Xfce Forum

daniel227

Member

Registered: 2012-03-14

Posts: 34

integrating other apps into xfce-session

[edit: please see my last post. i rephrased the question to make it more straightforward.]

hello,
i decided to replace thunar (and xfdesktop) with pcmanfm and i am quite happy with it.

but sometimes pcmanfm crashes. is it possible to put an entry into settings manager -> session and startup -> session -> restart style: immediately?

also most times at startup pcmanfm opens a window, which i don't like. (it does not open a window when i use the command pcmanfm --desktop to manage the desktop)

i changed "thunar" to "pcmanfm" in those files: /etc/xdg/xfce4/helpers.rc, /etc/xdg/xdg-xubuntu/xfce4/helpers.rc;
i also put a link named thunar linking to pcmanfm into /usr/bin or sbin. that's most probably a naughty thing to do.

so i'm getting curious about the whole startup process, where does the system get it's info what to do when booting up and how can i affect this?
i've been playing with this file: /etc/xdg/xdg-xubuntu/xfce4/xfconf/xfce-perchannel-xml/xfce4-session.xml
and with this one: /etc/xdg/xfce4/xfconf/xfce-perchannel-xml/xfce4-session.xml (which i think relates to a different session. i boot into the xubuntu session, but there's a choice for an xfce session, too)
- it has an effect on what's happening, but there's definitely more somewhere.
just now i had a look at /etc/init, /etc/init.d, /etc/rc#.d - but without step-to-step instructions i can't do anything there.

any help appreciated.
greetings.

Last edited by daniel227 (2012-04-27 05:35:45)

secipolla

Member

Registered: 2012-01-15

Posts: 393

Re: integrating other apps into xfce-session

The startup immediately thing is for the start of the session, so if pcmanfm crashes you have to start it up again manually (although back when I used it - I tested the git builds - when it crashed, often it was troublesome to start it up properly again without logging out and back).
The startup apps for your local session are managed with the desktop files in ~/.config/autostart

daniel227

Member

Registered: 2012-03-14

Posts: 34

Re: integrating other apps into xfce-session

thanks secipolla.

i was talking about

settings manager -> session and startup -> session

where i find a list of applications and what to do when they terminate. (restart style)
with thunar it had the effect that if thunar crashes, it gets restarted immediately.
i want this behavior for pcmanfm, but there's no way of manually adding it to that list.
if i save the session and restart it still doesn't show up on the list.

apart from that i had no problems restarting pcmanfm manually.

the second question in my first post was about pcmanfm popping up a window (home folder) on login, although it is not part of the saved session.
i am happy to search for a solution myself but i need some information about how xfce (session manager?) decides which apps to start on startup.
they're not all in the autostart folders.

hopefully,
daniel.

Last edited by daniel227 (2012-04-25 18:37:04)

daniel227

Member

Registered: 2012-03-14

Posts: 34

Re: integrating other apps into xfce-session

ok, bump and i try rephrasing again:

in the xfce4-settings-manager, under session and startup, under the session tab, i see a list of applications.

how can i add applications to this list? i can remove them by pressing first quit and then save session.
i can add those native to xfce4, but how about others?

Nick

Dev

From: ~

Registered: 2005-02-17

Posts: 1,144

Website

Re: integrating other apps into xfce-session

If pcmanfm properly implements the session protocol this will all be done automatically.

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daniel227

Member

Registered: 2012-03-14

Posts: 34

Re: integrating other apps into xfce-session

i don't understand this.
could you just forget about pcmanfm for a while? seems to be some kind of politics or war between distros going on here, or what?
i have many more apps running that don't offer the desired behavior. i mean, if i had started the whole thread about wanting conky to restart when it fails, i think i would have gotten very different replies.

so, one more time: is it possible to add apps MANUALLY to session and startup -> session ?
if yes, would someone care to point me in the right direction. meaning how i would go about doing this.
especially the restart mode bit, how does that work?

Last edited by daniel227 (2012-04-29 08:03:38)

daniel227

Member

Registered: 2012-03-14

Posts: 34

Re: integrating other apps into xfce-session

i can't find any documentation for session protocol.
only this: http://wiki.xfce.org/dev/session-management
which somehow points to .desktop files?!

Last edited by daniel227 (2012-05-11 09:08:06)

eric_the_idiot

Member

Registered: 2011-12-23

Posts: 58

Re: integrating other apps into xfce-session

daniel227,
  This functionality would need to be written into the application by their respective developers. The session management protocol is built into X (X11, Xorg, etc) so once the code was added to the app it would work on any DE such as gnome, kde, etc.
http://www.x.org/releases/X11R7.6/doc/libSM/xsmp.html
or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X_session_manager for an easier read.

daniel227

Member

Registered: 2012-03-14

Posts: 34

Re: integrating other apps into xfce-session

thanks.
i will probably not start recoding file managers ;-)
anyhow, one thing got clarified: the "session protocol" applies to all Xsessions, not just xfce, right?
i still can't help wondering why pcmanfm - which is the default fm for one ubuntu derivate - does not implement that...

Last edited by daniel227 (2012-05-17 19:37:02)