(Mac OS X) user specific fullscreen strangeness

Ben Rubinstein benr_mc at cogapp.com
Wed Oct 29 11:24:04 EDT 2008


I'm working on a kiosk app, the first time I've tried using Rev for a kiosk 
application.

There is a single main stack, which is compiled as a standalone; it has a 
substack which we use as a timeout/attractor loop.  The mainstack has a single 
instance of revBrowser embedded.

On startup, if the app is not running in development mode, it sets the 
fullscreen of the main stack.  In any case it sets the fullsceen of the 
timeout splash, and then it displays the timeout splash.  At various points it 
runs a command which hides the mouse cursor if that is set in prefs, and hides 
the menubar if the full screen of the main stack is true.

Here's what's odd.  On my machine, and pretty much every other machine I've 
tried it on, this works fine; when running the standalone, it takes over the 
whole screen.  We've started running testing on an actual example of the 
installation machine: a new intel Mac mini, running Leopard.  Again, hasn't 
been a problem.

Today I created a new user on this machine: a managed user, with parental 
controls.  Our normal practise with kiosks is to run them under a locked down 
account, with the least possible facilities; this is so that if the app should 
for some reason crash out and the user is left at the desktop, they can't do 
anything to mess the machine up.  Naturally this is an especial concern in 
this project because it's the first time we've tried Rev in a kiosk 
(unattended, public) context.

Launching the app in the managed user, the app launches, flashes as if the 
main stack has gone full screen, then the timeout stack appears, fullscreen. 
When clicking out of the timeout, the menubar is hidden, but the titlebar of 
the main stack is displayed.  Logging to the console shows that the fullscreen 
of the mainstack is true.

Launching the same app (it's in the "Shared" folder, accessible to all users) 
under the main accounts for the machine consistently hide the title bar of the 
main stack as they should.  Launching under this managed account consistently 
shows the title bar, as it shouldn't.

I took parental controls off: no change.  I created a managed account with no 
parental controls; titlebar appears in that account.  I created a new standard 
account: titlebar appears in that account.  I created a new admin account: 
titlebar appears in that account.  Rebooted the machine, tested again - as 
before the one original account is fine, all others the titlebar is shown.

So I have one account where the titlebar does not appear as I'd expect; but in 
all the other accounts, when the stack goes fullscreen, it goes fullscreen - 
but the titlebar appears.  On all other machines where I've tested, titlebar 
disappears as expected.

Does anyone have any light to shed, or similar experiences?

My initial thought that it was something to do with the account being 
"managed" is now giving way to thinking that it's something to do with a new 
user account; something has to happen, which once happened makes it OK.  It 
happened without my noticing in the original account we've been using for a 
couple of weeks, but hasn't happened on all the new accounts.

TIA,

- Ben




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