Adding stuff to autostart is too difficult

[Soren Hansen]

Binary package hint: gnome-session

Getting stuff added to autostart is much too difficult. First of all, guessing that it's in System->Settings->Sessions is not very obvious. Second of all, actually adding stuff to the list is close to impossible if you're not familiar with the layout of the Linux filesystem.

Possible solutions in order of preference:
1) Add it to the context menu in the gnome menu. If a program is set to autostart, make this obvious by putting a tiny emblem of some sort in its menu entry.

2) Add a new (sucks, I know) entry to the system->settings menu called "Autostart" or something. In there, present the list of stuff that's in the gnome menu and put a checkbox next to each entry to make it start automatically.

3) Keep the tab in the gnome-session-preferences, and replace the current "Add" dialog with a widget that allows you to select a program from the gnome menu and hide the "Add" dialog under some sort of "Advanced" thing.

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See also proposal by MPT: https://wiki.gnome.org/Design/SystemSettings/Proposals/LoginItems

[Pedro Villavicencio (pedro)]

Thanks for your report.

[Pedro Villavicencio (pedro)]

This bug has been reported to the developers of the software. You can track it and make comments here: http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=478806

[Soren Hansen (soren)]

It seems the "Startup Applications Preferences" thing implements option no. 2 exactly, so I think the Ubuntu bug can be closed. However, I'm reluctant to close it since the GNOME bug is still open. Pedro, do you have any idea why that is the case?

[Lightbreeze (nedhoy-gmail)]

Bug #382280 has been made a duplicate of this bug. "Startup Applications" does not include more than about 17 items - namely some daemons, applets and processes started by Ubuntu in a default install.

Bug #382280 shows that the 'Add' button in "Startup Applications" is next to unusable, and so the underlying problem of adding new launchers, reported in this bug, still stands.

[Mechanical snail (replicator-snail)]

I suggest we simply use the same widget as the application list under "Show list of known applications" on the Run dialog.

[Vish (vish)]

Matthew Paul Thomas wrote on dup Bug #462404:

" Nautilus has an "Open With" dialog that lists all the applications it knows about.

If that dialog is not a standard GTK widget, the first step is to make it a standard GTK widget. (That way Thunderbird could use it for letting you choose which application to open an attachment with, for example, in the same way that it uses the native GTK print dialog.)

Then, gnome-session-properties can use the same dialog for letting you choose a startup application. "

[Owais Lone (loneowais)]

I suggest at least two ways,

1) Same as above, use the open-with dialog.
1) Make it possible to drop an application icon onto the app and make it autostart. Dragging out would remove an app from auto-starting.

[Timothy Arceri (t-fridey)]

The open with API is accessible in GTK 3

See: http://developer.gnome.org/gtk3/3.0/GtkAppChooser.html

and

http://developer.gnome.org/gtk3/3.0/GtkAppChooserDialog.html

[Duncan Lithgow (duncan-lithgow)]

The discussions about how the 'open with' system works is interesting and important but I can't see what it has to do with this bug.

Remember this bug is about making it easier and more discoverable to add applications to the list run at login.

[Duncan Lithgow (duncan-lithgow)]

Okay, I've read upstrema and can now see what you're getting at. Using the 'open with' API as a way to select application for adding to the list - did I get that right?

[Timothy Arceri (t-fridey)]

Thats correct.

As I see it there is two parts to this bug.

1. Make the Autostart application easier to find. This is done in Oneric as it is now in the dropdown menu used to logout, shutdown etc.

2. Make it easier to actually add an application. This is where the open with dialog comes in. This should not replace the 'command' as command line applications still need to be able to be easily set, but maybe the browse button could cause the open with dialog to pop up.

[Timothy Arceri (t-fridey)]

1) From the original report I think is not valid as there is a list of startup application displayed in "Startup Applications" itself. I think there is no need to display in other menus that an application is run at startup as its not part of that menus context.

[Colan Schwartz (colan)]

I'm not sure about Gnome 3, but in the Unity launcher, when you right-click on an application, you get a binary option (checked or not) "Keep in launcher". If there were another option added to this list called something like "Autostart" or "Open on start-up", it would be fantastic. Checking it would stick it in the start-up list (making it editable by power users), and unchecking it would remove the entry (or possibly just disable it).

Gnome 3 probably works similarly, but I haven't played with it yet.

[TomasHnyk (sup)]

It is possible do drag and drop from the dash - but the user does not know about is, hence bug 896631

It should be possible to drag from the launcher as well, hence bug 897323

[bojo42 (bojo42)]

Any news here?

As Tomas rightly noted it's even more complicated in Ubuntu 12.04 LTS than it was back in lucid, as you can't drag from the launcher and dragging from the dash is more tricky because you have to findle with the window position.

Colan's idea about right click "autostart" in the Unity launcher seems quite good!

[papukaija (papukaija)]

Unfortunately no one is working for this bug as this bug is still in triaged status. Someone working on it will set it to 'in progress'. Please see https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Bugs/Status for more information on bug statuses. Thanks.

[Timothy Arceri (t-fridey)]

Adding to Unity in my opinion is a bad idea, its very rare to add/remove programs to/from startup there is no need to clutter up Unity with this. Improving the existing startup application editor is where improvements should be made. I may look into this again when I have some free time, the problem is that the GtkAppChooserWidget cannot be used directly as its made for opening an application for a certain file typ, a custom widget needs to be written to display all known applications/possibly with a search option.

[Matthew Paul Thomas (mpt)]

I evaluated what Windows and Mac do, compared design possibilities, and made a recommendation to extend the "User Accounts" panel of Systems Settings. <https://live.gnome.org/Design/SystemSettings/Proposals/LoginItems>

[Adolfo Jayme Barrientos (fitojb)]

Upstream won't fix this.