Re: [Usability] SM UI plan

[Gregory Merchan <merchan phys lsu edu>]

> The UI for named sessions is entirely handled by gdm or equivalent,
> however; once the SM starts, it only knows about one session, which is
> the "current session." So there's no discussion in this document of
> what the UI for named sessions should look like.

A UI for GNOME sessions does not belong in GDM because the user's chosen
environment may not be GNOME. (That GDM is the display manager may be
a choice of the system administrator and not the user.)

There is a source of confusion here. GDM handles PAM sessions which are 
distinct from X sessions. Since the PAM sessions almost always match the
choice of a particular graphical environment, perhaps it would be best to
call these as "Environment" instead of "Session" (despite that the real
thing is also validly called a session). On the other hand, I think the
session manager may be designed as transparent to the user; in which case
there is no need to refer to GNOME sessions and so PAM can keep the name.

> Question: where should Save Session be located in the user interface;
> menus? specifically what part of the menus? a button?

I think we can do better than this and make session management transparent.

> In error messages and such, the session manager always refers to
> "applications" rather than "clients."

Concur.

> Login
> ===

Concur.

> Login error handling
> ===

I'll skip over the error messages for now.

A selection manager (ICCCM 2.8) is probably the correct way to handle
desktop features. An X client might intern DESKTOP_MANAGER for keeping track
of desktop features. (The same client, or another, might intern 
APPLICATION_MANAGER or some such thing for handling application launch 
feedback and limiting applications to run once; I've only an inkling of an
idea how this might work and will need time to develop that idea for draft.)

> Logout
> ===

I believe others have commented on this sufficiently.

> Saving the Session
> ===

If it is done, please use libwnck or include the session management features
in the xdg wm-spec. (I.e., use libwnck.)

> Dealing with broken clients
> ===
<snip>
>                  [Keep trying] [Never try again] [Stop trying for now]

By the time this is presented, hasn't it already stopped trying temporarily?

> An issue with broken apps
> ===

WM_CLASS is supposed to be a NUL separated pair of strings with instance 
and class names (ICCCM 4.1.2.5) As I understand it, Gtk+ handles this 
automatically, so if that is working correctly we should only expect this
problem with non-Gtk+ apps. Or perhaps libgnomeui needs to do more?


Cheers,
Greg Merchan