Okay, so I was obviously doing something wrong – thanks to a kind soul on the Opera forum, I now know that typing
/Applications/Opera.app/Contents/MacOS/Opera -kioskmode
in the Terminal does indeed launch Opera 8.51 for OS X in kiosk mode.
So now I just need to work out how to get URL filtering to work (I can’t! – I think it’s not finding my ini file) and how to get Terminal scripts to launch at startup or login…
I’m really keen to get a web browser in OS X running in Kiosk Mode – this means full screen, no scroll bars, AND NO MENU BAR. It also means locking down the browser to severely limit its functions, so it can be used in displays in museums, etc.
It’s surprisingly difficult. Most OS X browsers don’t seem to have a kiosk mode. One that claims to is Opera.
The instructions at http://www.opera.com/support/mastering/kiosk/ don’t really help me much – I’ve tried and failed to run Opera from the command line with a -k or -kioskmode switch.
Opera allows you to run it in full-screen mode, but to launch it in full screen mode you seem to have to do some crafty tricks with Universal Access – after a very long Google session I found this web page which shows how to do it. I had to tweak the application name slightly, and here’s what I did with Mac OS 10.4.3 and Opera 8.51…
Go to System Preferences and under Universal Access, tick ‘enable access for assistive devices’
Then launch the Applescript Script Editor and paste this script in:
—
if my do_menu(“Opera”, “View”, “Full screen”) is false then error number -128
on do_menu(app_name, menu_name, menu_item)
try
tell application app_name to activate
tell application “System Events”
tell application process app_name
click menu item menu_item of menu menu_name of menu bar 1
end tell
end tell
on error error_message
return false
end try
end do_menu
—
Then save this in Script Editor as an application and, if you like, put this app in login/startup items for a new user account you’ll create for the kiosk mode. Then lock down the kiosk user account as far as possible.
It’s not pukka kiosk mode, but it’ll do the job for some applications, especially ones where you can work without a keyboard connected.
I have to say I utterly despise courgettes (or zucchini, if you prefer). Hard to think of a blander, more watery, useless vegetable.
I mean, has anyone ever, in the entire history of civilization, ever had chance to utter or hear the following words:
“Well, yes, it would have been a marvellous meal – if only there had been some courgettes!“.
I feel the same way about courgettes that Dr Johnson – and a good many of his contemporaries, no doubt – did about cucumbers:
I’m moved to write this for even now my wife is boiling courgettes to feed to our youngest, as she sleeps blissfully unaware of the tasteless pap that’s heading her way.
Okay I’ve almost got over the fact that my Lomo camera broke so quickly. Now I’ve realised I could have created similar photos rather more cheaply using a cruddy old Windows laptop and a copy of Photoshop Elements 2.0
You can download Fallout75′s PSD file which will even work in Photoshop Elements and allow you to do a pretty good fake Lomo picture, or you can try it manually.
Like most people suggest, I like to increase the saturation and contrast by about 20 – using adjustment layers is a good idea because that leaves your original photo in the bottom layer and it’s easy to tweak your settings later.
A bit of the cross-processed layer is essential – so make a ‘curves’ adjustment layer and click on the curve to make a gentle S shape.
But when it comes to making the edges dark, I prefer to use an elliptical rather than a rectangular marquee… I select the elliptical marquee tool, make the feather large (say 100 or 150 pixels), draw an ellipse that covers all but the corners, invert the selection, fill the corners with black in a new layer and change that new layer’s mode to ‘layer’.
There should also be some blurring round the edges as well I’d have thought. I’ll have to experiment with that some more and write up a proper guide of my own.
