GTK+ application not running in full screen

Question

I have a custom google-chromium application (based on X11/Gtk+) which I am running on Ubuntu 13.x. Now what I want is when the system starts up i don't want to load Ubuntu window manager, instead I am starting Ubunut in text mode in console. When It starts in console mode, I want to run my custom google-chromium application. The application should run in 1080P. So here is the sequence.

Start Ubuntu in console mode. login and start X server. (startx) Once X server is launched I run google-chrome. (with the help of .xsession)

Everything is working and I am able to start my google-chrome application but there is one problem. My google-chrome application is not on full screen. I have tried geometry=1920x1080 --maximize but nothing is working and it is showing itself in the top - left corner.

As per GTK docs screen sizes are managed by Window Manager, (http://www.gtk.org/api/2.6/gtk/gtk-x11.html), which I am not running.

Question is, since I am not running any window manager how can I tell google-chrome application to run on the full screen.

Thanks.

Regards, Farrukh Arshad.

Answer 1

what is called "full screen" under X11 is really a client message sent from the application to the window manager, which will then resize the window and hide the window frame; if there is no window manager, there is nothing to honour the policy. even the geometry request goes through the window manager: the toolkit can but ask.

the question is: are you modifying the Chromium code base for your application, or are you just launching the application itself? if you have access to the windowing system code you can get the screen size and set the window geometry yourself; see the GdkScreen API:

https://developer.gnome.org/gdk2/stable/GdkScreen.html

I would still suggest you run a small window manager; running without one degrades the functionality of any application. you can use a simple one, like twm:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twm

or a slightly more complex, and yet very plain one, like Metacity:

https://wiki.gnome.org/Projects/Metacity