[Geany-devel] Command-line option to open a project (was: Questions about Geany project support)

[Eugene Arshinov]

Hi all. Here is the last question.

Preface.
Currently if the first filename passed via command-line has ".geany"
extension, it's opened as a project. If I implement project support
in SM using this behaviour, there will be a little trouble.

The trouble.
Suppose a user has neither default session not a project opened
(example: "geany -s"), and he opens a project file to edit it manually.
Then if he logs out without closing Geany, my SM code has to store
opened files in restart command like "geany -s edited_proj.geany". You
see what happens after that when Geany is restarted.

A solution.
Provide a separate command-line option to open a project (e.g.,
"--project" or "-r" as "-p" is reserved for "--no-plugins"). This
behaviour is more convenient and it eliminates the problem completely.

Absence of compatibility (1).
BUT current behaviour is rather old and users may be familiar with it.
Maybe(?) it is acceptable to drop that behaviour completely and tell all
users about it (is there a way to do it? I believe that most of users
are not subscribed to Geany mailing list). If it isn't acceptable, see
below.

Making it compatible (2).
Geany instance has some means to know whether it's run by a user or
being restarted (via hidden command-line option I introduced to support
XSMP). If an instance if being restarted, it is completely safe to
disable the old behaviour and enable the new one. That solves the
problem.

Removing the old behaviour (3).
From my point of view, it is not comfortable to maintain two variations
of handling command-line options (though the difference between them is
little). Maybe(?) it is acceptable to keep the old behaviour in the
next version (say, 0.19), but issue a warning to stderr when the old
behaviour is used, and remove the old behaviour some time after that
(say, in 0.20).

Conclusion.
If (1) is acceptable, I'd prefer to implement (1). Otherwise, I'd like
to implement (3).

Questions.
Is (1) acceptable? Any other opinions?


Best regards,
Eugene.