Features wishlist for xfce 4.1

[Brian J. Tarricone]

On 11/16/04 13:57, Don Christensen wrote:
> Benedikt Meurer wrote:
> >Don Christensen wrote:
> >>
> >>Actually, while I'm thinking about it, it would also be really nice to
> >>have a way to run multiple instances of the Xfce DE out of the same home
> >>directory (ie, configuration directory).  I run at least one VNC server
> >>on my desktop at work in addition to the console.  The console consists
> >>of two monitors (non-Xinerama) with different resolutions, and I run the
> >>VNC server at yet another resolution.  I prefer my VNC DE to be fairly
> >>minimal so that it is fast over a DSL connection, but my console is
> >>much more decorative.  Does the session manager handle this?  I would
> >>think not, since all of the config files would have to be managed as
> >>part of a session, but I haven't tried it.  I don't know best how to
> >>support this, but it would be nice if such support were considered
> >>when thinking about the design of the various components.
> >
> >
> >You can run several instances of Xfce from the same home directory, but 
> >you have to use another ~/.xfce4 for each of these instances. You can 
> >achieve this by setting the XFCE4HOME environment variable to 
> >"$HOME/.xfce4-home" and "$HOME/.xfce4-vnc" or whatever prior to starting 
> >xfce4-session (note, that the session manager does not take the XFCE4HOME 
> >variable into account any longer, but uses the locations mentioned by the 
> >XDG basedir spec instead, but the session data is saved in a per-display 
> >way).
> >
> >As a side note: The new session manager provides the ability to have 
> >several sessions around. This offers some interesting possibilities. For 
> >example, on my primary notebook I have two sessions "Default" and "Work". 
> >"Default" is a multi-screen session which I start when I'm at home where I 
> >have a second monitor connected to my docking station, and "Work" is a 
> >single-screen session which I use when I'm at work where I have no 2nd 
> >monitor for the notebook.
> 
> Dredging this up from about five months ago...
> 
> What is the current status of running multiple instances of Xfce4?  I'm
> using latest CVS.  Ideally, I could maintain a whole separate set of configs
> on a per-display basis.  For example, myhost:0.0 and myhost:0.1 would use
> one config, while myhost:2.0 could use another config.  I would like to have
> different panel layout, different background, probably even a different 
> theme.
> 
> I'm hesitant to just "try it out" because I've been burned by Gnome before
> where running the second instance hosed my config files.  Is this something
> that should work across all the apps, some of the apps, or none?

though i haven't tried it, setting XDG_CONFIG_HOME and XDG_CACHE_HOME to
something that is not ~/.config/ and ~/.cache/, respectively, should do
the trick.  emphasis on the "should".

	-brian