Commit Graph
41 Commits
Author SHA1 Message Date
DeeJanuzandClaude Opus 5.5 e1ee5ef395 Remote desktop: read the layout only after it changes
While FreeRDP ran, vnc-bridge.sh called ft-layout remote-view every 5 s, which scans
all of /proc for plasmashell and runs kscreen-doctor -j: about 4.4% of a core for a
layout that rarely changes.

It now stats the two files the answer depends on, the nested KWin's
~/.config/frametop/kwinoutputconfig.json (positions, scales, primary) and
~/.config/frametop-layout.json (screen sizes), once a second while FreeRDP runs. After
either changes it reads the layout every 2 s for 10 s, since KWin's outputs follow the
file a few seconds later; otherwise once a minute, in case a change touched neither.
With no VNC viewer connected nothing runs (previous commit).

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-10-03 09:14:43 -06:00
DeeJanuzandClaude Opus 5.5 3e7248a04e Remote desktop: connect FreeRDP only while a VNC viewer is connected
vnc-bridge.sh kept FreeRDP connected to krdpserver from the moment remote desktop
started, so krdp captured and H.264-encoded every KWin redraw in software (openh264)
with nobody watching: krdpserver 55-78% of a core, xfreerdp 16-27%, Xvnc 6-11%, with 0
clients on :5900. krdp 6.7 creates its screencast session per RDP connection and drops
it when the connection closes, so krdpserver itself idles without one and stays up.

The bridge now counts established connections to Xvnc's port with ss, starts FreeRDP
when a viewer appears (the desktop shows about 3 s later; the VNC screen is black until
then) and stops it 45 s after the last one leaves (VNC_IDLE_SEC). Xvnc has no client
hook, so its log output, which it writes for every connection, wakes the bridge early;
otherwise it looks every 5 s while idle (0.1% of a core measured, against 0.9% for ss
once a second) and every second while FreeRDP runs. The layout check runs only while
FreeRDP runs.

While a viewer is connected the bridge sends "watch 15" to ft-screens (@ft_screens) at
once and every 5 s, so screens at a reduced frame rate (out of view, headset on a
stand) stream at full rate; it lapses by itself if the bridge dies, and an ft-screens
without the command just answers an error. The window search after starting FreeRDP
now ends when FreeRDP exits instead of polling for 30 s.

krdp on 127.0.0.1 with a fresh password, VNC on the tailnet address with VncAuth, and
remote-ctl.sh start/stop (pause and resume) are unchanged.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-10-03 09:14:25 -06:00
DeeJanuzandClaude Opus 5.5 5b08e43a5d Gaze: idle while the gaze isn't used
The gaze service ran ft-gaze and our own eye tracker all the time: with gaze mode off, ft-eyes
still took about 60% of a core, and ft-eyegrab, ft-gaze and ft-gazed 3 to 4% each. Now ft-gaze
and our tracker run only while gaze mode is on and someone wears the headset, while a check or
the calibration is open or asked for, or under a "wake" lease, which the Gaze page of Frametop
Input Settings renews while it's open. 30 s after the last use they stop, and the frame grabber
idles with our tracker.

- The pointer helper answers "gaze ? headset" with worn|away (SteamVR's activity level for the
  headset); an older helper answers it as before, and the service then goes by gaze mode alone.
- A quick check, calibration, or fit check asked for while idle wakes the tracker and opens once
  it sends; the automatic calibration waits quietly while it starts.
- Status has "awake" and "idle" (why), and the Gaze page shows it.
- gaze/test/idle-test.py runs the service with a fake helper and ft-gaze, offline.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-10-03 08:32:49 -06:00
DeeJanuzandClaude Opus 5.5 8aaf7db05a Pause Frametop for VR games
Frametop kept using the headset during games: with gaze mode off, our eye tracker still took
about 60% of a core, remote desktop about 2 cores while on, and KWin kept drawing hidden
screens because ft-screens sent their frame callbacks at 90 Hz. Pausing gives that back, and
resuming brings back only what pausing stopped. It's also a way to keep the gaze service and
our eye tracker off during games, which PR #13 asked for.

