Re: gnome-Session

[Vincent Untz <vuntz gnome org>]

Le dimanche 27 janvier 2013, à 14:10 +0100, Lanoxx a écrit :
> On 27/01/13 09:02, Vincent Untz wrote:
> >Le dimanche 27 janvier 2013, à 00:30 +0100, Lanoxx a écrit :
> >>DesktopName
> >This is not used, not sure where you saw that.
> On Ubuntu all the session files have such a line.

Then it's an Ubuntu-specific thing.

> >>Additionally the man page mentions TASK in the context of required
> >>and default providers, but does not explain that in more detail.
> >>
> >>Where do get more information about what these tasks and providers
> >>are and what they reference? For example in one of my session files
> >>I find these lines:
> >>
> >>RequiredProviders=windowmanager;
> >>DefaultProvider-windowmanager=gnome-wm
> >>DefaultProvider-notifications=notify-osd
> >>
> >>Who do I know what the TASKs windowmanager and notification are?
> >>Under which circumstances could I add another line with some other
> >>TASK and why would I want to do that?
> >You can define anything as a task.
> So what is a task used for and why whom? Does gnome-session just
> simply run any of the specified TASKs?

The idea behind this is to allow alternative software to be used instead
of some default part of GNOME. To be honest, it doesn't make much sense
in GNOME 3 anymore, and it's more of a GNOME 2 thing. For instance, you
could replace notification-daemon with notify-osd this way. Or metacity
with compiz. The example you gave with anjuta doesn't make much sense,
though, as it's more about some parts needed for the desktop shell, not
about applications.

And the only use of this is the RequiredProviders line of the .session
files. gnome-session will start the components providing those
providers.

> >The providers for a task are found in
> >the .desktop files, thanks to the X-GNOME-Provides key. These .desktop
> >files must either be in the autostart paths, or explicitly mentioned in
> >DefaultProvider-TASK.
> So there should exist a gnome-wm.desktop and notify-osd.desktop file
> somewhere, yes? Could you give me the exact path where I can find
> it?

Most likely /usr/share/applications/.

> Could I put a new line there and point it to any application's
> desktop file and it would get started, say for example anjuta?

Yes, but as I said, it doesn't make much sense because this is not a
part of the shell, but an app that you want to automatically start. It
makes more sense to use the autostart spec for this:
http://specifications.freedesktop.org/autostart-spec/autostart-spec-latest.html
(ie: simply drop a .desktop file in /etc/xdg/autostart/)

Vincent

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