Re-attaching to GUI apps a la XP? (was Re: [plug] grabbing running apps)

[Leon Brooks]

Christian wrote:

> I recently read about a feature in Windows XP that allows you to log in,
> run a GUI app, log out and have the app continue running in the
> background until the next time you log back in when you can continue
> using it.  Does anyone know if there are any plans to do this under
> Linux/X11?  Anyone with X11 programming experience suggest how it would
> be done?  Something in the window manager, perhaps? 

You could do it clumsily with a whole session now buy running it in the 
virtual version of X (which ``displays'' to memory) and using VNC or the 
like to get at it.

You could also code this into a WM relatively (ooh, the evil hidden 
behind that word!) easily, since the VM could leave a stub running 
(without any actual X server) which convinced the app that it was still 
around and running minimised, then attach to whichever X server was 
available.

I wonder if there is a way of combining this intelligently with aalib to 
(clumsily) run an X app on a text terminal/console (or ssh session). Xv 
and Xnext could be joined by Xtty (rather than Xaa which would promptly 
get confused with XAA) - which you'd run as ``quake.exe'' to make it go 
faster. :-)

Cheers; Leon