Re: Unifying the logout dialog, session management thoughts

[Vincent Untz <vuntz gnome org>]

Hi Josselin,

Le mardi 08 janvier 2008, à 13:26 +0100, Josselin Mouette a écrit :
> Hi,
> 
> since the logout/shutdown dialog boxes have been in gnome-panel, there
> is a double inconsistency across the desktop:
>       * unsynchronized code duplication for GDM integration, and the
>         same could arise for g-p-m communication code;
>       * UI inconsistency between the default logout dialog (spawned by
>         the panel) and the gnome-session dialog (e.g. triggered by g-p-m
>         when you hit the power button).

Yeah, this mess was caused by me (and the fact that it wasn't possible
to easily do what I wanted in gnome-session).

> I have submitted patches for the panel (bug#507391) and g-p-m
> (bug#507393) to fix the UI inconsistency by creating a
> gnome-panel-logout binary, which can be called from other applications.

Hrm. Could be a solution for 2.22. For long term, see below...

> This is an easy improvement and it fixes the most visible issue, but the
> long-term solution is probably more than that. It occurred to me that
> all the code to interact with GDM and g-p-m has nothing to do in the
> panel: it is not panel-specific, and it is used only for the logout
> dialog. It would make much sense to split it in a separate module.
> 
> Add to that the fact that the main use of libgnomeui currently, after
> having ported important widgets to GTK+, is GnomeClient which still has
> no replacement, and we have what would make a consistent module which
> would also help to deprecate libgnomeui in many modules where it is
> still used. It would contain:
>       * code to interact with the session manager;
>       * code to interact with GDM;
>       * code to interact with g-p-m;
>       * code to interact with the screensaver.
> 
> And that’s the end of the painful maintenance of various bits and pieces
> of code scattered around different modules. These things are probably
> too specific to go in GTK+ (not counting the dbus dependency), so that
> means a new module.
> 
> As for the logout dialog itself, it could be:
>       * a widget contained in this library that would be called from all
>         applications needing it; this would ease screen management and
>         good integration to the various applications.
>       * It could also be a specific binary, which allows using GtkUnique
>         to guarantee there is only one logout dialog, as currently both
>         g-session and g-panel ensure separately.
> 
> Thoughts anyone?

I don't think we need a new module. Dan and Lucas have worked on a new
gnome-session with a dbus API. The dialog itself will be moved to
gnome-session, since we'll be able to do what we want with the dbus API.

There's no real need for apps to interact with GDM: gnome-session itself
should do tell GDM to reboot/shutdown/etc. (FUSA might need to interact
with GDM, but for other reasons, though)

As for GnomeClient, I believe the plan was to move the session client
code to GTK+. Dan had made some progress towards this, see discussion in
http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=79285
So the code to interact with the session manager would be in GTK+. Same
for screensaver, and g-p-m, I guess.

That's, I believe, the current plan. Or at least, the plan I'm aware of
:-)

Vincent

-- 
Les gens heureux ne sont pas pressés.