Re: Integrate VMware and Gnome - continued

[Regis Duchesne <hpreg vmware com>]

Ole,

> GNOME users must have the freedom to choose to use VMware,
Completely

> but I don't think it is reasonable that the user who don't 
> care or want to use VMware should be prompted for it, too.
He is only prompted _one_ time ! What is wrong with that?

The scenario is something like:

- Root installs VMware, which ends up creating a VMware
  gnome-session-open hook.

- 2 days later, a user logs on the machine, and he doesn't know that
  the sysadmin has installed VMware.

  Then he opens his usual Gnome session. At this moment, the VMware
  hook is executed (nice GTK program):

  "Do you care about VMware (yes/no)"
  If no, the user will never hear about VMware anymore.

  "Do you want VMware icons on your desktop (yes/no)"
  "Do you want a VMware startup menu entry (yes/no)"

  And this is it.

> How about /usr/share/gnome/apps/Gnomic/vmware.desktop ?
> That way VMware is available in a "Gnomic" panel dir,
> just like KDE applications are available under "KDE".
The idea is to inform the user that a new software has been
installed, because the average user will _not_ have the courage to
browse the full menu hierarchy each time he opens a gnome session just 
to see what has been added/removed on this particular machine. So just 
adding an entry in the system menu hierarchy doesn't help.

> Comments?
Ok it seems that there is no easy way to do what I want. Perhaps it is 
time for me to submit a patch, so that it can be done in the future,
but this will delay a lot (before the patch makes it into joe random
mainstream system) the integration between VMware and Gnome.

Keep in mind that this in not just VMware and Gnome, VMware is just an 
example. Any commercial app will _need_ to do this. I envision
something a little like what is in:

  /usr/lib/mc/desktop-scripts

I.e., when Gnome start, once it has setup the user's session, it could 
execute all binaries in a directory. One of them would be the VMware
hook.

Best regards,
-- 
Regis "HPReg" Duchesne - Member of Technical Staff - VMWare, Inc.
        www              http://www.VMware.com/
       (O o)             I use Linux (1135 KB/s over 10Mb/s ethernet)
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