Autostart locations in KDE4

[Tim Edwards]

On Fri, 03 Jun 2011 15:29 +0000, "Duncan" <1i5t5.duncan at cox.net> wrote:
> Tim Edwards posted on Fri, 03 Jun 2011 14:05:32 +0200 as excerpted:
> Sure they can be reenabled.  Simply start them manually, hit the krunner 
> or kickoff hotkey and type into the box klipper.  From the kickoff search 
> box, it shows up after three letters.

No, sorry but you're wrong about this. If you were right I would never
have needed to search around on how to make KNetworkManager startup
automatically. To prove it do a simple experiment:
1. Click on klipper icon and choose 'quit'
2. When it asks tell it not to automatically start
3. Logout, log back in and verify klipper didn't start.
4. Start klipper from the menu or krunner or wherever - it runs normally
5. Logout and log back in - no klipper

The point is that there is *no way* to re-enable these programs *except*
editing the klipperrc or networkmanagerrc and setting autostart=true.
Once you've closed them once they never start up automatically again
from the normal user's perspective.


> 
> But that's my point.  The user has the ability to add the entries to 
> autostart if they want to (and if they're already running there's already 
> a UI available to disable them), entirely separate from the way kde 
> normally manages the system default entries.  And that's the way it
> should 
> be.  The two setups should remain separate, so a user is always clear on 
> the entries he's added himself, vs those managed by the system.

Again, look at the file location - ~/.kde4/share/config/<someprogram>rc
- it *is* a user setting. If I set autostart=true or false in my
klipperrc, or close klipper and tell it not to restart (which is the
same as setting autostart=false) it is entirely separate from the way
KDE manages system default entries. I'm saying that this functionality,
the setting of autostart= in the user's own rc files, should be exposed
in the GUI. There are already 2 separate sections in Autostart -
.desktop files and scripts - there's no reason to not have a 3rd -
'default programs' or something with just an enable and disable option
for each.

Your suggested way of manually adding them back is a workaround, not a
fix. It requires users to be able to find the name of the binary -
klipper or knetworkmanager or whatever. Plus users have to know in the
first place that to get these programs back they have to manually add
them.  This is totally non-intuitive and for most users will require
them to ask on mailing lists and forums.

The basic principle is if the programs appear by default on a fresh home
directory and can be disabled easily in the GUI they should be able to
be re-enabled easily in the GUI. 

Tim
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