GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 496834
Use one process like firefox
Last modified: 2018-05-22 13:23:58 UTC
The following was originally submitted as http://bugs.debian.org/451198: ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Package: gnumeric Version: 1.7.13-1 Severity: wishlist Why can't gnumeric just use one window like firefox? $ pstree -a -firefox-bin -a firefox |-gnumeric /tmp/y05-18.xls |-gnumeric /tmp/y05-19.xls |-gnumeric /tmp/y08-01.xls |-gnumeric /tmp/y08-03.xls |-{firefox-bin} |-{firefox-bin} |-{firefox-bin} |-{firefox-bin} |-{firefox-bin} `-{firefox-bin} Clicking on .xls files in firefox fills the icewm window list with many different instances of gnumeric which don't know about each other, and cannot all be ended with one "quit" menu click. One needs to use an ugly killall. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Please don't ever do the firefox thing to gnumeric. Half the time I can't use firefox because it is still running on a different display.
*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 94091 ***
Hmm. I'm not sure this is the same as 94091. For people who actually use a file manager, I can see how current behaviour would be annoying. But from the command line, there's no doubt that when I ask for a new gnumeric, I want one. We could change the .desktop file to start gnumeric as single-instance *when started with a .desktop file*. But hardly a priority. Tentatively reopening.
Jon-Kare: please do not switch gnumeric to single-instance, even from a desktop file. I frequently start applications from a lab machine that are already running on my office display. Since all of these machines are thin-clients running off the same server, any program that tries to be "single instance" tends to have issues. (Firefox typically tells me that I should reboot this multiuser machine since it doesn't want to start a second instance.)
This bug report is confused: - The title talks about *windows*. - The contents talks about *processes*. Regarding windows, that is bug 94091 and the answer is no. Regarding processes, Gnumeric can open multiple spreadsheets in one process, but we do not currently have a way from the command line to request an existing process to open another window. --> Changing title. Andreas: I don't see why we cannot support a command-line option for this. If we cannot verify that (a) there is a running instance, and (b) it is for the right user, and (c) it displays on the right display, then we can simply start a new instance. Firefox' problem is that it cannot start a new instance easily because they would clobber each other's files.
Morten: If its done right there may not be a problem.
-- GitLab Migration Automatic Message -- This bug has been migrated to GNOME's GitLab instance and has been closed from further activity. You can subscribe and participate further through the new bug through this link to our GitLab instance: https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnumeric/issues/86.