Linked by Thom Holwerda on Thu 3rd Sep 2009 12:31 UTC
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.
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Member since:
2005-07-06
Except not many do. E.g., Calculator, which you brought up, doesn't have a "New window" option, but I still want to use a bunch of them at the same time. I'm currently running two instances of avidemux, which also doesn't have any "New window" option. The same goes for most of my applications. There are very few applications for which I want to switch to a running instance when I launch them (basically only my browser, email and IM clients).
OTOH, applications that shouldn't be run in parallel can, and should, implement an "activate running instance instead" option. Many such apps already have implemented this.
So, this is a change that will break a lot while gaining almost nothing.