[ubuntu-mono] [Bug 1065732] Re: Application entry in Messaging Menu always starts the application

[Lars Uebernickel]

I agree that this signal would be convenient in some cases, but there
are several problems with how multiple-instance applications would
interact with the messaging menu:

If two instances of the same application are running, how should they
appear in the messaging menu? Showing two application sections would be
confusing, as there would be no way to tell which one activates which
instance. Showing one section with two running indicators (triangles)
would obfuscate which source originates in which instance.

Also, when no instance of the application is running, how many sections
should be shown? When one instance unregisters from the messaging menu
(as a result of the user unchecking a box in preferences), but another
instance is still running, should the sections disappear from the menu?

In general, the type of applications that appear in the messaging menu
should not allow multiple instances. I can't think of a reason why
empathy, thunderbird, or smuxi would need a second instance. In fact, it
would be great if this decision leads to more single-instance apps ;)

> I think this would be in the spirit of the new library to make it easy
for application developers.

Definitely! However, we couldn't find good answers to the above
questions and decided to de-facto require apps to be single-instance.
Supporting single-instance is really easy on Linux (either with
GtkApplication or even with D-Bus directly).

> Thanks for considering! Besides this, the new lib works great!

Thank you! And thanks for updating smuxi so quickly.

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1065732

Title:
  Application entry in Messaging Menu always starts the application

Status in The Messaging Menu:
  New
Status in “smuxi” package in Ubuntu:
  New

Bug description:
  When I ported Smuxi to the new libmessaging-menu library I noticed
  that the Messaging Menu is always executing/invoking the application.
  This is all good and nice as long as the application supports single-
  instance, when not it's a real pain though. Wouldn't it be sufficient
  to use the source-activiated event for the application itself, or by
  adding a new dedicated app-activated event. This way the application
  wouldn't need to deal with IPC at all and just work, I think this
  would be in the spirit of the new library to make it easy for
  application developers.

  Thanks for considering! Besides this, the new lib works great!

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