Launching GUI apps with IceGrid

jharriot

Can IceGrid be used to activate applications that have a GUI in both Windows and Linux environments?
If so are there any special considerations?

matthew

While I think it would be a little strange to launch a GUI from IceGrid, assuming the environment is set correctly (DISPLAY under X11 for example) I don't see a technical reason why it would not work.

mefoster

I've done the above on Linux and Windows, and it's not that bad. For Linux, I do either of the following, depending on how lazy I'm feeling:
- ssh -X to the remote machine and then run icegridnode from that session
- physically log into the remote machine and run icegridnode on it.

In the first case, the windows come up on the machine I ssh from; in the second, they come up on the actual remote machine.

For Windows, there's no special extra thing needed -- the remote app windows come up on the remote machine when I start it there.

You do need to make sure that the IceGrid event loop and the event loop of the windowing toolkit you're using interact properly with each other -- it's nice to be able to stop the app either by closing the window or by stopping it through IceGrid. In Java, for example, I usually add a WindowListener that calls Application.communicator().shutdown() on windowClosing.

MEF