9 Using the Graphical User Interface

This chapter covers the following topics:

• Introducing Photon
• Customizing Photon
• Window Manager
• Saving your Photon session
• Accessing Windows through ICA Client
• Scheduling events
• Helpviewer
• Phindows
• Vmail
• Voyager
• Using and customizing other Photon apps

Information to be added

[Author's Comments: Include the Photon Technical Note, ((@@add cross ref) xid="http://support.qnx.com/support/docs/photon20/technotes/hotkeys.html">Shortcuts & Hotkeys<)) ]

Introducing Photon

Photon is the graphical user interface for QNX RTP. Photon's microGUI architecture uses a minimal graphical microkernel complemented by external processes communicating via an inter process communication (IPC) system. The tiny (55K) Photon microkernel houses fundamental primitives that the external processes use to construct the windowing system. A minimal Photon windowing system for resource-hungry embedded systems runs in less than 500K of memory; external processes can be added as necessary to provide as much functionality as required.

For a more detailed introduction to Photon, see the Photon microGUI white paper on our website.

Environment variables

[Author's Comments: also applies to command line]

To see a list of environment variables with their associated definitions, type env in a terminal window. [Author's Comments: explain how to get a terminal window--lower this section?] You can modify these environment variables as required (see env in the Utilities Reference).

Here are descriptions of some of the default environment variables:

[Author's Comments: this is the order they come up in after env command--put into alphabetical order?]

This environment variable:	Lets you:	For more information, see:
PATH	include the directories that contain Photon executables
PHOTON	specify the name of the registered Photon device that you want to communicate with	Utilities Reference
ABLPATH	specify the path of the translations directory. If a language or path to the translations directory isn't set, it's assigned to PHOTON_PATH/translations.	"Localization"
SHELL	@@@
PHFONT	set the registered name of the font server	Utilities Reference
HOSTNAME	@@@
TMPDIR	@@@
PHTK_PATH	@@@
LD_LIBRARY_PATH	@@@
PHWM	specify the name of the Photon Window Manager to start	Utilities Reference
HOME	@@@
DISPLAY	check if Photon started from an X Window System environment
USER_NAME	@@@
PHINSTANCE	@@@
TERM	@@@
TZ	@@@
PHOTON_PATH	specify the name of the root directory that contains Photon files.
PHOTON2_PATH	@@@
PHSTART	@@@
FONTSLEUTH	@@@
LOGNAME	@@@
SYSNAME	@@@
PHWM	specify the name of the Photon Window Manager to start	Utilities Reference

Customizing Photon

Unless you chose otherwise when you installed RTP, Photon starts automatically when you boot (if you want to change this, see the note in "Selecting command-line or GUI"). If you started in command-line mode, type ph to start Photon.

RTP is a multi-user OS so before you are allowed into the system, you have to provide your User Name and Password; then you see the default Photon desktop.

The default desktop screen shows two shelves (graphical containers for applications and other containers):

• a horizontal shelf at the bottom of your screen with the launch icon at the left, and
• a vertical shelf with application icons at the right-hand side

Changing the default desktop configuration

Photon allows you to you to select various desktop window and background options using a dialog box. To show this box, either:

• right-click anywhere on the desktop background and then select Desktop Config... from the Desktop Menu, or
• click Launch/Configure/Appearance

The resulting dialog box has two tabs. The Background tab allows you to select suitable colors, patterns, and image files for your background image. Here's what the Windows tab options do:

This Windows tab option:	Enables this function:
Full Window Dragging	Lets you drag a full window (rather than just its outline) around the workspace. (Don't enable if you have a slow CPU or graphics card.)
Cursor focus	Gives focus to the window your cursor points to instead of the window you click in
Click to front	Lets you click anywhere on a window (rather than just its title bar or frame) to bring it to the front
Multi-monitor placement	If you have two or more graphics cards in one computer, this allows you to display different parts of the desktop on different monitor screens. [Author's Comments: (@@this is a neat feature, explain it more fully and show how to do it somewhere)]

Changing the default graphics configuration

You change the default graphics configuration using the Photon Display Configuration dialog box. This box allows you to select a video driver and various options associated with it. To show this box, either:

• right-click anywhere on the desktop background and then select Graphics Config... from the Desktop Menu, or
• click Launch/Configure/Video Display

If you are having cursor trouble, your video card hardware that displays the mouse pointer may not be working properly. Try checking the Disable Hardware Cursor box: this forces the driver to draw the cursor with software-only routines.

Changing the default shelf configuration

You change shelf options using the Shelf Setup dialog box. To show this box, either:

• click Launch/Configure/Shelves, or
• right-click anywhere on the desktop background and then select Shelf Config... from the Desktop Menu.

