Leave apps running whilst logged off

[bassi]

I had the unfortunate pleasure of using Windows XP recently, and one of the few things I though was really useful was the ability to log in as a user and leave programs running, such as outlook, once I logged out. Really useful and a great addition to OS X. Unless someone can tell me I'm a dope and can do this already!!
:p

[zs]

I wish you were a dope and this could be done already. Well…minus the dope part :p

I'm on a plenty fast machine, so launching apps isn't too big of a deal for me. T'would be nice if OSX remembered which apps and documents are open upon logout, too.

Similar to that, I would love the ability to leave certain applications running with an interface whilst logged off. Picture iTunes. Sometimes my computer is just a glorified radio and I see no need to be logged in. This could leave some holes for potential evilness, though.

[Dr.Evil]

The main site had a story (http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20020315212905291) about ten days ago about using screen for Terminal apps.

[bassi]

I like the idea of using screen and I'm just learning how to use Darwin after I bought Mac OS X Unleashed, it's a great read for the novice like me. Anyway, I prefer the first reply. Imagine leaving Mail running, checking my accounts whilst I'm logged out. Then when I go back after someone else has used the 'puter, I could check out the login screen and see if there's any new mail for me to check, maybe I'd log back in if there was. XP does this!
Bah Humbug, those Redmond people have some original ideas (is it?)

[Bishop]

Well I think screen should solve most of these problems. I'm not sure what will happen in the example with iTunes, how will this affect the audio system in OS X? Can several users access this at the same time? Also using screen means running in the terminal so only cocoa apps and commandline tools will work. If this is something a lot of users want maybe someone would take the time to sit down and write a small app that launches another app and detaches it. To summarize screen is a great tool, learn how to use it. Specially if your computer is on a network.

[Dr.Evil]

XP basically adopts the multiple consoles nomenclature of Linux and some other UNIX-kin, and extends it to a GUI level. You never truly "log out" in that scenario, you just lock your console and let someone else log in on a new console.

There's no reason in particular why OS X couldn't do this, aside from the resource scarcity it would potentially introduce, especially if there were many users all with full-blown Aqua consoles logged in.

[bassi]

Well, that explains the some of the slow downs on the XP machine i was using. When 4 users were logged in with a 1.6Ghz Althon and 512 MB RAM on XP the machine did run perceptively slower. I imagine in X.1.x it would be at a snails pace with 4 aqua gui's running and little programs accessing the network etc. Nevermind.

[taikahn]

Apps like psuedo --- could in a round o bout sorta way do this....

User A is logged in and downloading, User B opens psuedo and launches applications (using their own username). They could then check email and what not as themselves w/o reconfiguring or logging out ----
Two downsides:
1) user A files exposed to user B
2) user B cannot use apps (as a diff user) if user A has them open.

This is just an idea for the scenario presented ( in this thread - http://forums.macosxhints.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=6666 ) where user A is at machine and User B needs to check email or something without interupting user A web downloads.

Tai

[macubergeek]

assuming you are talking about a gui app
open -NOHUP <appname>

I know on a command line you can do
[command] -NOHUP &