Re: Application launch detection

[Matthias Clasen <Matthias Clasen poet de>]

If I have read last weeks discussion correctly, the proposal
for app-launch feedback is to have an app-launcher hand a unique
value to the application (via an env var) which the application
then puts in a property on its first toplevel window before mapping it.
The app-launcher would select for SubstructureNotify
on the root (or virtual root) window, listen for MapNotify
events to find freshly mapped windows and look for the property
on them.

This sounds ok on first reading, but it has one problem:
if an app starts iconic (try xterm -iconic), the MapNotify won't
arrive until the user deiconifies the app. A much simpler and
better solution is to have the app-launcher monitor the
_NET_CLIENT_LIST property on the root window. New apps will
appear immediately here, even if they start iconic. Another
bonus is that the app-launcher dosn't get the loads of CreateNotify,
ConfigureNotify and whatnot, that 
SubstructureNotify would produce. 

Matthias