Does tigervnc support window pass through(multiwindow) like opentext/ETX?
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Derick Behrends
May 4, 2021, 12:23:34 PM5/4/21
to TigerVNC User Discussion/Support
While working for one employer that supported ETX (now opentext exceed turbox), I was able to choose an option called multiwindow where I would start an xterm on a remote machine and that xterm window was controlled by the windows10 or mac operating environment. All subsequent windows started from this xterm would also be controlled by windows10 or the mac. The advantage of this is then you are not tied to a single window for your linux working environment. You are now free to move your windows back and forth between monitors without the single window restriction. Now I know some people setup VNC to span multiple monitors but if your monitors are not identical size then that becomes problematic. Plus it is difficult to intermix chrome browser windows or any other windows or mac application with your linux windows since all the linux windows are stuck in a single window kde environment.
My question as stated in the subject is if there is a way to get TigerVnc to behave like this multi-window environment I describe? Where windows10/mac windows interact seemlessly with windows from the linux server machine.
TIA
-Derick
DRC
May 4, 2021, 1:03:33 PM5/4/21
to tigervn...@googlegroups.com
In The VirtualGL Project, we've traditionally referred to that mode of
operation as "seamless windows". Unfortunately, no VNC solution can
accommodate seamless windows, because the RFB protocol doesn't
accommodate them. RFB stands for "remote framebuffer", and the name
reveals its original intent: to display the contents of a framebuffer
remotely. That framebuffer can be a physical GPU-based framebuffer in
the case of screen-scraping VNC servers (WinVNC, x0vncserver, x11vnc,
etc.), or it can be a virtual main-memory-based framebuffer in the case
of Xvnc, but the protocol itself works the same regardless. The VNC
server basically just sends compressed image tiles with coordinates
attached to them, so the VNC viewer knows where to draw each tile.
Supporting seamless windows would require a richer protocol that
includes remote window management primitives as well as per-window
framebuffer update messages.
There are other (non-VNC-based) open source remote display solutions
that support seamless windows. Xpra is probably the most
straightforward of them, in my experience.
DRC
On 5/4/21 11:23 AM, 'Derick Behrends' via TigerVNC User
operation as "seamless windows". Unfortunately, no VNC solution can
accommodate seamless windows, because the RFB protocol doesn't
accommodate them. RFB stands for "remote framebuffer", and the name
reveals its original intent: to display the contents of a framebuffer
remotely. That framebuffer can be a physical GPU-based framebuffer in
the case of screen-scraping VNC servers (WinVNC, x0vncserver, x11vnc,
etc.), or it can be a virtual main-memory-based framebuffer in the case
of Xvnc, but the protocol itself works the same regardless. The VNC
server basically just sends compressed image tiles with coordinates
attached to them, so the VNC viewer knows where to draw each tile.
Supporting seamless windows would require a richer protocol that
includes remote window management primitives as well as per-window
framebuffer update messages.
There are other (non-VNC-based) open source remote display solutions
that support seamless windows. Xpra is probably the most
straightforward of them, in my experience.
DRC
On 5/4/21 11:23 AM, 'Derick Behrends' via TigerVNC User
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