Gnome panel applet loading problem

[Craig Routledge <webstuff craigroutledge com>]

Hello all,

I've run into a problem trying to get an applet running in the GNOME
panel.  It is written in python, but I don't think that is what's causing  
the trouble (in of itself).  I've already posted to the pygtk mailing list,  
but no one seemed to be able to help.  I've found a number of matches on  
the net that mention the error message I'm getting, but nothing I can find  
that states the cause.

Thanks for any help that can point me in the right direction.


Here is part of the message to the pygtk list:

> Being new to panel applets, I started with the tutorial "Gnome applets  
> with Python" at http://www.pygtk.org/articles/applets_arturogf/
>
> Running the sample python code with the matching .server file from the  
> first page yields the following error in a dialog:
>
> > The panel encountered a problem while loading
> > OAFIID:GNOME_PysampleApplet".
> >
> > Details: Failed to resolve, or extend
> > '!prefs_key=/apps/panel/profiles/default/applets/applet_1/
> > prefs;background=none:;orient=down;size=small;locked_down=false
> >
> > Do you want to delete the applet from your configuration?
>
> Under GConf, applet_1 (or any succesively created entry) does not have a  
> "prefs" directory, whereas other applets such as clock do have one.
>
> Is this a python binding problem or a GConf problem?
>
> I can't seem to find anything in the documentation or in gnome bugzilla.   
> A Google search finds a number of matches describing this error message,  
> but nothing definitive regarding the cause.
>
> Anybody have any idea as to what's going on here?
>
>
> I'm running Fedora Core 3 with all updates:
>
>   python-2.3.4-13.1 & python-devel-2.3.4-13.1
>   gtk2-2.4.14-3.fc3 & gtk2-devel-2.4.14-3.fc3
>   gnome-python2-2.6.0-3 & and friends (gnome-python-bonobo, etc.)
>   pygtk2-2.4.1-fc3.1 & pygtk2-devel-2.4.1-fc3.1
>   pygtk2-libglade-2.4.1-fc3.1
>   pyorbit-2.0.1-1 & pyorbit-devel-2.0.1-1