[openbeos] Re: Application launching and activation...

Hi Ryan,

> In BeOS if you try to launch a B_[SINGLE | EXCLUSIVE]_LAUNCH
> application that is already running and the window is not active, the
> system will activate it (bring it to the front and/or move to the
> workspace it is at and make it the focus app.) This works from the
> DeskBar, Tracker and Terminal. Haiku does not do this. Was this an
> active decision or is this a bug?

In case it is really not working like on BeOS, then it is a bug. The 
registrar was developed much earlier before the app_server matured, so we 
might have well overlooked something.

> In addition from what I can tell the registrar has no involvement in
> app activation, even though there is code related to activation in it.
> Right now BRoster::ActivateApp sends a message to the app server. Also
> no B_APP_ACTIVATED ('_ACT') or B_SOME_APP_ACTIVATED ('BRAW') messages
> are sent to the application on activation or deactivation (only to the
> window/view.)

I would guess that B_SOME_APP_ACTIVATED is for other apps, while 
B_APP_ACTIVATED is for your own app. Only the latter is supposed to trigger 
the AppActivated hook to be called. Are you sure that any app is supposed 
to received B_SOME_APP_ACTIVATED? Or does it specifically need to ask the 
roster it wants to receive this notification?

> Also you may know of the bug on BeOS where BApplication::AppActivated
> is never called because B_APP_ACTIVATED is never sent to the
> application, which is what would trigger AppActivated to be called.
> B_APP_ACTIVATED is only sent to the window on activation. But in fact
> B_SOME_APP_ACTIVATED is sent to the application, but this message is
> not set up to call the AppActivated hook function (though that is
> fairly easy to overcome.) So my question is do we want to mimic this
> buggy behavior of BeOS or actually follow the documentation? Does
> anyone have any idea how many applications may have been programmed
> around this bug or might depend on it?
> 
> Anyhow I would like to fix these issues, but any input from the gurus
> would be good, as usual. FYI 'll be out of town and without a BeOS (or
> Linux) machine for almost two weeks, so I won't be able to develop in
> that time. But I'll be back :)

Ok, what about the shutdown sequence thing? Should someone else fix the 
input_server shutting down, or did you mean to do that yet? I don't mean to 
be pushy or anything, just asking... :-)

Best regards,
-Stephan

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