where a Meta tap toggles the dashboard if `META_DASHBOARD=1` is in `~/.config/frametop.conf`), or Ignore. A device is identified by its Bluetooth address, or its USB ids and name, so all of its input nodes share one role. Forget drops everything saved for a device.
- Buttons maps a pointer device's buttons. Choose Capture a button, press the button or key, then pick an action: a click, back, scroll, toggle dashboard, recenter, pointer on or off, head follow on or off, gaze pointer on or off, gaze precision, gaze drag, gaze quick check, faster or slower, reset the screen layout, hide or show the screens, open or close the keyboard, float a window in VR or put it back, put all floating windows back, Open profile NAME (one per profile, [profiles.md](profiles.md)), pass the key through, or nothing. Devices with saved mappings are listed even while they're asleep.
- Devices lists every USB and Bluetooth mouse and keyboard, with a light that flashes when the device is used. Each device gets a role: 3D pointer (grabbed, drives the pointer; the default for anything with a mouse), Pass through (grabbed only while typing goes to the desktop; the default for keyboards, whose key combinations work everywhere), or Ignore. A device is identified by its Bluetooth address, or its USB ids and name, so all of its input nodes share one role. Forget drops everything saved for a device.
- Buttons maps a pointer device's buttons. Choose Capture a button, press the button or key, then pick an action: a click, back, scroll, toggle dashboard, recenter, pointer on or off, head follow on or off, gaze pointer on or off, gaze precision, gaze drag, gaze quick check, faster or slower, reset the screen layout, hide or show the screens, open or close the keyboard, float a window in VR or put it back, put all floating windows back, pause or resume Frametop ([Pausing for VR games](#pausing-for-vr-games)), Open profile NAME (one per profile, [profiles.md](profiles.md)), pass the key through, or nothing. Devices with saved mappings are listed even while they're asleep.
- Controllers maps the Frame controllers' buttons (every button but the system button) to the same actions, except passing a key through and the gaze actions: gaze mode is a mouse and keyboard feature ([gaze-controllers.md](gaze-controllers.md)). Capture a button and press it on a controller, or pick it from the list. The controllers aren't input devices on the host; only SteamVR sees them. So the pointer helper reads them with SteamVR input (`pointer/helper/vrbuttons.h`, `pointer/helper/actions/`) and sends presses to the relay (`vrbtn right/a 1`), which does the mapped action. The helper only takes the buttons that are mapped (the relay tells it with `vrbind`), at an overlay-global priority, and only while no game (scene application) runs, so games keep every button; with In games on (`controller_in_games`), a mapped button is taken from games too. That needs SteamVR's "Enable global input from overlays (Experimental)" setting (`steamvr/globalActionSetPriority`), which the page's Global input switch turns on and off. Mappings are saved as `controller_buttons` in `~/.config/frametop-input.json`.
- Keyboard sets when Frametop's keyboard opens: whenever a text field is selected; only while no pass-through keyboard is connected (the default; keyboards other programs make through uinput, like frame-voice's, don't count); only with a mouse or controller button mapped to Open/close keyboard; or never, which turns the button off too. Keep it open (on by default, `vr_keyboard_persist`) leaves it open after the text field loses focus. The mode is saved as `vr_keyboard` in `~/.config/frametop-input.json`, and the page lists the keyboards that count as connected. Its Key combinations section maps modifiers plus a key, on any keyboard, to any action but passing a key through or nothing. The gaze clicks (Gaze left click and Gaze right click) only go on key combinations. The defaults are Meta+J (gaze left click), Meta+K (gaze right click), and Meta+Shift+F (float window in VR or put it back); remove them or add others there. The combination's last key isn't typed, and the modifiers still reach the app. They're saved as `key_bindings` in the same file.
- Game optimization has the pause for VR games: its state with Pause now or Resume, whether VR games pause Frametop by themselves, the controller gesture (one or two buttons, pressed once or twice; one button always takes two presses), what happens to the desktop, and the sound. They're saved as `pause_auto`, `pause_gesture`, `pause_desktop`, and `pause_sound` in `~/.config/frametop-input.json`. See [Pausing for VR games](#pausing-for-vr-games).
