Planning for for 4.4 panel

[Auke Kok]

Richard Stellingwerff wrote:

>On 6/19/05, Jasper Huijsmans <jasper at xfce.org> wrote:
>  
>
>>Hi all,
>>2) Out-of-process plugins. This should protect the panel from problems
>>   in plugins (mem-leaks and crashes).
>>    
>>
>
>I'm not sure if I understand what 'out-of-process' means. Does this
>mean each plugin will be it's own application, just like with
>gnome-panel? Because that's one of the things I *really* hate about
>the gnome-panel. Run a bunch of 'plugins' and your memory usage rises
>to incredible heights.
>
>I hope I'm wrong, but if not then I strongly discourage you to do this.
>
>Please don't bloat XFCE... :(
>

please, don't misinterpret design decisions based on your nightmares. 
The new implementation of the panel will not "bloat" Xfce anymore than 
plugins already do now (BTW plugins are bloat anyway).

The reason that panel plugins will have a separate process id is to 
protect the panel from crashing when a panel plugin goes down. This is 
really badly needed and increases stability. It does in no way increase 
memory usage dramatically. What will happen in the new plugin 
interpretation is that there is a larger separation of the memory 
context of the plugin and the panel, but the common parts are still 
shared and thus this change is relatively _low-impact_ when it comes to 
memory size of plugins/panel. I doubt you will even notice the difference.

sofar