Paused (input/game_pause.py, run by the input relay):
- frametop-gaze stops (ft-eyegrab then idles by itself), and hand tracking and remote desktop
  stop if they run
- the desktop hides and slows down: ft-screens "pause on" hides every panel and sends KWin a
  frame callback once a second; or, with pause_desktop "close", the desktop closes and starts
  again on resume
- the relay lets go of the 3D mouse, typing goes to Steam, and mapped buttons and key
  combinations do only pause_toggle, steam_menu and commands

Toggled by both thumbsticks clicked together twice (configurable), read passively from
vrserver's web socket (input/vrws.py) so it works in games and takes nothing from them; by the
new pause_toggle action; by input/ft-pause; and, with pause_auto (default on), by a VR game
starting and ending, which the pointer helper now reports ("vrgame 1|0"). Frametop Input
Settings has a Games page for it. update-check.py checks the web socket, and doesn't count a
paused gaze service as failed.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-10-02 21:58:09 -06:00
DeeJanuzandClaude Opus 5.5 85532a54f3 Wait for a new container to finish setting up before entering it
container-up.sh starts the dev container in a scope of its own, so
distrobox enter finds it running and skips its wait for distrobox-init.
On a fresh install, init was still setting up passwordless sudo when
dev-container.sh ran sudo dnf install, and sudo asked for a password
with no terminal to read it from. container-up.sh now waits for
container_setup_done itself, and the container's sudo calls use -n,
so a password prompt fails at once with a clear message.

Fixes #9

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-10-01 21:58:17 -06:00
DeeJanuzandClaude Opus 5.5 12c42cd455 Bring the docs up to date with the code
- floating-windows.md and profiles.md describe what's built, with what
  isn't listed as such; the plans, phases, and branch notes are gone
- hands-migration.md is gone: the move is done; its open items are in
  hands/README.md's Known issues
- reference.md: Layout & profiles, every action, key combinations,
  floating windows, the gaze pointer, and hand tracking as they are
- design.md gets the KWin findings from floating-windows.md
- README, gaze/README, AGENTS, hazards, gaze-controllers, and the
  example config catch up with gaze, hands, and the stuck-key fix

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-10-01 14:47:53 -06:00
DeeJanuzandClaude Opus 5.5 20e8d6254a Merge gaze-calibration into experimental
The gaze checks and calibration in a headset panel (quick, five, full, headset
fit; shared-buffer drawing, click-to-capture), keyboard and mouse gaze clicks
(Meta+J/K, the mouse's buttons alike, mouse moves only while a button is held,
double right/Meta+K tilts a drag), one 55 degree learning limit with a quick
check past it, eye presence for "the headset went on", the gaze probe as a
development tool, and the relay releasing keys the desktop has down that no
keyboard holds.

Conflicts with the profiles: the relay keeps known_action/needs_pointer and
the gaze defaults (Meta+J/K and the float key); Input Settings keeps the
profile actions everywhere and the gaze actions in key combinations only.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-10-01 11:55:04 -06:00
DeeJanuzandClaude Opus 5.5 45b1b06cdb Calibration all in the headset panel; the gaze probe is a development tool
Check headset fit now runs in the headset panel too ("fitcheck"): a card per
eye (tracked or lost, the tracker's signal, how much of the last 10 s it was
seen) and the hints, from the probe's fitcheck.py, updated at most twice a
second; left click or Meta+J runs its guided check, right click or Meta+K closes
it. So Quick check, Calibrate, and Check headset fit all happen in one place.

