[Nautilus-list] Quit/Desktop interaction

[Darin Adler <darin eazel com>]

Here's my proposal for desktop handling.

Let me note that Havoc originally proposed that the process handling the
desktop be something lighter weight than Nautilus itself. We can return to
this idea if necessary, but for now I want Nautilus to handle it.

Also note that in this discussion I never specify whether we have one or
many nautilus processes. I'm assuming that we will share a single one, but
perhaps that's a bad idea. There may be issues with multiple logins on
different X servers or something.

Nautilus will handle the desktop by creating a window that covers it to hold
all the icons. The details of how this window "looks like the desktop" are
mostly things I'm stealing from the code Havoc already wrote.

Here's how I propose it works:

    a) If you start Nautilus without any file names or the --desktop option,
it will create a window pointing at your home directory.
    b) If you start Nautilus with the --desktop option, it will create the
desktop window. I assume that invoking Nautilus in this way will be part of
the "normal" startup process on a typical installation, but it's not
necessary just to use Nautilus.
    c) If you start Nautilus with a list of URIs or file names, it will
create a window for each passed URI/file name.
    d) If you use the Quit menu item in Nautilus, it closes all the windows,
not including the desktop, and exits the nautilus process if there is no
desktop window.
    e) We add a menu item to the desktop right-click window that
relinquishes the desktop, and exits the nautilus process if there are no
other Nautilus windows.

Some design questions:

    1) What should the name of the "get rid of desktop" menu item? Do we
need an item like this right there in the right-click menu or should it be
elsewhere?
    2) Better name for the --desktop option?
    3) Should we have some way of explicitly creating the window pointing at
the home directory, even when also passing the --desktop option?

    -- Darin