Re: [dev] surf+tabbed and session management

From: Enrico Weigelt, metux IT consult <enrico.weigelt_AT_gr13.net>
Date: Fri, 14 Apr 2017 22:15:56 +0200

On 14.04.2017 16:10, hiro wrote:
> just for inspiration:
>
> check out the format in .opera-12/sessions/autosave.win
> plaintext .ini format, keeps history per tab, including title, url,
> position, etc.

okay, that's easy and obvious.

BUT: how can we do that properly w/ multiple processes ?
I'm thinking of having each tab in its own process, of course.

There're several ideas coming into my mind:

a) split it into a whole directory, so each process maintains its state
   in its own file. the filename would be given by the session manager
   (whoever that might be then)
b) have a little session management server which the individual browser
   processes talk to.

We'd also need some way for handling new windows/tabs, history,
bookmarks, etc.

IMHO, that should be left to the session manager. Lets, for now,
define this as the big hog that handles startup of individual browser
processes, session management, bookmarks, history, cookies, ...
(whether we can split it into multiple programs can be seen later).

So, we'd need some communication interface between (eg. 9p based)
session manager and individual browser (in future, that could also
be used by other applications, eg. editors, video players, etc, etc.).

* when session manager starts a browser, it passes some communication
  link (eg. fd, socket filename, statedir, ...) down to it.
* browser will not open up new viewers on its own, but notify the SM,
  so it can start a new browser instance with the given URL
* perhaps the decision whether to open some url at all, how to handle
  other mimetypes, etc, could also be delegated to the SM
  (the browser should also signal how the user attempted to open it,
  so SM can decide whether to use new tab or window, etc)

Another interesting topic is extending the context menu, eg. if somebody
wants to introduce new actions, eg. something like incognito mode.

> personally i think tabs are stupid. there should be one url and title
> per process.

Of course, each tab should run on its own process. But having multiple
tabs in one window can be quite handy, eg. for organizing things.

> problem is: you still need one history per tab/window/process.
> if you want to keep it compatible with having just one single session
> file in opera format all those different processes have to synchronize
> via one process that then writes into the session file before
> requesting a new site or going back/forward in history.

That should be done in a separate session manager process, IMHO.



--mtx
Received on Fri Apr 14 2017 - 22:15:56 CEST