fastframe-autostart

Start an app when the person logs in, with its window or hidden in the tray.

use fastframe_autostart::{Autostart, Start, State};

let autostart = Autostart::new("spotifast", "Spotifast");

// Both block (files, the registry, SMAppService, the portal): call them on a
// worker, never the interface thread.
let state = autostart.state(); // Unsupported, Off, On(start) or NeedsApproval(start)
let state = autostart.set(Some(Start::Hidden))?; // or Some(Start::Window), or None

The platform’s own record is the only one: state reads it back, so a change the person makes in System Settings, Task Manager or the desktop shows up in the app, and the app keeps no copy that could disagree.

• Linux reads the entry back, and treats Hidden=true or X-GNOME-Autostart-enabled=false (how desktops turn an entry off without deleting it) as off. An AppImage registers its $APPIMAGE path, not the temporary mount it runs from.
• Flatpak cannot write the host’s autostart folder, so it asks the portal, which may ask the person first, and is told no with io::ErrorKind::PermissionDenied. The portal cannot be asked what it registered, so the crate keeps the same entry in the sandbox’s own configuration folder (~/.var/app/<app id>/config/autostart) as the record; a change made in the desktop’s own settings is not seen there.
• macOS cannot pass arguments to a login item, so a hidden start is a launch agent in the bundle at Contents/Library/LaunchAgents/ macos_agent_plist_name(bundle id), whose text macos_agent_plist(bundle id, "--start-hidden") gives. The packaging script writes it before signing. The agent runs open -g -b <bundle id> --args --start-hidden and exits: unregistering an agent kills its running process, which must never be the app itself. NeedsApproval means the person has to allow it in System Settings, General, Login Items. An unbundled run (cargo run) and macOS 12 or earlier are Unsupported; a bundle without the agent can still start with its window.
• Windows writes the value named after the app. An entry turned off in Task Manager’s Startup apps (its StartupApproved value) reads as off, and is cleared when the app registers again.

A hidden start passes START_HIDDEN (--start-hidden), or the app’s own argument through Autostart::hidden_argument. Hand it to fastframe_shell::Shell::start_hidden; the app’s Resident::start_hidden opens the window after all when there is no tray to come back from.

It came from ZapFast (start in the tray at login) and Chat with Work Desktop (start in the background at login), which each wrote an XDG entry, a LaunchAgent in ~/Library/LaunchAgents and the Run value, and from Spotifast’s request to choose between starting with the window and in the tray (crmne/spotifast#122).