[1/3] Make mac driver the default on OS X

[Joerg-Cyril.Hoehle at t-systems.com]

Hi,

>> I'm not sure it's worth it.  In my experience, the virtual desktop
>> has more often been used to work around X window manager
>> limitations.  The hope is that we have greater control with the Mac
>> driver.  If all else fails, the X11 driver is still available.
> True. Anyone who'd even bother to set up a virtual desktop would
> probably be willing to go to the trouble of installing XQuartz
> anyway.

I completely disagree.  I start *all* games with a virtual desktop.
Here's why.

When I sarted on the Mac 3 years ago with Wine, xrandr was not
available, so the only full screen resolution was the monitor's full
1600x1200 (or rather 1178).  None of the full screen games would work
with that, they were expecting 800x600, 1024x768 or 1440x1050.

As a result, I started each graphics app with a virtual desktop in a
resolution that would make it work well.  Initially I considered this
solution to be inferior to the full screen we all know from X11 on
Linux, however I very soon got used to it.  Actually, it's very nice
to run all games in a window and it works pleasantly well.
E.g. Motocross Madness' maximum 1440x1050 window leaves enough room
within 1600x1200 for the activity monitor and a few other displays.
Wine manages well to keep the mouse within the window when needed,
and there's always Cmd-Tab to switch to another app.

A shared screen is also easier than having to remember the ctrl-alt-a
or whatever key that can toggle between the Apple and X11 screens.

At some time, XQuartz added xrandr support.  I was not satisfied with
it, as I soon found out that while some games may work with the full
1600x1200, they would not display their intro videos that expected a
800x600 screen or worse, would crash at the intro.  Also, I did not
want apps to switch my monitor's resolution to meager 800x600.  The
resizable virtual desktop still gives best results: it opens a 800x600
window for the intro videos, then resizes during game.  Motocross
Madness' menu screen is a fixed 640x480 IIRC and it's only during race
that it will resize to 1440x1050.

From today's perspective, I don't always want a full screen 640x480.
Actually, it depends on the app.  Some apps benefit from the monitor's
scaling to full dimensions.  Some zoomed content looks awful on
today's huge monitors.  Some 1024x768 apps look like postal stamps
inside a large screen whereas other 1024x768 window contents looks
good.  The virtual desktop puts the choice in the user's hands.

Sometimes I've used Leopard's zooming feature (cmd-shift-8 IIRC).

Also, with apps as windows, the children can iconify them anytime and
start a browser, or go and eat, then resume later, trivially.

Regards,
	Jörg Höhle