The gaze probe moves to the Gaze page's overflow menu as "Gaze probe
(development)", and its app menu entry says it's a development tool. Texts that
sent users to it ("use Calibrate… with Own tracker") point at Calibrate.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-10-01 11:14:33 -06:00
DeeJanuzandClaude Opus 5.5 964c250858 Gaze mode: a double right click or double Meta+K pans and tilts a drag
A drag begun by right during the left's held-back press (or Meta+K during
Meta+J's) now lasts while either button or key is held, so pressing the right
one again is free: it tilts, as a right press does during any mouse drag. Meta+K
during a keyboard drag (held still into one, or the second Meta+K) tilts while
held: the head turns the panel, and the mouse can too; let go and the head drags
again from there.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-10-01 11:03:54 -06:00
DeeJanuzandClaude Opus 5.5 1f46616c75 Gaze mode: the mouse's buttons work like Meta+J and Meta+K
The right button's press is held back like the left's: hold it, the pointer
stops where you look, move onto the target, and the right click comes on the
release (held still, it's a real right press). Right during the left's held-back
press now starts a drag where the pointer is, as Meta+J then Meta+K does, in
place of a right click there; letting go of either drops it. So once you've
moved, the left alone only clicks, and the right starts a drag.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-10-01 11:00:23 -06:00
DeeJanuzandClaude Opus 5.5 a2a5a4c98e Gaze mode: the mouse only corrects, and left-then-right right-clicks
POINTER_GAZE_MOUSE_MOVE=held, the default (the Gaze page's Mouse movement
switch, with why it's on): while the gaze has the pointer, moving the mouse
does nothing; it moves the pointer only while a button is held, as a
correction. A bumped or drifting mouse can't pull the pointer off what you're
looking at, and every mouse move is a correction, so lessons aren't polluted by
mouse moves to somewhere else. With the gaze stale for a second, in a game, or
with the headset off, the mouse moves the pointer as usual. "free" is the old
behaviour.

Pressing the right button while the left one's press is held back right-clicks
where the pointer is instead (correct with the left, then right-click); both
releases are then nothing. Meta+J then Meta+K stays a drag.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-10-01 10:56:33 -06:00
DeeJanuzandClaude Opus 5.5 8998fc1ddd Gaze learning limit: 55 degrees, past it a quick check; a solid panel
Drops the quick check's second step (3629681): the user didn't want it, and it
re-entered itself every tick, re-placing and redrawing the panel, which
flickered in the headset.

POINTER_GAZE_NUDGE_MAX is the one learning limit, now 55 degrees by default:
half of the 109 the Frame shows across. The helper measures the correction
itself (raw gaze to click), not the mouse's path; past the limit it isn't
learned and the helper sends "recheck" for the quick check, for the mouse and
keyboard alike. ft-gazed's own limits (8 and 25) follow the setting.

Test, our tracker's 409 clicks since its Sep 29 calibration: a one-dot check
set from any one of them puts the next 2 minutes' clicks within 15 degrees (99%
within 4.2) and the next 10 minutes' within 25, so it gets well under 55.

The panel's dot is still and its capture ring fills in quarters, so it's drawn
again only a few times per dot.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-10-01 10:48:57 -06:00
DeeJanuzandClaude Opus 5.5 362968198b Quick check: put the pointer on the dot, and one limit for learning
After the quick check's capture, in gaze mode, the dot stays where it is in the
room (the panel's new "lock") and the gaze has the pointer again. You put the
pointer on the dot as you'd correct a click, with the mouse or Meta+J and the
head. That click clicks nothing: the helper sends it as "calverify", learned
whatever its size. Over POINTER_GAZE_NUDGE_MAX, the capture runs again, up to
3 times. A right click or Meta+K skips it.

POINTER_GAZE_NUDGE_MAX is now the one limit: 15 degrees by default (was 8),
and ft-gazed's own limits (8 for SteamVR's tracker, 25 for ours) follow it. A
keyboard correction past it isn't learned but opens a quick check ("recheck"),
in place of the 30 degree keyboard limit.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-10-01 10:41:52 -06:00
DeeJanuzandClaude Opus 5.5 4c46d69b0c Check what Frametop needs from SteamOS after an update
On the Frame, a SteamOS update replaces SteamVR, KWin, and gamescope with the
rest of the OS image. scripts/update-check.py, run by doctor.sh and report.sh,
checks what Frametop uses from it: the OpenVR interface versions the installed
programs were built against, the vrcmd --overlays format, the eye tracker's
shared memory layout, host files, services, sockets, and the driver
registration. doctor.sh --mark-good records the package versions once things
work, and later runs say what changed and what to try by hand.

