Fullscreen Windowed

[micho.todorovich]

Can someone tell me why KSP has supported fullscreen window mode via console command since its inception yet it is still not an option in an menu somewhere?

Seriously guys, that's just lazy. User experience is as important as the feature set. This should not be a technical challenge to add a new button to the menu.

[Snark]

Welcome to KSP! 

41 minutes ago, micho.todorovich said:

Can someone tell me why KSP has supported fullscreen window mode via console command since its inception yet it is still not an option in an menu somewhere?

I'm not quite sure what you mean... I play KSP full-screen all the time, always have.  It's right there on the graphics settings, and has been since forever:

...or do you mean something else?

[micho.todorovich]

I mean something else. 

That's fullscreen mode, which is a holdover from fullscreen exclusive mode. It is garbage and should not be used in modern video games. At least not on the windows platform. It does not play well with the operating system. Full screen windowed mode (which you get by using the "-popupwindow" command line argument on launch), puts the game into a fullscreen state using a borderless window, instead of emulating fullscreen exclusive mode. Borderless windows are, in fact, windows. Because the game is being run in a legit window it will play nice with alt-tab and multi-monitor setups.

I am a developer and I have 3 monitors, if I run in fullscreen mode as opposed to borderless window, The game minimizes and pauses every time the game loses focus. In borderless window mode it does nothing but lose the focus and continue on.

Edit:
This functionality is built into unity and has worked since at least 0.10 when I got KSP. However, there is no way of knowing this is even a thing by going through KSPs settings. It would literally take a few minutes (an hour at most with testing) to add a button in for Borderless-Window or Fullscreen-Window. It's already a tested feature that many people use. 

Edited September 13, 2016 by micho.todorovich

[sal_vager]

Hi @micho.todorovich.

Squad has never supported this option with KSP, the -popupwindow command line argument, like all the command line arguments that players use with KSP are features of the Unity Technologies Unity3D game engine.

Squad has no control over these and cannot fix them should they cease to function, so this far from being laziness, as a developer you would also be reluctant to provide support for other peoples code.

As for your issue, make sure you have fullscreen disabled when you use -popupwindow, otherwise you will have the effect you describe.

Hope this helps.

[micho.todorovich]

If squad has never supported it why did HarvestR tell people about it and encourage its use?

In what manner is it not supported? Far as I am tracking it is, and has been a stable feature longer than most other features in the game up to and including wheels, the areodynamic model, sas...

[Temeter]

4 minutes ago, sal_vager said:

Hi @micho.todorovich.

Squad has never supported this option with KSP, the -popupwindow command line argument, like all the command line arguments that players use with KSP are features of the Unity Technologies Unity3D game engine.

Squad has no control over these and cannot fix them should they cease to function, so this far from being laziness, as a developer you would also be reluctant to provide support for other peoples code.

As for your issue, make sure you have fullscreen disabled when you use -popupwindow, otherwise you will have the effect you describe.

Hope this helps.

But there is a borderless (frameless) window option in the launcher, which seems to work perfectly fine. Feels kinda weird that it's being omitted from the ingame settings:

Edited September 13, 2016 by Temeter

[sal_vager]

As it's a command line argument @Temeter the only way to use it is to call Unity with it, which is what the launcher does, but if it breaks Squad can't fix it.

[Snark]

9 minutes ago, micho.todorovich said:

That's fullscreen mode, which is a holdover from fullscreen exclusive mode. It is garbage and should not be used in modern video games. At least not on the windows platform. It does not play well with the operating system.

Still not sure what you're talking about.  Runs just fine for me, it's how I've always played.  I can alt-tab in and out of KSP pretty much instantly, same as any other app, and multi-monitor works fine (though it does capture the mouse while that window is active).

[Temeter]

2 minutes ago, sal_vager said:

As it's a command line argument @Temeter the only way to use it is to call Unity with it, which is what the launcher does, but if it breaks Squad can't fix it.

Thing is, Is this a feature that needs special support? Seems like an integrated feature of Unity, just like Windowed and Fullscreen mode would be. I'm confused too.

