"xfce4-panel -x" ends session when xfce4-session is not in use

[Erik Harrison]

On Sat, Feb 23, 2008 at 12:33 PM, Mads Michelsen <chochem at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi David,
>
> Yes, well, the thing is 'exit the program' used to (i.e. with xfce4-session
> running)  mean just that. Besides, 'xfce4-panel -q' is 'end the session' so
> obviously there should be a difference.]

There is, if a session manager is running.

X needs a controlling process - X gets told to launch a process, and
when that process closes, X exits. When X exits, your OS is set to
relaunch GDM, which restarts X.

Since the panel was the application that was going to have the "Exit"
button, pre-session manager Xfce made the panel the controlling
process. You click exit, the panel closes, and X restarts, and you are
effectively logged out. If the session manager is running, it is the
controlling process - but it also sets some environment variables so
that apps know a session manager is running, and can ask it to
gracefully exit. That's what xfce4-panel -q does.

>
> Dunno about panel config but I guess you might as well play nice and just
> 'exit' politely :)
>
> - Mads
>
>
>
> On Sat, Feb 23, 2008 at 6:25 PM, David Mohr <damailings at mcbf.net> wrote:
>
> >
> >
> >
> > On Sat, Feb 23, 2008 at 10:12 AM, Mads Michelsen <chochem at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > > Hi,
> > >
> > > I've been spending some time figuring out the various parts of xfce4 and
> > > recently tried starting xfce4 without using the session manager as
> suggested
> > > in the xinitrc script (it didn't say how to 'not use it' so I just
> commented
> > > the lines starting with the one saying "Run xfce4-session if installed")
> > > Sort of partly because I was curious, partly because I prefer the
> control in
> > > starting by script as opposed to session saving. Everything went well
> and
> > > startup was as expected by the remaining part of the xinitrc script.
> > > However, something I do not understand: I occasionally want to 'turn
> off'
> > > the panels to gain screen space. Since you can't hide the panels, I've
> added
> > > a keyboard shortcut to start and exit the panels, 'xfce4-panel' and
> > > 'xfce4-panel -x' respectively, which worked pretty well while the
> session
> > > manager was running. However, when it isn't, exiting the panel, drops
> the
> > > whole session on the floor and I'm returned to gdm. I figure I just
> don't
> > > udnerstand how the various parts do what jobs but I fail to see the
> logic
> > > here? The window manager and the mcs thingy, whatever it is that it
> does,
> > > are still runnning. So why is the panel suddenly vital?
> >
> > I'm just another user, but xfce4-panel --help says:
> > -x, --exit      Close all panels and end the program
> > My guess is you're experiencing the "end the program" part ;-).
> >
> > I am doing something similar to remove the panels temporarily, but I'm
> > just using a blunt "killall xfce4-panel", which seems to work fine for
> > me. Now that I think about it, I do wonder if there are cases where
> > this would lose recent changes to the panel configuration, but it has
> > never happened to me.
> >
> > ~David
> > _______________________________________________
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> > Xfce at xfce.org
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> > http://www.xfce.org
> >
>
>
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-- 
Erik
"Look at me still talking when there is Science to do"