The left-hand pane of the Shelf Setup dialog box, labeled Desktop, shows a graphical representation of all the shelves.

The default desktop shows two shelf icons in the workspace. Click on the upper shelf icon to see how the shelf at the bottom of the workspace is set up. In the right-hand pane, labeled Selected Components, you see an explanation of the type of component you have selected, together with some options. In the case of a shelf component, these options allow you to:

• reposition the shelf by double-clicking the new location (top or bottom, or sides)
• show or hide the shelf (Shelf is Open)
• show a hidden open shelf on mouse over (Auto-Show Collapsed Shelf)
• use a standard increment for resizing the shelf (Resize by Standard Increments)

When you have configured the shelf the way you want, click Apply to save any changes you have made.

The shelf icon you selected contains three other icons depicting:

• a Launch Menu plugin
• a Separator
• a Taskbar plugin

Click on these icons to see an explanation of the component in the right-hand pane (labeled Selected Component). Some of these components have variables you can configure as options.

The other shelf icon in the default setup also contains plugins and separators. These plugins are executable programs that launch applications. If you click on one of these icons, the right hand pane shows an explanation of the component it represents including the command you will invoke when you click the icon on the Photon desktop. Below the separator on this shelf, you see three other plugin icons for three different types of components, labeled Volume, CPU load monitor, and Clock: click on these icons for an explanation of the component and any available options.

The CPU monitor icons on the desktop show CPU, memory, and network occupancy measures.

There are other types of component you can add to the default shelf configuration; here's how:

• Highlight the existing plugin that will be adjacent to the new icon.
• Click the Add Plug-In Before or After button.
• Select the new component from the New Type menu and see an explanation of the selected component in the upper panel.
• Add the component by clicking the Apply button.

You can also add other components by clicking on the Browse button and selecting from the list.

Apart from shelves, there are two other container types available to you: groups and drawers. The only difference between these two types of container is that, when expanded on the desktop, groups stay inside their parent graphically whereas drawers stick out at right angles to their parent.

If you wish to add a shelf, select an existing shelf in the Desktop pane and then click the Add Plug-In Before or After button. Configure the shelf by selecting a name, placement, and options in the Selected Component pane. Remove a shelf (or any other component) by selecting it, then clicking Remove.

To leave the shelf Setup screen click Cancel or Done.

Standard plugins

The standard RTP configuration includes several types of plugins. These types are defined in files called shared objects (the file suffix is .so), also known as DLLs; they are stored in /usr/photon/dll/shelf/. One type of plugin is called a Run Program: these plugins are executable programs.

Standard executables

The standard desktop shelves for the root user come equipped with icons representing several executables. Most of these executable programs are standard QNX 6 utilities. Some of them, like the calculator and the helpviewer, are intuitive to use; for detailed technical information on the others, consult the following table.

To find out about this plugin:	See:
Dialer	Utilities Reference, phdialer
Editor	Utilities Reference, ped
File Manager	Utilities Reference, pfm
Image Viewer	Utilities Reference, pv
Localization	"Localization"
MediaPlayer	Utilities Reference, phplay
Mixer	Utilities Reference, mixer
Network Cfg	Utilities Reference, phlip
Package Manager	"Using Package Manager"
Terminal	Utilities Reference, pterm
Vmail	Photon Technotes, Voyager Email
Voyager	Photon Technotes, Voyager Browser

Localization

Click on the Localization icon in the standard right-hand shelf to display the User's Configuration dialog box. This allows you to select:

• time zone
• language
• keyboard layout.

[Author's Comments: (@@What are user configuration files?are they something to do with this? (@@add Photon inst and config pp22-27 here--check out first]

Changing the time and date

If you are the root user, you can change the system date or time by starting a terminal session (click on the Terminal icon) then using the date utility (see date in Utilities Reference).

Only root can change the system date or time.

For example, if you want to change the date and time on your system to December 31, 1999 at 11.59 pm, you would enter the following command line:

date 31 12 99 11 59 pm 

Installing fonts

Only root can install new fonts or use the Photon Font Administration dialog box.

To install fonts, start Photon, then copy your desired font files to ${PHOTON_PATH}/font.

To find out what the environment variable PHOTON_PATH stands for, type

echo $PHOTON_PATH 

in a terminal window.

As long as the new font format is supported (see phfont in Utilities Reference for a list of supported formats), an automatic font installer (see fontsleuth in Utilities Reference) logs the font for install while Photon is running; the font files are then copied into the physical font directory, ${PHOTON_PATH}/font_repository.

The new fonts will be available for use after you have restarted Photon.

To uninstall fonts, remove them from the ${PHOTON_PATH}/font_repository directory, then restart Photon.

