[Fwd: Re: panel issues]

[Brian J. Tarricone]

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Auke Kok wrote:
> 
>  > ...One more thing - the first time I've started xfce without Thunar
>  > installed, then I've installed it, but the warning window keeps popping up
>  > with:
>  >
>  >   Unable to contact the Xfce Trash service.
>  >   Make sure you have a file manager installed that supports
>  >   the Xfce Trash service, such as Thunar.
>  >
>  > The removing of .config didn't help.
> 
> this begs for having the thunar trash service automatically start in the 
> 'autostarted applications' just like the tips display. Any reason why we're 
> still mucking with .xinitrc's and the obvious horrors of the startxfce4 scripts? 
> It seems like xfce4-session should replace all of these methods.
> 
> I'd love to have my screensaver listed, and xfdesktop, and the panel etc....
> 
> 4.6 material for thought, if I may say so.

No, all this stuff is started from the session manager (except for the
screensaver).  The problem is that, if one of these applications quits
or dies for some reason, and the user quits Xfce and saves the session,
then they don't get restarted.

This is what's happening when we get all these repeated emails about the
desktop disappearing and not coming back: xfdesktop dies (or is weirdly
killed when Nautilus is started), and then the user thinks that
restarting will help (which, in theory, it should), but then they make
the critical mistake of saving the session without xfdesktop in it.

So yeah, I'd agree (for these applications) that they should be in the
autostarted applications list instead, with "OnlyShowIn=XFCE;" set so
they don't disturb GNOME or KDE.  Unfortunately, I don't think the
autostart spec lets you specify a start order, so if the trash service
starts after xfdesktop, the problem doesn't go away.

Alternatively, we could have a special "desktop component chooser" for
things like "Panel", "Window Manager", "Desktop Manager", etc. that
could be cross-desktop and list installed components from Xfce, GNOME,
KDE, etc.  The session manager could be responsible for starting these,
but in this case it would be able to make sure that everything that's
supposed to be running is actually running, and it doesn't depend on
your logout state.

Of course, this would require the support and cooperation from the other
DE communities as well (i.e., freedesktop.org) to standardise that sort
of thing so the desktop components could register themselves (probably
just dumping a .desktop file in a predefined location).  On the other
hand, this is probably an advanced feature that most average users
wouldn't care to use (and it would probably just confuse them to see it
in a settings manager), so maybe it's just overkill.

Do we know how GNOME and KDE start their desktop components?

	-brian

P.S.  The "thunar trash service" is just "Thunar --daemon", which is
listed in xfce4-session's default session.  If it's not present in the
session, D-Bus auto-activation should cause it to start on its own; if
it doesn't, it's likely a D-Bus configuration problem.

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