Jack Tanner <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> in gmane.os.cygwin.xfree on Mon, 04 Aug 2003 22:03:50 -0400:
> 1. X should run as a service. There's no reason for it to run as a > user-launched app. Harold's dealt with this one. An X-server on Windows is not a background service. It makes no sense whatsoever to have it running when nobody's logged in. Therefore the StartUp folder is the place for it or in HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/Microsoft/Windows/CurrentVersion/Run, if and only if the particular user wants to have it start when he logs in to Windows. > 2. All X client application on one's machine should have shortcuts > associated with them in the start menu, and these shortcuts should be > created automatically during installation. No thanks. a.) If I'm running Cygwin/Xfree86 as a X-terminal to another machine, I don't use local X client programs anyway. b.) If I'm running Cygwin/Xfree86 with a manager like openbox or WindowMaker, they have their own configurable menus for launching programs which are a more appropriate place for this. c.) Even if I'm running local clients and using the "-multiwindow" option, the programs to which I want mouse-click access aren't necessarily the same as the ones you'd want. I certainly don't want to clutter up the start menu with /every/ X client on the system. That would quickly become an unmanageably large menu. > 3. Exiting X (e.g., by stopping the service) should list all cygwin > processes that were launched under X and prompt the user to terminate > them. For example, an ssh-agent launched from an xterm should be killed > automatically. This is entirely the wrong way to go about things. It's the job of your X session manager interacting with the clients on the X desktop to provide this sort of "Shutting down now. Please save files. Okay to exit?" functionality, not of the X server. You can then use the -once switch to make the X server exit cleanly after the last client - i.e. the session manager - exits. It /would/ make sense for the -multiwindow window manager to implement X session-end functionality when the user (Alt-F4/Close) or system (WM_QUERYENDSESSION) requests X server shutdown. But this should /only/ happen in -multiwindow mode. As Harold has pointed out, even without a session manager handling session-end requests, X clients exit when the server closes down. Other things like ssh-agent should shut down only when I tell them too. Just because I'm ending a X session doesn't mean I'm not going to continue using ssh from a Windows-GUI rxvt or console shell. > I know there are ways of approximating these behaviors now; I'm just > suggesting that these be built in. Absolutely not. The X server should be an X server. If you want a session manager, install a session manager. (If you don't have one, write one or convince someone to write one.) That way you get the functionality you want while I can choose not to use up disc/memory/CPU resources on my machine on something I don't want. Try looking up the term "feature bloat" some time. ;-) Regards -- Sam Edge
