[Usability].profile?

["K. Richard Pixley" <rich noir com>]

My apologies if this is off topic.  I looked through the lists on 
gnome.org and this seemed like the most appropriate forum for user 
questions.  If it is not, then please point me to a more appropriate forum.

I've looked in the archives and the user manual, but I can't find the 
answer to what must be a frequent question for gnome newbies.

I have numerous environment variables that must be set globally, 
conditionally, and for all processes, (ie, .bashrc isn't sufficient as 
it doesn't cover emacs, mozilla, etc.)  Things like EDITOR, VISUAL, 
PAGER, CVS_RSH, PATH, MANPATH, and many others.  On a gnome system, such 
as a stock redhat, how do I convince gnome to source my .profile?

Is this documented anywhere accessible?

--rich