How to substitute F11 on touch screen?

This is a very specific issue, I wonder if there is a solution for it.

Some of you might have read here before that I wanted to use a touch screen for the control of my home automation. I tried this in Linux, but the touch screen drivers were of such bad quality that it didn't work. When I bit the bullet and bought a Win8 licence, it finally worked as supposed.

Now, the controller of the home automation (HA from now on ) works by contacting the home automation server with it's IP address in a browser window, just like you would setup any common router.

Now, when I contact the HA server in Firefox it works, but it's not a pretty sight because of all the other Firefox stuff on the screen. I don't need that. Pressing F11 switches to full screen mode, and that works beautifully. I can use the virtual on-screen keyboard for that. The only problem is: how can it switch back? Because it's full screen, I can't access the virtual keyboard anymore to tap F11 again. (I sometimes need to switch back because I also control my Sonos system via this touch screen - which also works very well).

An alt-tab or F11 function in the right mouse button menu would be great, but I don't know if it's possible to set something like that up.(Maybe there is an app that can do this?) Remember, I only have the touch functions available for input. (one press for left mouse button, long press for right mouse button) Going into the very corners of the screen with the mouse also doesn't seem to work. This is a resistive touch screen, not a capacitive one like tablets have nowadays. It's harder to control the mouse and next to impossible to reach the corners of the screen with this type of touch screen.

Anybody know a solution for this? Thanks!

Just got my hands on a Win8 touch PC. If I tap at the very top edge where the firefox tab would be, it pops up the tab bar with a size element.

It's not completely reliable, though - not sure why.

-jk

I found a solution! This virtual keyboard keeps a clickable area to activate the keyboard on the desktop at any time, also when the screen is maximized. That enables me to quickly press F11 again and return to the normal view. Excellent!

Added to this, is there still a way to keep the taskbar always on top in Windows 8? Even if windows are maximized? This was possible in WinXP, but I can't seem to find the option in 8.

Thx!

A lot of things were possible in XP that were removed for later versions...

Have you tried Classic Shell?

Are you using Windows 8, or 8.1? This matters, because 8.1 restored some of the lost desktop utility that was removed in the transition from Windows 7. You have more screen customizing options available in 8.1.

tanstaafl.

Yes, I'm using Classic Shell. I love it, since it makes Windows 8 actually useful It doesn't bring this option back though...


Thanks for the thought, but this doesn't solve the issue since I'm already using 8.1. Can't wait for Windows 10 to be honest. I really hope they restore the menu functions that got lost with Win 8...