[micho.todorovich]

Quote

Squad has no control over these and cannot fix them should they cease to function, so this far from being laziness, as a developer you would also be reluctant to provide support for other peoples code.

Seriously? 

I am a game developer myself, and this is lazy. Borderless-Window mode is not some crazy engine feature you have no control over. Its an operating system feature that engine exposes. Don't try to act like this is some experimental thing. It is and should be transparent to the game itself because the game doesn't and shouldn't care how Windows chooses to display their drawing surface. 

Borderless windowed mode should be the preferred state when working in a windowed environment. The "Fullscreen" mode that KSP exposes is essentially Fullscreen exclusive mode. However on windows that's not really a thing anymore because windows does not let video games take exclusive control of the graphics device anymore. So they are emulating a feature that only existed to ensure dos games could run in a windows environment. Because DOS games didn't know how to interact with Window's windowing system.

This is not 1995 and there are not DOS games anymore. When I run a game on windows I should be using a window (bordered or borderless doesn't matter). To do otherwise is lazy. If it works well at all its thanks to the tireless efforts of the windows team to allow games to pretend they can have the equivalent of fullscreen exclusive mode. 

However I will say again. It does not play well with multi-monitors, and it is an easy fix. Telling me this is an engine feature that might break and then Squad wouldn't be able to fix it is insulting, because that is not the situation. 

[sal_vager]

1 minute ago, Temeter said:

Thing is, Is this a feature that needs special support? Seems like an integrated feature of Unity, just like Windowed and Fullscreen mode would be. I'm confused too.

I'm sorry I don't understand your confusion

Squad cannot support these features, things like fullscreen mode are supported by Unity but the command line arguments may or may not work, some are even listed as being Windows only yet they work on OSX and Linux, at most these can be exposed for the player in the launcher but that's it, things like -popupwindow cannot be enabled without calling them as command line arguments when starting any Unity game.

If a supported feature such as fullscreen is broken in Unity then Squad, like any other Unity customer, has to contact Unity and report the issue, and use a previous Unity version until it is fixed.

Similarly with command line arguments, Squad would have to report the issue as a bug to Unity, but cannot provide support for the feature themselves.

This would be true of any developer using a 3rd party program that they do not control.

3 minutes ago, micho.todorovich said:

It does not play well with multi-monitors,

Unity has the -adapter command line argument which you can use to force a Unity game to a specific monitor.

[Andem]

1 minute ago, sal_vager said:

I'm sorry I don't understand your confusion

Squad cannot support these features, things like fullscreen mode are supported by Unity but the command line arguments may or may not work, some are even listed as being Windows only yet they work on OSX and Linux, at most these can be exposed for the player in the launcher but that's it, things like -popupwindow cannot be enabled without calling them as command line arguments when starting any Unity game.

If a supported feature such as fullscreen is broken in Unity then Squad, like any other Unity customer, has to contact Unity and report the issue, and use a previous Unity version until it is fixed.

Similarly with command line arguments, Squad would have to report the issue as a bug to Unity, but cannot provide support for the feature themselves.

This would be true of any developer using a 3rd party program that they do not control.

So, are you saying that it's a platform thing? Something that uses a command on windows won't work on say, a mac because of the different command structures?

[sal_vager]

Just now, Andem said:

So, are you saying that it's a platform thing? Something that uses a command on windows won't work on say, a mac because of the different command structures?

Several of the commands seem to work on all PC platforms, when Unity themselves say they do not.

[micho.todorovich]

Quote

Squad cannot support these features, things like fullscreen mode are supported by Unity but the command line arguments may or may not work, some are even listed as being Windows only yet they work on OSX and Linux, at most these can be exposed for the player in the launcher but that's it, things like -popupwindow cannot be enabled without calling them as command line arguments when starting any Unity game.

That's not true.
 

That guy seemed to manage just fine.

[sal_vager]

1 minute ago, micho.todorovich said:

That's not true.
 

That guy seemed to manage just fine.

