Re: global session ID

[Owen Taylor <otaylor redhat com>]

Havoc Pennington <hp redhat com> writes:

> Hi,
> 
> Trying to figure out how to implement a global session ID for saving
> properties shared by all apps in a session.
> 
> The SM protocol is not especially extensible. The options I've come up
> with so far:
> 
>  a) add a virtual "GlobalSessionID" property, which apps could 
>     retrieve with a GetProperties request. disadvantage: 
>     efficiency. Apps would need to get all their properties 
>     (which they don't normally need) in order to get this one.

This sounds like the right one; if it's only a couple of roundtrips 
and a few hundred bytes of data, then efficiency shouldn't
be a problem. Easy enough to time, anyways.

(Unlike the communicate-over-properties hacks we do now for
listing clients, etc, this strikes me as being passibly
clean.)
 
>  b) use an X root window property set by the session manager. 
>     disadvantage: X-specific 

Possible, but seems sort of against the grain of the SM protocol.
 
>  c) create a custom ICE protocol. disadvantage: complicated

Yep, far too much work, IMO.
 
>  d) have the session manager set a GConf key
>     /desktop/standard/global_session_name or something. 
>     disadvantage: requires GConf

And doesn't work if you have two sessions running at the
same time...

Regards,
                                        Owen