You can get by with only one font if you really need to conserve memory.

To view the installed fonts, start the Photon Font Administration dialog box by:

• selecting Launch/Configure/Font Server, or
• typing fontadmin in a terminal

You will be asked to confirm that you want to modify the global default fonts; if you so confirm, you will be able to see a list of installed fonts by clicking the down-arrow icon on the Installed Font selection box in the Mappings tab. This tab also enables you to map a descriptive name to a font.

Options tab

The Options tab in the Photon Font Administration dialog box allows you to select various other options:

The following options apply to all fonts:

Check this box:	To:
Always Anti-Alias	Get crisp, clean output on the screen, at practically any resolution.
Strict International Support	Make the font manager use the missing glyph, and the font family, style, and size to locate a font to provide a substitute glyph. Enabling this option may provide more uniform text output, but it significantly decreases performance. If disabled, only the missing glyph is used to locate a substitute.

These options apply to FontFusion fonts:

Check this box:	To:
Enable FontFusion Anti-Aliasing	Produce crisp characters on the screen.
Use Font Hints	Improve text output quality when the FontFusion engine encounters a delta-hinted font. If this option is disabled, performance increases by a small amount, but the output quality isn't as good. If you enable the Always Anti-Alias option, you should disable this option, and vice-versa.

These options apply only to fonts rendered by the Character Shape Player (CSP) engine - basically Portable Font Resource (PFR) fonts:

Check this box:	To:
Enable CSP/PFR Anti-Aliasing	Produce crisp characters on the screen.
Sub-Pixel Positioning	Allow characters produced with anti-aliased output to be aligned on non-pixel boundaries (currently on 1/2-pixel X-positions only). This allows for more visually pleasing inter-character spacing within a string, at the cost of halving the effective capacity of the bitmap cache and decreasing the accuracy of processing local metrics.
Use Font Hints w/CSP Anti-Aliasing	Force anti-aliased output to use font hinting provided in the PFR. Superior output results are usually achieved by ignoring hints when producing anti-aliased bitmaps. Hints are always used in aliased text output, regardless of this option's setting.

[Author's Comments: add configuring the mouse -- buttons, speed, acceleration-see input-cfg]

Using Package Manager

[Author's Comments: (explain what a packages file is and what it's for--include pkg Mgr technote somewhere)]

Only root can access Package Manager.

[Author's Comments: (@@ What is this package manager? What does it do for me? What is the package filesystem? How does it relate to the Package Manager? How does the file manager relate to PM and work with it?)]

Customizing Package Manager

Window Manager

[Author's Comments: (@@How do you know the console number in window manager?)]

Using Window Manager

Customizing Window Manager

Saving your Photon session

Currently, it isn't possible to save a session in Photon so that the next time you log in you see the same windows you were working in previously, but you could create a script file in $HOME/.ph/phapps to start applications when you start Photon (see ph in Utilities Reference.

Accessing Windows through ICA Client

Using ICA Client

Customizing ICA Client

[Author's Comments: @@ user queries: I'm looking for some simple 1-2-3-4 steps to follow to generate a customized install image for QNX RTP that only has the Citrix client, a selected few apps like Voyager pre-loaded, preferably to a floppy-only install (even if 10 or 15 floppies were needed). Or even how to set up a BOOTP/TFTP server so I could install the systems over a network with just a boot floppy or two. A lot of the hardware I'm trying to use doesn't have a CD drive, and depends on other chips that are part of the system to make the hard drives and/or flash look like an IDE drive which means I can't just remove the drives and put them in a system with RTP already installed as that newer machine with built-in CD drive has no idea how to handle the basically "dumb" PCMCIA drives.)]

Scheduling events

[Author's Comments: how to use Scheduler & Cron]

Helpviewer

Using Helpviewer

Customizing Helpviewer

Phindows

[Author's Comments: overview and explain Phindows: Photon in Windows. An application that accesses Photon from a Microsoft Windows environment.]

Using Phindows

Customizing Phindows

Vmail

[Author's Comments: take info from technote]

Using Vmail

To create a new mail folder within Vmail:

• Right-click on the INBOX icon in the Folder tree pane.
• Click New.
• Click Mail Folder.

If this doesn't work, try deselecting the default option of using the MBX format for newly created mail folders, in the Email configuration dialog box (to get there, click Edit/Configuration/Mailer).

[Author's Comments: usage info to be added]

Customizing Vmail

[Author's Comments: Add info from the Voyager Email section in Photon Technotes ]

Voyager

Refer to the Voyager Browser section in Photon Technotes on our website.

Using Voyager

Customizing Voyager

Using and customizing other Photon apps