idea: screen-like utility for X11 / proxy server

[Joel Feiner]

The proxy would introduce a layer of potential latency and decrease in 
throughput.  What would be better is to have support in the X11 
libraries or toolkits for attaching and detaching, or at least not dying 
when the X server dies.

I think the problem is that X clients have resources in the X server and 
should the X server suddenly die, those resources would be gone.  The 
apps may or may not be able to recreate what was in the resources.  At 
the very least, it puts a burden on X11 applications and it would not be 
backward compatible with existing applications that have expectations 
about what is stored on the server and whether it is always available.

- Joel

Mildred wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> Hi everybody. This is my first post here, hello everyone :)
> 
> Some time ago, I had a thought about something that could be very
> useful for X11. So what I'm presenting here is just an idea that some
> of you might find interesting (but maybe you already had thoughts about
> it).
> 
> Well, the first thing is that sometimes X11 crashes ... Or I need to
> restart it for some reason. Or I want to access some windows from
> somewhere else using for example ssh.
> 
> With console applications, it is relatively easy to keep a console
> application running when you close your session/terminal. And it's easy
> to access them again from another terminal, including from a remote ssh
> session. All you need is the screen utility. The software runs within
> screen, can be detached from the current terminal, reattached to
> another quite easily.
> 
> Why isn't it possible for graphical application. So far I haven't found
> a such elegant solution.
> 
> The idea would simply to have some king of X11 proxy. Graphical
> applications would run inside the X11 proxy, they could be attached on
> the fly to the main X11 server running on my computer. if the server
> crashes, the proxy simply detaches applications from the server. And if
> I want to use those applications from somewhere else using X11
> forwarding with ssh, it could he possible as easily by detaching
> application from the running X11 server on the remote host and reattach
> them to the local X11 server.
> 
> Do you think it's a good idea ?
> 
> Unfortunately I never programmed low-level X11 and I don't have time
> to learn/code that either. So perhaps someone who has time (if that
> ever exists) and that is really interested in that idea would be able
> to create something. But i'm not asking anyone to do anything, just
> sharing ideas.
> 
> With all my kindness
> 
> Mildred
>