Backdrop list

[Andrew Conkling]

On Sun, 2004-05-02 at 04:31 -0400, Brian J. Tarricone wrote:
> Brian J. Tarricone wrote:
> xfdesktop itself gets the signal to reload itself, and so it notices 
> that the currently selected desktop image (which it _reads_ from the mcs 
> manager's settings) is actually a list file.  it randomly selects an 
> image from the list, and sets it.  it doesn't notify the settings panel 
> because, as i said, it has no way of doing so.  the settings panel has 
> no idea, in fact, that the image has just changed.
> 
> so you pop open the settings panel, and want to edit the list file.  i'd 
> love to preselect the current backdrop, but the settings panel doesn't 
> know what it is.  all it knows is that a list file is selected.
> 
> so, unfortunately, no-go on this feature for the time being, as making 
> it work would require a heavy redesign.  my first simple thought was to 
> make the settings panel responsible for selecting the random image from 
> the list file.  but running 'xfdesktop -reload' (or just 'xfdesktop', 
> when it's already running) sends a message to xfdesktop itself, which 
> runs in a separate process space from the settings manager.  it would be 
> theoretically possible to have it use a similar mechanism to tell the 
> settings panel to reload its settings (and pick a new image), but that 
> would affect the mcs manager as a whole (including the settings panels 
> for every other xfce app), and i'm not sure that doing that would be 
> safe - i.e., it could step on one or more of the other settings panels' 
> toes.

OK... how about having xfdesktop 'broadcast' the selected file
somewhere?  It could write to a file in ~/.xfce/ or maybe even to the
top of the piclist.  It doesn't seem like it would have to bloat
anything; the code could just be activated if xfdesktop is choosing from
a piclist and then only a bit of code would have to be added to the list
part of the bg chooser.  Then you could implement the simple, elegant
trick you thought of in the bg chooser to let the user know which is
currently being used.

Another good idea? or should I have quit while I was on top? :)