Accessibility of Gnome panel / How to end session via keyboard

["John Zitterkopf" <zitt mailist router cdmaster32 com>]

I wasn't real sure where this question / request for assistance should have
been posted. I figured the Accessibility mailing list would be a good place
to start as this appears to be a limitation which would affect vision
impaired people more than my specific application. If you know of a better
place to seek information, please let me know.

Executive summary:
Gnome 2.x does not appear to provide a keyboard shortcut or other means to
terminating (or logging out) the session.
The Gnome panel does not appear to have acceleration keys on the menu;
preventing access via <ALT><F1> key sequence.

Background:
Prior to our upgrade to Gnome 2.x; we were using which ever flavor of Gnome
came with Mandrake-Linux v8.1.  I assume it was some version of Gnome 1.x.
With 1.x; we were able to enter <ALT><F4> as a key binding and it would
allow us to assign that key to "logging out" (or maybe it was "ending
session") (as I recall). This allowed us to use the keyboard to logout via
the following sequence (as I recall):
<ALT><F4>
<ALT>O
<ENTER>

Gnome 2.x appears to have removed the ability assign a key binding to ending
the session... Google searching has not yielded any answers to this
question.

As I stated in the summary above; there doesn't appear to be a acceleration
keys on the gnome panel so I cannot be sure any log out sequences will be
successful.

My goal:
Execute gnome... under keyboard control (without visual feedback).
Detect gnome is running properly (without visual feedback).
Using the keyboard only (no mouse, no monitor); shutdown gnome properly.
Needs to be 100% reliable and repeatable.
Detect gnome has shutdown and the Linux shell is active.

Plea for help:
Am I missing something crucial with the Gnome 2.x?
Anyone have any "hacking" ideas which I could kludge some configuration
scripts to give me what I need / want?

Last resort:
Where would I begin looking to modify the source code to provide some robust
method? Keep in mind I have nearly zero experience with code development
under Linux. I've compiled some apps and kernels which came with prepackaged
source code; but I'm not sure what packages / files I would start with to
kludge in some kind of solution.

John

              EE's do it 'til it Hz 8-)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~John D. Zitterkopf~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
zitt zittware com           http://www.zittware.com
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