The session no longer stops when mesavars.sh or flatpak.sh is missing.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-10-01 08:51:09 -06:00
DeeJanuzandClaude Opus 5.5 c4c10e6d92 Gaze checks and calibration in a panel fixed to the headset
ft-gazepanel (gaze/panel) is a SteamVR overlay that stays put in your view and
shows dots at known head-relative directions; the gaze service runs it and
drives it (gaze/gazecheck.py):
- a one-dot quick check 3 s after the headset goes on, when our tracker asks
  for a click (reseat), at most every 2 minutes, and from Quick check on the
  Gaze page; five dots follow if the next 3 lessons are still over 2 degrees off
- the full calibration (the probe's three rounds, dark to bright) when gaze mode
  comes on without one, or from Calibrate; quitting it with still no calibration
  turns gaze mode off
Each dot takes the gaze once it has held still for 0.6 s; a left click or Meta+J
takes it at once, a right click or Meta+K closes the panel (the pointer helper
hides its dot and passes those presses on while "calpanel" lasts). Our tracker
gets clicks and its own calibration; SteamVR's gets lessons per eye, or a new
calibration.json.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-09-30 22:12:26 -06:00
DeeJanuzandClaude Opus 5.5 e16b7588e2 Gaze mode is a mouse feature: drop its controller parts
Steam reads the Frame controllers itself, outside SteamVR's bindings, and every
press and release it sees takes SteamVR out of laser mode, so controller clicks
at the gaze can't be done cleanly (docs/gaze-controllers.md, from the gaze-first
branch's tests).

- Gaze precision and Gaze drag take a mouse button or a key combination only;
  the controller source, its aim steering, and POINTER_PRECISION_GAIN,
  POINTER_PRECISION_DEADZONE and POINTER_GAZE_DRAG_GAIN are gone.
- The gaze actions (including Gaze pointer on/off) can't be mapped to controller
  buttons: the relay ignores them there and doesn't ask the helper for those
  buttons, and Input Settings no longer offers them.
- Last used wins in gaze mode too: picking up a controller hands it the laser,
  as docs/design.md already said.
- The gaze dot shows all the time (POINTER_GAZE_DOT=always, the default;
  moving brings back the old behaviour), with a switch on the Gaze page.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-09-30 21:11:24 -06:00
DeeJanuzandClaude Opus 5.5 5714978e65 Add a keyboard for text fields on the desktop
Fixes #7: SteamVR's keyboard never came up for the desktop's apps, and
opening it for our panels doesn't work well on the Frame (it's Steam's own
panel, mounted in the dashboard's scene, it follows the laser between
panels, and it takes the controllers over to SteamVR's laser).

- KWin starts input/ft-textinput as the desktop's input method. It tells
  the input relay when a text field gains or loses focus, and the relay
  asks ft-screens to open or close the keyboard. The session drops the
  QT_IM_MODULE=xim and GTK_IM_MODULE=xim that the gamescope session sets,
  or Qt and GTK apps never report text fields.
- The keyboard is ft-screens' own panel (screens/keyboard.cpp): a US laptop
  layout, typed with a controller's laser or the 3D mouse. It opens 0.7 m
  in front of you, below your eyes and facing you. It has a grab bar to
  move it, a Close key, latching Shift, Ctrl and Alt, and repeat on a held
  key. It's drawn into shared DMA-BUFs, so it doesn't flicker. Its keys
  reach the focused screen as key presses, so every app takes them.
- It steps aside while the Steam menu or Steam's own keyboard is up and
  comes back after. A layout reset closes it, and it doesn't open without
  a head pose.
- Frametop Input Settings has a Keyboard page: open it for every text
  field, only while no keyboard is connected (the default), only from a
  mapped button (the new Open/close keyboard action, for mice and
  controllers), or never. A switch keeps it open until you close it.
- The pointer helper treats every frametop.* overlay as a real panel. The
  keyboard's shared texture reports 0x0 like SteamVR's scene-graph
  controls, and the helper had given it their wide catch radius.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-09-30 13:41:47 -06:00
Nikita Koptelov 3aea571496 Start Frametop's SteamVR clients only once SteamVR is up (#6)
The pointer and gaze services need steamvr.service to be running (Requisite=), and ft-pointer, ft-screens, and ft-gaze connect as a background app before switching to overlay, so they never start a vrserver of their own. One started from the dev container never finds the headset, which left a reboot stuck in a loop.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
(cherry picked from commit 51b4e79318)
2026-09-30 10:02:33 -06:00
DeeJanuz d888b6c3f1 Merge branch 'pointer-ignore' into experimental 2026-09-29 14:13:36 -06:00
DeeJanuzandClaude Opus 5.5 9c04207bb9 Let the pointer pass through panels you pick, like a performance overlay
A head-locked performance overlay kept catching the 3D mouse. It has no
input method, so SteamVR's laser passes through it, but the helper hit
tests every visible overlay with ComputeOverlayIntersection, and the dot
stuck to it whenever it crossed that corner of the view.