What you see there is the Unity game engine, which KSP was made in by Squad, Squad are not Unity.

Squad can only provide support for their own code and assets, Unity issues have to be escalated to Unity

If you would like help with -popupwindow I can try to answer, but if it doesn't work for you the issue would have to be raised with Unity.

[micho.todorovich]

Please stop insulting my intelligence. I know what unity is.

You just claimed you cannot start unity in borderless-window mode without a command line argument. 

That is not true. This guy is doing it in the video. Which means KSP can also do it, because they both run on unity.

the -popupwindow command line argument works fine for me.  

What my problem is, is that Squad has not added this support inside KSP instead of relying on that command line argument. 

You tried earlier to say that Squad could not do that, which is not true. I have show it to be false with the video I shared of a guy doing exactly what you claimed could not be done.

 

[Temeter]

6 minutes ago, sal_vager said:

I'm sorry I don't understand your confusion

Squad cannot support these features, things like fullscreen mode are supported by Unity but the command line arguments may or may not work, some are even listed as being Windows only yet they work on OSX and Linux, at most these can be exposed for the player in the launcher but that's it, things like -popupwindow cannot be enabled without calling them as command line arguments when starting any Unity game.

If a supported feature such as fullscreen is broken in Unity then Squad, like any other Unity customer, has to contact Unity and report the issue, and use a previous Unity version until it is fixed.

Similarly with command line arguments, Squad would have to report the issue as a bug to Unity, but cannot provide support for the feature themselves.

This would be true of any developer using a 3rd party program that they do not control.

Yeah, I'm probably not expressing it very well since I'm not a developer.

But I think I'm getting the gist of it: Basically, Unity officially supports the fullscreen feature, but not the borderless window feature (which is only activated by a comand line argument)?

Sine otherwise, as you said, both features are out of reach by squad, should unity just break them.

[sal_vager]

1 minute ago, micho.todorovich said:

Please stop insulting my intelligence. I know what unity is.

You just claimed you cannot start unity in borderless-window mode without a command line argument. 

That is not true. This guy is doing it in the video. Which means KSP can also do it, because they both run on unity.

If you could post in a civil manner I could look into this option further for you, the ability to do this in code could be new, and not available previously.

As a developer I'm sure you don't appreciate this kind of behaviour directed at yourself from your customers, so it's only right to refrain from the same behaviour yourself

[micho.todorovich]

As a developer I understand it's inappropriate to treat people like they are stupid when they have a feature request / complaint.

[Temeter]

3 minutes ago, micho.todorovich said:

As a developer I understand it's inappropriate to treat people like they are stupid when they have a feature request / complaint.

Then please show us the great collection of your works making you an experienced video game developer that has actually workd on succesfull titles.

[sal_vager]

4 minutes ago, micho.todorovich said:

As a developer I understand it's inappropriate to treat people like they are stupid when they have a feature request / complaint.

I am telling you what I know, in a non hostile and non accusing manner, I do not see the option to enable -popupwindow in a default Unity install, it could be a 3rd party asset, perhaps you can find it in your install and show me where it is.

Far from being laziness, if this feature is available in Unity even as an asset store package and there is demand for it it can be considered, but as far as I can see this is only accessible via command line argument to the Unity binary.

[micho.todorovich]

 

[Andem]

15 minutes ago, sal_vager said:

Several of the commands seem to work on all PC platforms, when Unity themselves say they do not.

Ah... it isn't supported because it's more of a "hack" than a feature/bug.

[micho.todorovich]

It's not a hack. It's windows programming.

Edit:

Yes I understand its not a multi-platform solution, but its not complicated at all. Its a handful of lines of code to set up the window.

Edited September 13, 2016 by micho.todorovich

[sal_vager]

5 minutes ago, micho.todorovich said:

Link

Ahh so this is a 3rd party asset!

That changes everything, I can pass this to the devs and ask for it to be considered as this is not a default Unity option, as can be see here.

Fullscreen is possible but borderless window is not a stock option.

But as with all things in life one should ask nicely