- Keyboard sets when Frametop's keyboard opens: whenever a text field is selected; only while no pass-through keyboard is connected (the default; keyboards other programs make through uinput, like frame-voice's, don't count); only with a mouse or controller button mapped to Open/close keyboard; or never, which turns the button off too. Keep it open (on by default, `vr_keyboard_persist`) leaves it open after the text field loses focus. The mode is saved as `vr_keyboard` in `~/.config/frametop-input.json`, and the page lists the keyboards that count as connected. Its Key combinations section maps modifiers plus a key, or one modifier tapped on its own, on any keyboard, to any action but passing a key through or nothing, or to Run a command…: a command line the input relay runs with `sh -c` when you press the keys (`command:CMD`). The command runs as the relay's user service, outside the desktop's session, with `layout/`, `float/` and `steam/` on its `PATH` (so `ft-layout use Work` or `ft-float launch org.kde.dolphin` work as they are), and its output goes to the relay's journal. The gaze clicks (Gaze left click and Gaze right click) only go on key combinations. The defaults are a Meta tap (open the Steam menu, or close the dashboard), Meta+J (gaze left click), Meta+K (gaze right click), Meta+Shift+F (float window in VR or put it back), and Meta+Alt+Tab and Meta+Alt+Shift+Tab (spin the panels: every screen and floating window turns about your head, so the next one on the right or left comes to the front; ft-screens' `spin next|prev|<degrees>`); remove them or add others there. A tap is a press and release with no other key, mouse button, or scroll in between; a bound one sends the desktop F24 before the release, so Plasma's launcher doesn't open on it. The combination's last key isn't typed, and the modifiers still reach the app; while typing goes to Steam rather than the desktop, keyboards aren't grabbed, so Steam or the game sees the keys too. They're saved as `key_bindings` in the same file; a file with its own list, even an empty one, gets no defaults.
- Pointer has a Head follow switch and sliders for the pointer settings, which apply immediately, and a Recenter button.
- Ignored panels lists the SteamVR overlays that are showing, grouped by app (the first two parts of the overlay key, such as `sasaken.frame-perf-overlay`), from the pointer helper (`overlays`). Tick a panel, or Ignore the whole app, and the pointer passes through it to what's behind. It's for panels you only look at, like a performance overlay that follows your view. The list is saved as `POINTER_IGNORE` in `~/.config/frametop.conf`: comma-separated overlay keys, where a shell pattern like `vendor.app*` covers a whole app, including panels it opens later. The helper reloads at once. Frametop's own screens aren't listed, and entries for apps that aren't open are listed below, to remove.
- Gaze has the gaze pointer switch (on now and from now on; a mapped button toggles it until the helper restarts), what the mouse's left button and movement do, the gaze dot, the eye tracker and eye bias, the gaze mode sliders, the gaze service's state (headset, samples per second, how often the tracker is losing each eye, the calibration, the nudges learned), and Quick check, Calibrate, and Check headset fit (each in a panel in the headset), Reload calibration, and Forget nudges. The gaze probe, a development tool, is in the page's overflow menu.
@@ -129,7 +146,7 @@ Device rules are saved in `~/.config/frametop-input.json`. `input-settings/insta
## Frametop Display Settings and ft-layout
When the desktop starts, its screens arrange themselves around where you're facing. You can move them by hand at any time and put them back with Meta+Shift+R, the Reset Screen Layout menu entry, Arrange now in the app, or a mouse button mapped to Reset desktop screen layout.
When the desktop starts, its screens arrange themselves around where you're facing. You can move them by hand at any time and put them back with Meta+Shift+R, the reset button left of any screen's bar, the Reset Screen Layout menu entry, Arrange now in the app, or a mouse button mapped to Reset desktop screen layout.
The desktop's own screen arrangement follows where the screens are around you, whatever their numbers: a screen you see to the left of another is to its left in Plasma too, so the pointer and dragged windows cross straight to it. Screens one above the other stack, and screens pinned to a wrist or your head come last. It's updated at startup, after arranging or saving the layout, and half a second after you let go of a screen you moved. With the headset off there's no head pose to go by, and the arrangement stays as it was.
@@ -199,14 +216,41 @@ power/run.sh off | on # the displays off now, or back on
power/run.sh log
```
## Pausing for VR games
Paused, Frametop leaves the headset's CPU and GPU to a VR game. The input relay does it (`input/game_pause.py`), since it's the one part that always runs:
- The gaze service stops (`frametop-gaze`: ft-gazed, ft-gaze, our own eye tracker, the gaze panel), so nothing reads SteamVR's eye tracking. Our frame grabber, the root service `ft-eyegrab`, goes idle by itself 3 seconds after our eye tracker stops asking it for frames.
