Linked by Thom Holwerda on Thu 3rd Sep 2009 12:31 UTC
Gnome Have you ever been bitten by accidentally loading multiple instances of the same application in GNOME? When you click on the launcher of an already-running application in GNOME, it will load up another instance of the same application, instead of switching to the already running one. This can lead to bugs and other unforeseen behaviour, which of course isn't desirable. In GNOME 3, this issue has been resolved.
Permalink for comment 382160
To read all comments associated with this story, please click here.
I want to decide
by l3v1 on Thu 3rd Sep 2009 13:24 UTC
l3v1
Member since:
2005-07-06

Applications for which this would make sense can implement a "New window" option, and this new window could then be run in the same process, or in a new one.


It shouldn't be the app who decides how the user wants to use it. When you launch an app there should be the option to either switch to existing or to start a new one (e.g. lclick:switch,rclick&option:launch new).

There are countless occasions when I use several different instances of the same app (browsers, word processors/text editors, IDEs, terminals), without the expectation that when one instance crashes it takes all instances with it (that would happen if a "new window" isn't a real new process and this issue isn't handled at application level).