backgrounding / preloading

[Thomas Beckett]

In KDE I read about a feature that let you load an instance of a
program (say firefox) into memory during the session load but not have
it shown, then when the user launches the program it appears almost
instantly. Having always prefered Gnome I was wondering if the same
can be achieved as it would be quite a neat feature?

I know at teh command prompt you can background processes and then pop
them back again but i doubt if this can be used to work from a
launcher or menu entry....

Any ideas?


Tom