xfdesktop woes

[Brian J. Tarricone]

hi all-

so i bit the bullet and reverted xfdesktop back to a mid-february cvs 
version that didn't cause apps to crash.  i backported the current menu 
system to that version, and all was well.  no crashes.  i did confirm 
that it's not the menu - i took the current (crashing) version, removed 
the menu totally, and had it launch gedit on a right mouse click, and it 
still crashed.

then i redesigned and rewrote the multihead support.  and the crashing 
came back.  i really can't understand how i could have introduced the 
same bug twice.  it's just mindboggling.

i'm really tired of this, and i'm about ready to give up.  i tried "#if 
0"-ing out most of the backdrop handling code, and the crash is still 
present.  the only thing i can think of doing at this point is a total 
rewrite (save the menu system; there's no way in hell i'm rewriting all 
that) - and that obviously isn't an attractive option, especially 
considering how much time i've sunk into this.

my current version that i'm working off of is here:
http://spuriousinterrupt.org/xfce4/files/xfdesktop-20040529_working_nomh.tar.bz2
note that this version doesn't "work" in that it won't draw a backdrop 
for you.  well, it could, but i haven't updated the settings panel, so 
there's no way to set the backdrop.  the previous version, which is 
basically a feb 12th cvs snapshot, plus the backported menu, is here:
http://spuriousinterrupt.org/xfce4/files/xfdesktop-20040529_b0rked_mh.tar.bz2
i'm really out of ideas.  i'm not sure if i expect anyone else to figure 
anything out, but if anyone wants to play with it, you're welcome to it.

    -brian