Re: launch feedback status update

[Rodney Dawes <dobey free fr>]

Instead of creating more hacks at the toolkit/etc... levels, can we
do it right and just get a patch to X, so that it will work for ALL
apps, even those that don't use this "liblf" or something to notify
that something is happening? X is the right place for such functionality
to go, so that all X apps will support it. There doesn't need to be
some "standard" and a specific protocol for apps and toolkits to use, it
should Just Work (TM).

-- dobey

On Sat, 2002-09-21 at 11:12, Havoc Pennington wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> Here is what's happening in the wide world of launch feedback.
> 
> I have a library "liblf" on freedesktop.org that implements both the
> proposed spec that I wrote up, and the current KStartupInfo protocol
> used in KDE.  You can download a snapshot at
> http://pobox.com/~hp/launchfeedback-0.1.tar.gz
> I'm talking to Lubos from KDE about sorting out the two protocols.
> The KDE protocol doesn't have a "launch ended" step, instead all
> launch-feedback-providing apps learn about new windows from DCOP
> messages sent from KWin, and stop feedback when one of those matches
> the launch. So that needs sorting out.
> 
> With either protocol, I think we'll want GTK 2.2 to end launch
> feedback when the first GtkWindow is mapped.
> 
> We probably want more GTK API eventually, to be able to start new
> launch sequences, manually end launch feedback, etc., but for 2.2 just
> ending feedback on first map seems sane. We might also add:
> 
>  gtk_launch_set_automatic (gboolean setting);
> 
> to disable the automatic end on first map, just in case someone wants
> to write their own code or use liblf.
> 
> Appending docs on the two protocols.
> 
> After sorting out the protocol/toolkit level, we need to implement in
> a few places in GNOME:
> 
>  - panel menus and launchers
>  - when opening application help
>  - in window manager, start apps on same workspace where the launch 
>    started
>  - nautilus
>  - task list should show tasks as they launch
> 
> It's pretty trivial to add the "start feedback" code anywhere we
> fork/exec a program, probably it can go in the desktop_file_launch
> function. The task list and window manager changes are mildly more
> involved but not really hard.
> 
> Before anyone asks, I'm postponing GEP on this until the protocol is
> more sorted out.
> 
> Havoc
-- 
Rodney Dawes <dobey free fr>