POINTER_IGNORE in frametop.conf now lists overlay keys the helper leaves
out of the collision, comma-separated shell patterns, so "vendor.app*"
covers a whole app, including panels it opens later. The laser starts
just before the cursor point, so an ignored panel nearer to you doesn't
catch it either.

Frametop Input Settings has a new Ignored panels page. It asks the
helper for SteamVR's overlays ("overlays", answered from the list's
thread once vrcmd has run again, even while the pointer is off), groups
them by app, and has a checkbox per panel and one for the whole app.
Frametop's own screens aren't offered, since ignoring one would leave
nothing to click the app on with the mouse. Entries for apps that
aren't open are listed so they can be removed.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-09-29 14:13:34 -06:00
DeeJanuz ed9542d3b8 Merge branch 'layouts-headpin' into experimental
# Conflicts:
#	README.md
#	display-settings/ft_display_settings.py
#	display-settings/main.qml
#	docs/reference.md
2026-09-29 10:24:30 -06:00
DeeJanuzandClaude Opus 5.5 b99fb97f32 Turn the displays off while the headset isn't used, and keep it awake on a charger
A display mount that covers the proximity sensor makes the headset seem
worn, so SteamVR never turned its displays off and they stayed on all
night. The new power service, ft-powerd (frametop-power.service), goes by
use instead: after DISPLAY_OFF_MIN minutes in which the headset and
controllers didn't move and no input device was used, it turns the
backlight off, and the next movement or input turns it back on.

The new Power tab in Frametop Display Settings sets that time and has a
Stay awake while plugged in switch. The switch sets Steam's own "When
Plugged In and Idle -> Sleep after" to Never through Steam's UI, so the
Frame stays reachable remotely while the power button still works.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-09-29 09:34:34 -06:00
DeeJanuzandClaude Opus 5.5 0be802c7e1 Add named layouts and a head pin for screens
Named layouts: Save current arrangement in Frametop Display Settings now
asks for a name, and saved layouts are listed with the presets under
Arrangement, with rename and delete next to the list. A named layout is
the custom arrangement under a name: each screen's place relative to
your head, width, curve, and pin, but not resolution or scale. Using one
copies it into the custom arrangement, so desktop start, Meta+Shift+R,
and Arrange now apply it unchanged; "active" remembers the name, and a
plain capture clears it. ft-layout gains save, use, layouts, rename, and
delete. A layout saved with fewer screens than there are now leaves the
others where they were saved last, or where the preset puts them.

Head pin: ft-screens' pin command takes "head" as well as left and
right, and pins the screen to the headset (device 0) where it is, like a
HUD. A head-pinned screen skips the wrist facing rule and shows whenever
the screens do. Carrying it re-pins it to the head on release, like a
wrist pin, so it can be adjusted in VR. The Visibility tab (now
Visibility & pins) sets each screen's pin: in the room, either wrist, or
your head, and the pin command now rejects anything but left, right, or
head (it used to take anything else as left). This removes the "no HUD"
limit from the docs.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-09-28 22:33:57 -06:00
DeeJanuzandClaude Opus 5.5 f01c84f9a3 Use the other eye when the tracker loses one, and add a headset fit check
SteamVR's combined gaze keeps going on one eye, but it holds the lost
eye's yaw, so the gaze moves half as far sideways as the eyes do.
ft-gaze now reads each eye's tracking uncertainty and raw measurement
from eye-server.mmap. When the tracker loses an eye, ft-gazed takes the
gaze from the other one, plus the offset that eye usually shows
against both, learned while both are seen. On a recording, one eye
alone came out a median 0.8 degrees from both eyes' gaze.

