Re: gdk_spawn API proposal

[Owen Taylor <otaylor redhat com>]

On Sun, 2003-04-13 at 20:06, Mark McLoughlin wrote:
> Hi,
> 	I'd forgotten about this one. The bug is:
> 
> http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=95897
> 
> 	Its not on gtk.org/plan/2.4/ but its still on the 2.4 milestone, so I
> thought I'd put the API out for review.

What do other people think of this? Is this something you'd use
in your applications?

It feels like a bit of a bad match for GDK for me, but I do
see the niche that it's trying to fill, and I don't see anywhere
else that would be *better* than GDK for it if it makes sense
to add.

Regards,
						Owen

> =======
> 
> 	Multiscreen applications which launch other applications as a result of
> user interaction need to be able to influence the screen on which the
> launcher application will display.
> 
> 	This can be done by modifying the DISPLAY environment variable of the
> child process so that the default screen of the launcher application is
> the same screen as which the user interaction resulting in the launch
> took place.
> 
> 	This strikes me as a fairly common operation for multiscreen
> applications and, as such, it would useful to provide some form of API
> help. 
> 
> 	The API below is implemented in libegg[1]. Originally, a gnome-exec
> form of the API was used for the multiscreen support in gnome-panel,
> gnome-desktop, gnome-session, nautilus and gnome-applets in GNOME 2.2.
> 
> 	There are some issues that definetly need discussion, though:
> 
> 	1) Is this actually a common enough operation to warrant toolkit level
> support?
> 
> 	2) Does application launching support belong in the toolkit? If not is
> there any better place for us to provide some form of API to make this
> operation easier?
> 
> 	A proposed API is below.
> 
> Good Luck,
> Mark.
> 
> [1] - libegg/screen-exec/egg-status-icon.[ch]
> 
> 
> 
> /* Return a copy of the current environment with DISPLAY modified
>  * (or added) to the screen/display indicated by @screen.
>  */
> gchar **gdk_make_spawn_environment_for_screen (GdkScreen  *screen,
> 					       gchar     **envp);
> 
> /* Wrappers of g_spawn_* but with an extra @screen arg that allows
>  * one to spawn a process with DISPLAY set as appropriate so that
>  * @screen would be the default screen/display of the spawned process.
>  */
> gboolean gdk_spawn_async_on_screen (const gchar           *working_directory,
> 				    gchar                **argv,
> 				    gchar                **envp,
> 				    GSpawnFlags            flags,
> 				    GSpawnChildSetupFunc   child_setup,
> 				    gpointer               user_data,
> 				    GdkScreen             *screen,
> 				    gint                  *child_pid,
> 				    GError               **error);
> 
> gboolean gdk_spawn_async_with_pipes_on_screen (const gchar          *working_directory,
> 					       gchar               **argv,
> 					       gchar               **envp,
> 					       GSpawnFlags           flags,
> 					       GSpawnChildSetupFunc  child_setup,
> 					       gpointer              user_data,
> 					       GdkScreen            *screen,
> 					       gint                 *child_pid,
> 					       gint                 *standard_input,
> 					       gint                 *standard_output,
> 					       gint                 *standard_error,
> 					       GError              **error);
> 
> gboolean gdk_spawn_sync_on_screen (const gchar          *working_directory,
> 				   gchar               **argv,
> 				   gchar               **envp,
> 				   GSpawnFlags           flags,
> 				   GSpawnChildSetupFunc  child_setup,
> 				   gpointer              user_data,
> 				   GdkScreen            *screen,
> 				   gchar               **standard_output,
> 				   gchar               **standard_error,
> 				   gint                 *exit_status,
> 				   GError              **error);
> 
> gboolean gdk_spawn_command_line_sync_on_screen  (const gchar          *command_line,
> 						 GdkScreen            *screen,
> 						 gchar               **standard_output,
> 						 gchar               **standard_error,
> 						 gint                 *exit_status,
> 						 GError              **error);
> gboolean gdk_spawn_command_line_async_on_screen (const gchar          *command_line,
> 						 GdkScreen            *screen,
> 						 GError              **error);