Thank you all for your answers. What i am actually facing is a problem with a sugarizing. I need to run the script, copy-to-Journal.py from a C program. 1 - With "exec dbus-launch CActivity $args" in the sugarActivity file, i can run multiple instances but i cant run the script. It crashes throwing a python error. In olpc wiki says that the scripts only works running with olpc user. I dont know if the dbus-launch changes something in the way the scripts are called. Error: org.freedesktop.DBus.Python.AttributeError: Traceback (most recent call last):   File "/usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/dbus/service.py", line 692, in _message_cb     retval = candidate_method(self, *args, **keywords)   File "/usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/olpc/datastore/datastore.py", line 215, in create     mp.create_async(props, filelike, can_move=transfer_ownership, AttributeError: 'NoneType' object has no attribute 'create_async' 2 - But changing it to "exec CActivity $args" the scripts run perfect, but the second instance of the activity throws an "error when trying to load or save configuration... "   Configuration server couldn't be contacted: D-BUS error: Method "LookupExtended"        with signature "ssb" on interface "org.gnome.GConf.Database" doesn't exist *********** SugarActivity file: sugarPlanilla *********** #!/bin/sh args="" while [ -n "$2" ] ; do      case "$1" in          -b | --bundle-id)     export SUGAR_BUNDLE_ID="$2" ;;          -a | --activity-id)   export SUGAR_ACTIVITY_ID="$2" ;;          -o | --object-id)     export SUGAR_OBJECT_ID="$2" ; echo "o $2"; args="$args -o $2" ;;          -u | --uri)           export SUGAR_URI="$2" ;;          *) echo unknown argument $1 $2 ;;      esac      shift;shift done echo $args export LD_PRELOAD="$SUGAR_BUNDLE_PATH/lib/libsugarize.so" export NET_WM_NAME="Planilla" exec gnumeric $args and the Activity.info runs the sugarActivity file. exec = sugarPlanilla Thanks, Pablo Posada ____________________________________________ <table width=100%> <tr valign=top> <td width=23% rowspan=5 bgcolor=#e1e1e1> <div align=center> Bert Freudenberg <bert@freudenbergs.de> 12/10/2008 11:17 AM CET</div> <td width=10% bgcolor=#e1e1e1> <div align=right> To  </div> <td width=66% bgcolor=#e1e1e1> david@lang.hm <tr valign=top> <td bgcolor=#e1e1e1> <div align=right> cc  </div> <td bgcolor=#e1e1e1> Pablo Posada <pablo.posada@tcs.com>, OLPC Development <devel@lists.laptop.org>, Sugar Devel <sugar-devel@lists.sugarlabs.org> <tr valign=top> <td bgcolor=#e1e1e1> <div align=right> bcc  </div> <td bgcolor=#e1e1e1> <tr valign=top> <td bgcolor=#e1e1e1> <div align=right> Subject  </div> <td bgcolor=#e1e1e1> Re: [Sugar-devel] One instance activity <tr valign=top> <td bgcolor=#e1e1e1> <td bgcolor=#e1e1e1></table> <tt> On 10.12.2008, at 11:56, david@lang.hm wrote:</tt> <tt> > On Wed, 10 Dec 2008, Bert Freudenberg wrote: > >> On 10.12.2008, at 03:57, david@lang.hm wrote: >> >>> On Tue, 9 Dec 2008, Bert Freudenberg wrote: >>>> On 09.12.2008, at 18:55, Eben Eliason wrote: >>>>> Are you sure?  Browse makes use of shared code, but still >>>>> presents the >>>>> user with the appearance of multiple instances. >>>> Right. >>>> The way to do it would be to create a unique D-Bus service in your >>>> activity. When the second instance tries to create that service it >>>> will notice that it already exists. It could then notify its first >>>> instance via said D-Bus service. >>> you don't need to use D-Bus for this, it can be done by X without >>> any other communication channels. >>> I don't know the details for how to do this, but I've seen mozilla/ >>> firefox do this for a few years. to see this start firefox on one >>> machine, connect to another machine and point the display back to >>> the first one. then try and start firefox on that second machine. >>> the end result will be a new window opening up, but running on the >>> first machine (if you have trouble seeing the difference, make the >>> two machines have different bookmarks, or give one network access >>> that the other doesn't have) >>> please don't develop new mechanisms to do things that already exist. >> >> >> It's not a new mechanism. The usage of a named D-Bus service to >> ensure unique program instances is documented and not my invention >> (though I cannot remember where I saw it first). >> >> I should have written "One way to do this would be ...", I give you >> that. >> >> But you cannot know which way would be preferable for a given >> activity. And since it is private to the activity and does not >> affect other activities, no harm is done either way. >> >> E.g., twiddling X properties is hard in various high-level >> languages, in particular when using higher-level UI toolkits. Sugar >> currently requires two custom X properties and this is causing >> activity authors considerable pain. Even Sugar itself had to resort >> to C code, adding a custom native library to manipulate these >> properties, it was not easy in pure Python. This is in stark >> contrast to the nicely general and easy-to-use Python D-Bus >> bindings, which are similarly available in other high-level >> languages. >> >> So please consider that not all people like having to go down into >> the machine room to make new plumbing with a C compiler. Having >> done too much of that myself I can relate to them. > > my initial reaction to this is that this sounds like a gap in the > python libraries that would be very useful to fill. getting someone > to write a python library to better access the X properties would > help many areas. > > any idea why nobody has written one yet? Python is much better than > many languages at letting you write a library in C and then use it > cleanly, so if doing this in python is as hard as you are > indicating, why hasn't it been addressed?</tt> <tt> I don't know. And this is diverging from the subject at hand.</tt> <tt> Even if it was simple to set and read an X property then implementing single-instance apps via X properties still would be considerable more complex than using D-Bus. You would have to learn a whole lot about how X works first, and then design that mechanism on top of it. Having done a fair bit of X programming myself (the Squeak VM talks to Xlib directly, no toolkit) I would not exactly rate this as trivial. X can be abused to do IPC, sure, but it still is abuse. D-Bus is made to do that.</tt> <tt> - Bert -</tt> ForwardSourceID:NT00005F1E <pre>=====-----=====-----===== Notice: The information contained in this e-mail message and/or attachments to it may contain confidential or privileged information. If you are not the intended recipient, any dissemination, use, review, distribution, printing or copying of the information contained in this e-mail message and/or attachments to it are strictly prohibited. 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