Glances down at the keyboard, past every screen, aren't sent. The
pointer stays put, and eyes lost there don't count as lost.

The gaze probe gets a Headset fit mode. It shows per-eye tracking,
openness and confidence, maps where each eye gets lost, gives hints,
and has a guided check. The settings app opens it from the Gaze page
and shows how often each eye is lost. The probe can also test each eye
alone, and its side panel now collapses to a title bar so the dot
isn't hidden behind it.

Snapping to UI elements is deferred; the mouse drag is the correction.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-09-28 22:07:41 -06:00
DeeJanuzandClaude Opus 5.5 0857a54fab Don't let resting controllers take the laser from the mouse
A controller released the 3D mouse's pointer on a single pose sample
faster than 0.35 m/s or 2 rad/s, once the mouse had been still for
500 ms. The helper polls about every 8 ms, so one noisy sample was
enough: a knock on the desk, or a tracking jump when the headset's
cameras pick a resting controller up again (#1).

A controller now has to stay over the limit for 100 ms in a row, and
only samples with a normal tracking result (Running_OK) count. The new
POINTER_CONTROLLER_PICKUP setting (1 by default, 0.5 to 5) scales both
limits; it's a slider on the Pointer page of Frametop Input Settings
and applies live. A controller picked up for real still gets the laser
back through SteamVR's hand role, which follows its touch sensors. The
release log now records the speed and spin that triggered it, to tune
the default.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-09-28 21:31:22 -06:00
DeeJanuzandClaude Opus 5.5 14879023f3 Let the 3D mouse click all of SteamVR's Settings page
Most of SteamVR's Settings page took no clicks from the 3D mouse: they
went through to a desktop screen behind it, and the page covered the dot.
Steam's pages (Library and the rest) are drawn in
valve.steam.gamepadui.main, which ComputeOverlayIntersection hits exactly.
For SteamVR Settings that overlay is hidden and the page is drawn by the
dashboard's scene-graph panel, whose shape OpenVR doesn't give out. The
helper guessed a plane and a 0.5 m circle from the panel's transform, but
its origin is at the page's left edge and the page's surface is nearer
than that plane, so the laser, starting a few cm in front of the guess,
started behind the page.

On that page only (dashboard open, the main overlay hidden, the line of
sight crossing the page's measured area), the laser now starts 25 cm from
the eye so SteamVR's own hit test finds the page. The dot is drawn 0.6 m
out, in front of the page, and the laser-catching dot sits 8 m out,
invisible, with SteamVR's hit dot hidden on it. The beam and SteamVR's hit
dot show there, like a controller's; everywhere else nothing changes.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-09-28 17:17:15 -06:00
DeeJanuzandClaude Opus 5.5 0d50efec45 Map the Frame controllers' buttons; make gaze clicks correctable
The Frame controllers aren't input devices on the host, so the pointer
helper reads them with SteamVR input (vrbuttons.h, actions/), one action
set per button, and sends presses to the relay, which does the mapped
action like for a mouse button. Only mapped buttons are taken, at an
overlay-global priority (SteamVR's experimental "Enable global input from
overlays"), and only outside games unless In games is on. Frametop Input
Settings gets a Controllers page to map them.

