Re: patch for gtk+-2.0 : support for new Application Launch Feedback mechanism

[Elliot Lee <sopwith redhat com>]

On Fri, 16 Mar 2001, Mary Dwyer wrote:

> sorry for the delay in replying - some of my mail went astray today :-(
>
> A lot of the discussion on the design took place last Oct/November on the
> gnome-hackers and wm-spec-list aliases, for a hook to the email thread see:
> http://mail.gnome.org/archives/wm-spec-list/2000-November/msg00019.html
>
> Some issues that arose in providing a solution for visual feedback for
> application launching were:
> - problems of using a solution involving LD_PRELOAD
> - problems of a solution involving the patching of Xlib mapping functions
> - desirability of establishing a common protocol that will work for both gnome
>   and non gnome apps.
>
>
> With this in mind, the CORBA solution seemed a good idea. It allows the binary
> wrapper to:
> - start the feedback,
> - call a oneway method to monitor the root window property _WIN_CLIENT_LIST for
> new windows,
> - and fork and exec the application.
>
> This approach:
> -  avoids the use of the problematic LD_PRELOAD solution
> -  provides full support for applications with a _NET_WM_LAUNCH_ID compliant
> toolkit
> and
> - provides support similar to the Xalf mappingmode solution for applications
> whose toolkits don't support the _NET_WM_LAUNCH_ID property.
>
> So, those are the main reasons behind the design and why galf is
> "doing crazy things like using CORBA? :)".
>
> I hope that very brief explanation (and the above email thread) makes
> sense, if not let me know. Could you elaborate on the problems you
> envisage in using this approach, or any suggestions for improving it?

Hmm, sorry to bother you again, I could not find a requirements list that
was used to arrive at the design, so it is hard for me to say whether my
objections are valid.

Assuming the only requirement were to notify the launching app of the
presence of the GUI for the launched app, I would personally choose a
design where the launched app just sent an X client message directly to
the window of the launching app. This is extremely simple, totally
interoperable, and also relatively easy to retrofit into existing launcher
and launchee applications.

-- Elliot
The truth knocks on my door, and I say
"Go away. I'm looking for the truth"
...and so it goes away.