"play" when rb is not running should not popup its window

[Xavier Claessens]

Currently the "play" button is sound indicator is inconsistent. There is a confusion between music being a background service, or a traditional app. See for example those steps:

1) (rb is not yet running) click play in indicator, rb window popup and start playing
2) close the rb window, music is still playing, so I would consider music to be a service independent from its UI (even if technically it's not true)
3) I pause the music (now I'm conceptually in the same state than when I started the session, I'm not supposed to know that rb is actually still running)
4) click "play" again, it start playing but does not popup window

I think it 1) and 4) the same thing should happen. Either popup window in both cases, or don't.

I personally would prefer window not poping in step 1.

Related to this, taping the "play" multimedia key should have the same effect. This is https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=687831

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 12.10
Package: indicator-sound 12.10.1-0ubuntu1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.5.0-19.30-generic 3.5.7
Uname: Linux 3.5.0-19-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.6.1-0ubuntu6
Architecture: amd64
Date: Thu Dec 6 10:44:51 2012
InstallationDate: Installed on 2012-09-29 (67 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 12.10 "Quantal Quetzal" - Beta amd64 (20120929)
MarkForUpload: True
SourcePackage: indicator-sound
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

[Lars Karlitski (larsu)]

This is impossible to implement with the current MPRIS spec. When the player is not running, all we can do is start it via its desktop file. There's no way to tell it to start playing without showing its main window.

[Xavier Claessens (zdra)]

Here is how I think it should be implemented:
1) rhythmbox should use GApplication to implement a few GAction like "play".
2) rhythmbox should install a .service file to be dbus-activatable
3) rhythmbox should install a org.gnome.Rhythmbox.desktop file that tells the actions it implements. See http://standards.freedesktop.org/desktop-entry-spec/latest/ar01s07.html
4) Unity can then start rhythmbox and play by invoking the "play" action on rhythmbox, using g_desktop_app_info_launch_action().

Most of the work should be done upstream IMHO.