Gaze mode: a left press while the gaze has the pointer isn't sent at
once. The pointer stops, you drag it onto what you meant with the button
held, and the release clicks there; a press held still for
POINTER_GAZE_HOLD (0.5 s) becomes a real press, for drags. The dot shows
only while the mouse moves it (POINTER_GAZE_SHOW), while a press is held,
and as a pulse per click. Outside games the pointer stays on while gaze
mode is on. ft-gazed takes a third of each lesson's offset instead of all
of it: in the first live test one 6 degree lesson moved everything and put
the next target 7 degrees off. Frametop Input Settings gets a Gaze page.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-09-28 16:26:24 -06:00
DeeJanuzandClaude Opus 5.5 10f21273a6 Add gaze mode to the pointer: it goes where you look
MAGIC pointing (Zhai et al. 1999), off by default: with POINTER_GAZE=1,
"gaze on", or a button mapped to the new gaze_toggle action, the cursor ray
is the corrected gaze from ft-gazed while the gaze has the pointer. Moving
the mouse takes the pointer from where the gaze left it; looking more than
POINTER_GAZE_RETAKE (5 deg) away with the mouse still gives it back. The
pointer is aimed at the gaze, never steered toward it, and only fresh gaze
moves it, so a stopped service or a blink leaves it where it is. A mouse
nudge of up to POINTER_GAZE_NUDGE_MAX (8 deg) before a click is sent to
ft-gazed as a lesson in the eye tracker's error.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-09-27 22:51:51 -06:00
DeeJanuzandClaude Opus 5.5 cfe5990b12 Mark head follow as experimental
It works but is only lightly tested, and what's left is mostly tuning its
settings. Frametop Input Settings now says so under the Head follow switch,
and the README, design notes, and button action name say it too.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-09-27 21:52:21 -06:00
DeeJanuzandClaude Opus 5.5 9addd8c669 Move the head-follow cursor only after the head passes the leash
Easing the reference toward the head all the time moved the cursor on
every small head movement, so a cursor parked in a corner of the view
drifted. Now nothing moves while the head stays within the leash. Once
the head has been past it for POINTER_LEASH_DELAY (0.2 s, so a glance
out and back doesn't count), the reference eases all the way to where
you face (POINTER_LEASH_RETURN) and the cursor lands back in its place
in the view, then the leash waits again. Leaning inside the leash no
longer moves the cursor either. Leash 0 stays head-locked.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-09-27 21:52:21 -06:00
DeeJanuzandClaude Opus 5.5 9f4b61729d Settle head follow back on where you look; let the mouse reach 70 degrees
The leash only moved its reference when the head reached the leash's end,
so after turning back it sat up to the leash off, and recentring meant
overshooting with the head. The reference now eases toward the head's
facing (POINTER_LEASH_RETURN, 0.2 s) and never lags more than the leash,
so the cursor settles back to its place in the view once the head stops.
The mouse can now move the cursor up to POINTER_FOLLOW_REACH (70 degrees)
from the middle of the view, up from a fixed 40. Both are sliders on the
Pointer page.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-09-27 21:52:21 -06:00
DeeJanuzandClaude Opus 5.5 137705cbfd Add head follow: the pointer comes along when you turn your head
Off by default. With POINTER_FOLLOW=1 (a switch on the Pointer page of
Frametop Input Settings, or a mouse button mapped to Head follow on/off),
the cursor rides on a reference direction leashed POINTER_LEASH_DEG (10)
from where you face. Within the leash it stays put in the room; past it,
it turns with your head and keeps its offset. A leash of 0 locks it to
your view. Head roll is ignored, the cursor stays within 40 degrees of
the reference, and it holds still in the room while the left button is
down so the head can't nudge a click or a drag.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-09-27 21:52:21 -06:00
DeeJanuzandClaude Opus 5.5 8f051db083 Send typing to the panel clicked last
An ungrabbed keyboard reached both sides at once: gamescope, which in VR
reads every input device itself (the SteamOS build's InputStealer), typed
into its focused app, and ft-screens typed into the desktop. Space in the
desktop paused Spotify on the dashboard, including every space frame-voice
dictated. And while the SteamVR dashboard was open, the desktop got no
keys at all.

Typing now follows the last click. ft-screens sees clicks on its own
screens; the pointer helper reports the panel under the dot on each mouse
press, so a click on any other panel sends typing to Steam. While typing
goes to the desktop and the screens are showing, ft-screens tells the
relay every second, and the relay grabs pass-through keyboards. A grab
waits until no key is down, and the relay lets go if ft-screens stops
reporting. Controller clicks on other panels aren't visible to overlay
apps, so they don't move typing (noted in the README).

A program that reads every keyboard for a hotkey loses a grabbed one.
Repeating the keys on another input device doesn't work, since gamescope
reads that too, so with SHARE_KEYS=1 the relay sends them to
@frametop_keys as datagrams with the device name. It's off by default:
any local process that binds that name first would get every key typed
into the desktop.