- Hand tracking stops if it runs (`frametop-camd`, `frametop-hands`).
- The desktop, as the Game optimization page of Frametop Input Settings says (`pause_desktop`): hidden (the default) or closed. Hidden, ft-screens hides every screen and floating window whatever the visibility mode, the hotkey, or the dashboard says, and gives KWin a frame callback once a second instead of every display frame. KWin draws a screen only after its frame callback, and its apps wait for theirs, so the desktop hardly draws, but its windows stay open. Remote desktop stops if it runs (`session/remote-ctl.sh`). Closed, `desktops.sh stop` closes the desktop and its windows, and resuming starts it again (about 12 seconds), in its start profile if it has one.
- The relay lets go of the 3D mouse and feeds pointer devices to its virtual mouse and keyboard, as with `POINTER=0`. Typing goes to Steam. Mapped buttons and key combinations do nothing but pausing, the Steam menu, and commands; a key combination that does nothing is typed as usual.
Resuming starts again only what pausing stopped, and plays a second sound. The pointer helper and ft-powerd keep running: they cost little, the helper is what says a game started, and stopping it would leave its virtual controller connected with its last pose.
Ways to pause and resume:
- The controller gesture, by default both thumbsticks clicked together twice: both go down within 0.3 seconds of each other, and the second time within 0.7 seconds of the first. The relay reads it from vrserver's web socket (`input/vrws.py`), which works whatever has input focus and takes nothing from the game, so the game sees the clicks too. The Game optimization page changes it: one or two of the buttons the Controllers page lists, pressed once or twice (one button always takes two), or none.
- The Pause/resume Frametop action, on a mouse button, a key combination, or a controller button (outside games, like every mapped controller button).
- VR games, with Pause while a VR game runs on (`pause_auto`, the default). The pointer helper tells the relay when a scene app starts and ends (`vrgame 1|0`, repeated every 5 seconds). A game starting pauses Frametop. A pause that starts while a game runs ends 5 seconds after the game does, unless another game starts first. Resumed during a game, Frametop stays on until that game ends. A pause that starts outside a game lasts until you resume. Flatscreen games aren't scene apps, so they don't pause it.
- From a terminal or a script:
```
input/ft-pause on | off | toggle # pause or resume
input/ft-pause status # the state as JSON (the relay's "pause ?")
input/vrws.py 10 # the controllers' buttons from vrserver's web socket, for 10 s
input/test/pause-test.py # the gesture and the automatic pause, offline
```
The state outlives a relay restart, in `/run/user/UID/frametop-pause.json`. A SteamVR restart while paused starts the gaze service with it, and the relay stops it again when the pointer helper comes back.
## Gaze pointer (experimental)
In gaze mode the 3D mouse's pointer goes where you look, and the mouse or the keyboard does the last bit. It needs the gaze service, which `install.sh` offers (yes by default) and `gaze/run.sh install` installs on its own: it builds it and runs `gaze/ft-gazed` as `frametop-gaze.service`, which starts with SteamVR. Turn gaze mode on with the Gaze page of Frametop Input Settings, `gaze/ft-gazectl on`, `POINTER_GAZE=1`, or a button or key combination mapped to Gaze pointer on/off.
In gaze mode the 3D mouse's pointer goes where you look, and the mouse or the keyboard does the last bit. It needs the gaze service, which `install.sh` offers (yes by default) and `gaze/run.sh install` installs on its own: it builds it and runs `gaze/ft-gazed` as `frametop-gaze.service`, which starts with SteamVR. The service idles while the gaze isn't used: its eye tracker reader and our own eye tracker run only while gaze mode is on and someone wears the headset, while a check or the calibration runs, or while the Gaze page of Frametop Input Settings is open, and stop 30 seconds after ([gaze/README.md](../gaze/README.md)). Turn gaze mode on with the Gaze page of Frametop Input Settings, `gaze/ft-gazectl on`, `POINTER_GAZE=1`, or a button or key combination mapped to Gaze pointer on/off.
- Meta+J left-clicks and Meta+K right-clicks where you look. A quick tap clicks where the dot was at the press. Hold instead, and the dot stays put in your view: turn your head until it's on what you meant, and let go to click there. Held still for `POINTER_GAZE_HOLD` (0.5 s), the press becomes a real one, and your head drags. Meta+K with Meta+J held presses where the dot is now, to drag from there, and a second Meta+K during that drag (a double Meta+K) pans and tilts what you're dragging while it's held.
