Re: GNOME Administration

["Paul Cooper" <pgc ucecom com>]

> For example, how does one construct a GNOME menu?  What file(s) are
> involved for both system-wide and personal menus?  Are these plain-text
> files?  Can they be edited with a text editor?

The main system menu is in /usr/share/gnome/apps/  
Menu items are in the *.desktop files and each sub-directory is a
submenu. *.desktop files are just text files and can be edited by hand.
Personal menus are exactly the same but in $HOME/.gnome/apps/

A basic desktop file looks like this;

[Desktop Entry]
Name=My Useful App
Comment=The most useful app in the world
TryExec=myapp
Exec=myapp
Icon=myappicon.png
Terminal=0
Type=Application

Hopefully it's clear what most of those are for - I've forgotten what TryExec
is about ?

> I've looked at this a few times, but it doesn't tell me what I need to
> know.  It is a nice start on a how-to cookbook, but it doesn't say what
> file(s) get changed at each step.  In addition, the part about removing
> the system menu doesn't work on my installations of RH 6.1/GNOME.  I tried
> adding the "SystemMenu=" line in various places to the file:
>   /etc/X11/gdm/gdm.conf
> and setting the value to 0 (zero), to no avail.  A user still sees the
> options of "Halt" and "Reboot" on the GNOME logout popup menu.  I'd like
> to know in what file this menu is defined so that I can change the
> definition.

This should be in the [greeter] section of gdm.conf and you won't have to add
it - just amend the SystemMenu=1 line that is already there. I think the menus
in gdm are hardcoded?

> In general I need to know what files GNOME uses for configuration and
> where they are supposed to exist, in order to create the same sort of
> customized local configuration for GNOME that we have for MWM and CDE.
> This includes being able to manage the configuration files through RCS
> and rdist.  We could end up with a plethora of linux boxes on faculty
> desks, and need to be able to easily configure and manage them.

Miguel wrote a whitepaper on config files although there are some bits missing
- maybe I should fold this into the GAG?

http://developer.gnome.org/doc/whitepapers/SystemConfig/index.html

I see no reason why you can't manage them with RCS & rdist. Keep aksing
questions and I'll keep trying to answer !

Paul

> I will do what I can to help with the documentation on this, but at this
> point I don't know where things start.

You've already helped and given me a couple of ideas but please keep going!

Paul

> Carl G. Riches
> Software Engineer
> Department of Mathematics
> Box 354350			voice:     206-543-5082 or 206-616-3636
> University of Washington	fax:       206-543-0397
> Seattle, WA  98195-4350		internet:  riches@ms.washington.edu
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> gnome-list mailing list
> gnome-list@gnome.org
> http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-list