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VMware guest screensaver on Linux host

Inasmuch as it’s annoying when the VMware guest’s screensaver controls screen blanking only up until your mouse strays off the guest’s window and then the host’s screensaver kicks in and blanks the screen again, you can add this to /etc/vmware/config on a Linux host:

mks.fullscreen.allowScreenSaver = "yes"
mks.windowed.allowScreenSaver = "yes"
mks.x.screenSaverTimeout = 590

From Setting Linux Host Screensaver Options in the Workstation Global Configuration File, mks.fullscreen.allowScreenSaver and mks.windowed.allowScreenSaver enable the host screensaver in full screen and windowed modes, respectively, and a mks.x.screenSaverTimeout of 590 seconds sets VMware to ‘ungrab’ the keyboard and mouse shortly before the host screensaver kicks in after 10 minutes of inactivity.

No more competing screensavers, but after VMware ‘ungrabs’ the keyboard and mouse, you do need to click the mouse in the VMware guest’s window so it will ‘grab’ them again, and you can then use the guest as normal.

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Validating XSL-FO

Inasmuch as it’s something that people ask for, I demoed in the DemoJam at XML Prague that I’d been working on a Relax NG schema and Schematron rules for validating XSL-FO. Most of both the schema and the Schematron were generated directly from the XML source for the XSL 1.1 Recommendation. Additionally, the Schematron used a parser written in XSLT for handling the XSL-FO expression language, so the Schematron could evaluate property values rather than just matching on property value strings.

Relax NG and Schematron validation in oXygen

There was also an oXygen add-on framework in the works, and, naturally, the schema and Schematron also covered Antenna House extensions.

If you look at the screenshot, you’ll see:

  • Schematron error for the interrelated <axf:document-info> elements.
  • No error for ‘column-count="-1 - -2"‘ because the value evaluates as a positive integer.
  • oXygen ‘tooltip’ information for fo:block extracted from the XML for the XSL 1.1 Recommendation.
  • The ‘neutral’ and ‘out-of-line’ formatting objects, as well as the XSL 1.1 ‘point’ fo:change-bar-begin and fo:change-bar-end formatting objects that can appear anywhere inside a fo:flow, are available where they are allowed.
  • Schematron error for the invalid font-size value.
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Dots in a @name?

Inasmuch as I’m now with Antenna House, I’ve been changing over to new usernames for Skype, etc. That seemed straightforward enough when I picked tgraham.antenna for Skype, but then I found that GitHub doesn’t allow “.” in usernames, so on GitHub, I’m tgraham-antenna. Which has left me wondering, what are the allowed non-alphabetic characters in the networks of interest? Continue reading “Dots in a @name?”

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Antenna House

Inasmuch as I like their products, I like their people, and they have strengths in XSL-FO, CSS, and EPUB, I’m pleased to join Antenna House as Senior Architect, XML Division.

I am still based in Ireland, and I am still available for consulting, but now it’s as part of my work with Antenna House. In fact, we already have a couple of projects lined up, including prospective work from a company that wasn’t with Mentea.

This blog remains (and, who knows, might even become active), and the resources at http://www.mentea.net/resources.html remain available, but going forward, I am representing Antenna House.

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Mentea training supplies

Inasmuch as people may come to a training session without either a pen or something to write on and there’s always slides and exercises to distribute, there’s now limited-edition Mentea pens, notebooks, and USB drives:

Mentea training supplies

And to reduce the impact of what is essentially a vanity project, the pen body and the USB drive casing are biodegradable plastic, and the notebook covers and sheets are recycled board and paper.

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A useful button

Inasmuch as, when using the Oxygen XSLT debugger, I often navigate straight to the files that I want to run or navigate to a line and set a breakpoint and then want to just run it, but I used to also often just rerun the previous set of files I’d been debugging because the debugger’s file selectors weren’t keeping up with my gyrations in the editor panels.

Enter the “Link with Editor” button. Clicking once on the "Link with Editor" button button beside the file selectors once you’ve got the files that you want to run visible in the editor panels will update the selectors to reflect the currently selected panels. A useful button, indeed.

Oxygen "Link with Editor" button(You probably want to click it again straight away to turn the feature off again, just so the selections don’t change every time the debugger’s focus shifts to another file for a breakpoint or, rarity of rarities, an error.)