- The mouse's buttons work the same way, with the mouse steering instead of your head (`POINTER_GAZE_MOUSE=precision`, the default): the right button with the left held starts a drag, and a double right click pans and tilts what you're dragging. With `POINTER_GAZE_MOUSE_MOVE=held`, the default, the mouse only corrects: while the gaze has the pointer, moving it does nothing unless a button is held. `free` lets the mouse take the pointer any time. With the gaze stale for a second, in a game, or with the headset off, the mouse works as usual.
- A correction before a click teaches the gaze service the tracker's error there. A correction bigger than `POINTER_GAZE_NUDGE_MAX` (55 degrees) isn't learned; it opens a quick check instead.
- Calibration and checks run in a panel fixed to the headset (`gaze/panel/ft-gazepanel`, which the gaze service runs), from the Gaze page: Quick check is one dot, and also opens when you put the headset on. Calibrate is three rounds of dots, dark to bright; look at each dot and left click or press Meta+J to take it. Check headset fit shows, live, how well the tracker sees each eye. A right click or Meta+K closes the panel. Gaze mode coming on without a calibration opens Calibrate by itself.
- Calibration and checks run in a panel fixed to the headset (`gaze/panel/ft-gazepanel`, which the gaze service runs), from the Gaze page: Quick check is one dot, and also opens when you put the headset on. Calibrate is three rounds of dots, dark to bright; look at each dot and left click or press Meta+J to take it. Check headset fit shows, live, how well the tracker sees each eye. A right click or Meta+K closes the panel. Gaze mode on without a calibration opens Calibrate by itself, as soon as your eyes are seen. If gaze mode is on but can't follow your eyes yet (no calibration, the calibration can't open, the gaze service not running), the Gaze page says why under the Gaze pointer switch, and `gaze/ft-gazectl on` notes it.
[gaze/README.md](../gaze/README.md) has the details, our own eye tracker, and the gaze probe, a development tool.
@@ -231,6 +275,8 @@ It listens on port 5900 on the Frame's Tailscale address only, not the LAN, so i
No VNC server can capture KWin on SteamOS directly: `krfb` needs `xdg-desktop-portal-kde`, which SteamOS doesn't ship, and `wayvnc` only works with wlroots compositors. So `session/remote-desktop.sh` captures the desktop with KDE's `krdpserver --plasma` on `127.0.0.1:3390`, and `session/vnc-bridge.sh` runs TigerVNC's `Xvnc` on display `:20` with a FreeRDP client inside it and serves that. Both run in the `dev` container, and the extra hop adds a little latency. krdp streams every screen; the VNC screen is the primary's size, and the FreeRDP window is shifted so the primary fills it (`ft-layout remote-view` gives the offset). krdp's own `--monitor` would stream just one screen, but it maps the pointer as if that screen sat at 0,0, so clicks would miss. When the layout changes, the VNC screen resizes and FreeRDP reconnects within a few seconds.
FreeRDP runs only while a VNC viewer is connected, because while it's connected krdp captures and encodes every redraw. With no viewer, krdp has no RDP connection and so captures nothing, and Xvnc shows a black screen. When a viewer connects, the bridge starts FreeRDP, and the desktop appears about 3 seconds later; FreeRDP stops 45 seconds after the last viewer leaves (`VNC_IDLE_SEC` in the bridge's environment). The bridge looks for viewers with `ss` whenever Xvnc logs something, as it does for every connection, and every 5 seconds otherwise. While a viewer is connected, the bridge asks ft-screens to draw every screen at full rate (`watch 15` on `@ft_screens`, renewed every 5 seconds), so screens you aren't looking at in the headset, or a headset on a stand, don't stream at a low rate. It reads the primary screen's place again (`ft-layout remote-view`) only while FreeRDP runs, after `~/.config/frametop/kwinoutputconfig.json` or `~/.config/frametop-layout.json` changes, and once a minute.
With remote access on, the nested KWin runs with `KWIN_WAYLAND_NO_PERMISSION_CHECKS=1` and `KWIN_SCREENSHOT_NO_PERMISSION_CHECKS=1`, so any app in the Frametop desktop could capture its screens or inject input. The second one lets scripts take screenshots through KWin's `org.kde.KWin.ScreenShot2` D-Bus interface. This applies only to that desktop, not the stock one. Port 3389 is SteamOS's own `xrdp`, which starts a separate X11 session rather than showing the VR desktop.
## Limits