Re: Multi-sessioning for GNOME [revisited]

[Glynn Foster <glynn foster Sun COM>]

> The reason is simply that it's a largish change that could introduce
> bugs and API instability, so I don't want to jeopardize the release schedule.

Okay...that's a fair enough reason....when's the likely release?

> Whoa, lost track of your original proposal in all the confusion. ;-)
> 
> As I understand that proposal you are just talking about saving the
> contents of the session, not saving any other configuration info, and
> then adding UI for multiple sessions. I think that's a no-brainer,
> sure we should have that. I don't know about the 1.4 vs. 2.0 issue -
> Maciej and the rest of the release team will have to say.

Okay we've got to try and make a clear seperation between what needs to 
be saved for support for multisessions and what should be considered 
as Gconf territory...Yes, my original proposal is to first start at 
the basics and *get that right*, together with a UI linked into the 
control center.
So it remains to find a solution that everyone agrees on. ;)
I'm still pitching for the symlinked 'session' file and the optional
hostname:displayname session file b.t.w.

> I think you'll find that lots of apps don't support sessions properly;
> for example, either they try to save their geometry themselves, or
> they don't provide enough information to the WM for the WM to save it.
> Also, almost zero apps save useful state such as open documents and
> cursor position. So fixing the most important apps is a big issue
> here.

Yes...they don't....starting with gnome-terminal first.... ;) 
But we should probably check the gsm save callback for the apps.....

> OK, I think multiple-session support is sort of a separate issue from
> the whole multiple-configuration issue we started talking about. Sorry
> about that.

Hmm....not so sure about the seperate issue....it is, and it isn't...
If we're looking for the best solution then we should be considering 
both...especially for the least amount of code changes down the line..

> Both gnome-session and the apps need some work. gnome-session needs to
> be hacked on very, very slowly and carefully; if it crashes, the whole
> session dies, and it's pretty bad. But enhancing it would be good, and
> cleaning up some of the design flaws (Owen can tell you about these to
> some extent, Jacob probably has a few in mind too).

Heheh.

> Probably we need changes to the window manager to make it work 100%
> properly, I think you'll find that John is super-helpful and will
> rapidly fix any sawfish problem you alert him to.

Cool.

> Then a control panel as you say, tweaking apps as required, etc...

Hmm...before we can begin any work, as I said before, we've got to come
up with the ideal solution...and then we can talk about implementing it.
		See ya,
			Glynn ;)

-- 
Glynn Foster				Email: glynn foster ireland sun com
CDE Group				Tel:   +353 - 1 - 8199782
Sun Microsystems Ireland Ltd.           Generation dot-COM        i||c Gman