Re: [Qemu-devel] GTK UI is now the default

[Anthony Liguori]

Jan Kiszka <address@hidden> writes:

> On 2013-02-22 00:04, Anthony Liguori wrote:
>> 
>> Since this is a pretty visible change for a lot of people, I thought I'd
>> send a top level note.  The GTK UI is now committed and is the default
>> UI provided it's available.
>> 
>> For anyone counting, it's been a little more than 7 years in the making:
>> 
>> http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.emulators.qemu/9726
>> 
>> If you want to try it, make sure you have the gtk-2.0 development
>> packages installed and the VTE development packages.
>
> What's your plan now regarding persistent configuration?

There are a couple options.  We could use gconf which is the Gnome Way
of doing it.  That's an application wide setting that isn't really
configurable outside of the menus.

We could also extend -display to be parsed via QemuOpts.  -display vnc
is the hard part here but I think either Paolo or I had a patch at one
point to do it.  Paolo, was that you?  If not, I can search my branches.

If we were using QemuOpts, it could then be configured via the system
wide config file (/etc/qemu/qemu.conf).  It wouldn't automatically be
persisted when you clicked the menu though.

> I'd like to
> make "Grab on hover" default here as it is how I'm used to work with
> SDL, but also other tools like rdesktop. Clicking on some menu item each
> time I start a guest is obviously no solution.
>
> Then, any concerns about adding a "control" menu? Something to issue
> standard tasks without monitor interaction ("power down", "reset",
> "stop")?

No, it's on my TODO list even although I'd be thrilled for you to do it.
I'm currently working on an Edit menu for Copy/Paste in the VTE tabs.

What I'd like to get to for 1.5 is:

File
 Stop
 Start
 Reset
 Power Down
 ----------
 Quit

Edit
 Copy
 Paste

Devices
 ide1-cd0
  Eject
  Change

View
 ...  

One thing to note about adding new menu items is that we should take
care to set sensitivity appropriately.  For instance, Stop should only
be enabled if the vm is running and Start should only be enabled if the
vm is stopped.

It would be nice to set a timeout with Power Down too such that if we
don't see a vmstate change after 30 seconds, we pop up a message dialog
saying that the guest is not responding to ACPI requests or whatever.

BTW, another thing that should be easy to add is a "GDB" menu item in
the View menu that starts the gdbstub, then launches gdb with a script
to connect back to QEMU so that from the UI, you just get a GDB prompt
without having to do all of the target remote stuff.

In terms of the primary audience here, I think we should really be
focused on people doing OS development or other similar operations.

Regards,

Anthony Liguori

>
> Jan
>
> -- 
> Siemens AG, Corporate Technology, CT RTC ITP SDP-DE
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