Multi-sessioning for GNOME [revisited]

[Glynn Foster <glynn foster Sun COM>]

Heya,
A couple of us at Sun were talking about the prospect of multisession
support for GNOME. I think this would be a really useful feature for 
GNOME users and while its initial implementation could be fairly 
straightforward, more features could be added later with the new 
GNOME api (ie. what features should be shared between sessions etc..).
I did see the original thread and patch by Alan Cox (and 
followups) for which I've included a link to below if anyone's 
missed it -

http://www.gnome.org:65348/mailing-lists/archives/new-secret-gnome-hackers/2000-August/0324.shtml


As I see it, it would be quite simple to create a new 'sessions'
directory off the $HOME/.gnome directory which would hold multiple 
session configurations similar to the existing $HOME/.gnome/session 
file. We then could use this session file as a link into the 'sessions' 
directory and a specific session configuration (acting as a current 
session configuration pointer). This could easily be a system link
ie. 
   ln -s $HOME/.gnome/session $HOME/.gnome/sessions/mysession

Or taking Alan's idea for having seperate dot GNOME directories 
which we could similarly link to from the main '.gnome' directory. I 
personally think that while an environmental variable $GNOME_WORLD 
would be a good idea it *might* involve a large amount of changes
across the CVS tree for people who have hardcoded in $HOME/.gnome 
and probably would result in a large amount of duplicate information. 
Does anyone have verification of this or suggestions of an 
alternative?.....

In CDE, there is also an option to have display specific session 
information and this could be achieved by checking to see if a 
certain display specific file exist before using the session symlink.

To complement this, we could create a new 'session management' capplet
which gives the user an opportunity to -
        - save the session to the current session configuration pointer
        - save the session in an existing session configuration
        - save the session in a new session configuration
        - change the current session configuration pointer to an
          existing session configuration (or default)

All session configurations would be given a name by the user (akin to
the naming of workspaces). Initially there will only be one session
when the user starts GNOME for the first time - being default. The user
will then be able to create new session configurations as he/she feels fit.

Also there could be a possibility that non-session-managed startup
programs could run depending on the existing session configuration
pointer
(ie. a change in the 'session management' capplet to a different session 
configuration pointer would enforce a change in the existing 'startup
programs' capplet).

What do you guys think? All comments gratefully received ;)

                        Glynn ;)

-- 
Glynn Foster				Email: glynn foster ireland sun com
CDE Group				Tel:   +353 - 1 - 8199782
Sun Microsystems Ireland Ltd.           Generation dot-COM        i||c Gman

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