Re: UX: Initial use cases & actions

[Alyssa Ross <hi@alyssa.is>]

Demi Marie Obenour <demiobenour@gmail.com> writes:

> On 8/5/26 07:23, Vaida Plankytė wrote:
>> On Thu, Jul 30, 2026 at 12:04 PM Alyssa Ross <hi@alyssa.is> wrote:
>>>
>>> Vaida Plankytė <vaidaplankyte@gmail.com> writes:
>>>
>>> If I have a persistent "My Configured Document Viewer" configuration*,
>>> do I choose "Create Non-Persistent" once, and then I have a separate
>>> icon or whatever to click every time I want the non-persistent version,
>>> or do I click something like "Run Non-Persistent" every time I want to
>>> do that?  In the former scenario, my new "My Configured Document Viewer
>>> (non-persistent)" configuration will be out of date as soon as I change
>>> more configuration in the "template", so I'd probably end up wanting to
>>> delete it and create it again from the template, which sounds pretty
>>> inconvenient.  In the latter scenario, that's not a concern, but it
>>> might be easier to mistakenly end up running a persistent instance when
>>> I meant to run a non-persistent one.
>>
>> I was indeed suggesting the latter: you'd essentially use either the
>> base app or a persistent instance as an entry point for running a new
>> non-persistent instance; that instance could then gain an icon for the
>> length of its lifecycle, until it is closed. So non-persistent
>> instances are created "on-demand", which avoids the issue you describe
>> of a separate non-persistent launcher getting out of sync from the
>> persistent template. I imagine the lifecycle of a non-persistent VM
>> spans a few seconds (quickly checking out a document) to a few hours
>> (more involved work/browsing), but not beyond that, so there's no need
>> to support a "rebase" on a template either.
>
> What happens if you click on the "run non-persistent instance" icon
> twice?  Should you launch the application again in the same instance,
> or should you get a second non-persistent instance?  Qubes OS does the
> latter, which is also what I recommend.  That prevents two different
> websites or files one opens from tampering with each other.

Definitely the latter.  Qubes supports running multiple applications in
the same VM at the same time, but we don't really.