The docs now say gamescope reads keyboards and the headset's buttons
itself; they said SteamVR passed keys on to it.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-09-27 21:52:21 -06:00
DeeJanuzandClaude Opus 5.5 705b434cf3 Take over the volume keys so they can't crash gamescope
gamescope sends volume up and down to Steam by moving keyboard focus to
Steam for the key and back. When nothing had focus, it moves focus back to
null and wlroots aborts, which ends the whole VR session. One press of the
headset's volume button did that while working in the Frametop desktop.

The input relay now handles volume keys from every device that has them,
the headset's buttons included, and steps the default output with wpctl
(5%, repeating while held). SteamVR, which passes keys on to gamescope,
never sees a volume key: devices with a keymap (gpio-keys, USB and
Bluetooth keyboards) get only their volume entries remapped to unused
codes, so the headset's click button keeps working, and pmic_resin, which
has only volume down, is grabbed. The keymaps go back when the relay
stops, and --no-grab leaves the volume keys alone.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-09-27 09:10:28 -06:00
DeeJanuzandClaude Opus 5.5 f70073b140 Leave an unchanged SteamVR driver in place when reinstalling
Re-running the installer replaced the ft_pointer driver's files under a
running SteamVR. SteamVR then kept giving the virtual controller its hand
role but ignored its laser claim, so the mouse moved its dot without
SteamVR's laser until SteamVR restarted. The driver is now staged and only
replaced when it changed.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-09-26 20:07:35 -06:00
DeeJanuzandClaude Opus 5.5 54b1e5cd4b Aim controller rays along the laser, not the controller
The Frame controllers' laser comes from their render model's tip, 40
degrees below the controller pose's forward axis. ft-screens tested rays
along the pose, so a controller's laser near a screen's controls didn't
reveal them, and dragging the resize tab or the roll knob with a
controller followed the wrong point. Rays now start from the tip.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-09-26 19:42:30 -06:00
DeeJanuzandClaude Opus 5.5 bc74097331 Fix the installer; start the desktop without the Steam client's environment
install.sh: a comment with an apostrophe inside a single-quoted command
(from the distrobox pin) ended the quote and broke the script at step 1.

The VR launcher started the desktop with the Steam client's environment,
including LD_LIBRARY_PATH to Steam's runtime, whose libavcodec has no
H.264 decoder: VLC in the desktop couldn't play most videos. The session
script now drops the client's variables before starting anything, so apps
use the system's libraries and codecs.

The README and the installer now recommend setting Steam's Sleep after
(When Plugged In and Idle) to Never; Steam suspends the Frame after an
hour otherwise, even while charging.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-09-26 19:16:35 -06:00
DeeJanuzandClaude Opus 5.5 b0036cdeae Rewrite the README and docs in plainer prose
The README drops the bold headlines on every item and reads as prose. The
reference is brought up to date and loses its bold labels. The design doc
is reorganized by topic instead of as a dated work log, keeping the
technical findings. The setup guide uses subheadings for troubleshooting.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-09-26 19:06:36 -06:00
DeeJanuzandClaude Opus 5.5 4d845492e7 Let the headset sleep with the helper idle; keep the container out of our units
With the pointer released, the helper still listed overlays by running
vrcmd every second, a new SteamVR client each time, which kept SteamVR
from going to standby. The list now pauses while the pointer is off.

Starting the dev container from one of our services made that service own
it, so stopping the service stopped the container and the desktop's
compositor with it. scripts/container-up.sh starts the container in a
systemd scope of its own before every distrobox enter.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-09-26 17:56:45 -06:00
DeeJanuzandClaude Opus 5.5 6122313fae Record the screens-over-games test
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-09-26 17:04:55 -06:00
DeeJanuzandClaude Opus 5.5 d439bc3f25 Frametop: a multi-screen desktop and universal 3D mouse for the Steam Frame
Several KDE Plasma screens floating in SteamVR, each a real monitor of any
resolution and shape, shown by our own compositor (ft-screens), with a
layout, wrist pinning, and visibility modes; a Bluetooth mouse that drives
all of SteamVR as a room-anchored 3D pointer (input relay, ft-pointer
helper, ft_pointer SteamVR driver); two settings apps; and Bluetooth LE
fixes. Installs on the headset with ./install.sh.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-09-26 16:14:13 -06:00