Re: [desktop] Thoughts on GTK+2 problems in Wmaker
Hi,
On Sat, 2003-01-11 at 22:32, Matthew McGuire wrote:
> Hi all,
>
<snip/>
> About a month or two ago I decided to try and assemble a selection of
> software suitable for Windomaker that would allow it to function as a
> moderately complete desktop environment. Most notably it is missing a
> file manager, and a number of other useful apps. I decided that Mozilla
> would be suitable for browsing and email, so GTK+ would be needed, If so
> then I decided to keep things small and veer away from Qt apps. Most of
> the remaining GTK+ apps are designed for use with GNOME and use GTK+2.0
> or GTK+1.2. I personally like a lot of the old GTK+1.2 apps but I veer
> away from them out of respect for the upcoming GTK+2.0 versions.
> This is probably a vain attempt at forward thinking. Currently most of
> (if not all) GTK+2.0 apps in Debian are part of GNOME 2 and present the
> problems mentioned in my earlier email to Marcelo.
You might be better off using a different file manager. Nautilus is not
meant to be a "generic file manager". It's part of GNOME2, for GNOME2,
and only GNOME2. A lot of your problems will likely be avoided using
one of the other Free file/desktop managers available. I'll list a few
at the end of this message.
Another good idea might be to just use WindowMaker as your WM in
GNOME2. This way, the core GNOME2 apps can function correctly (since
they have a real session manager, and other GNOME2 daemons) without
needing any work-arounds. Changing your WM is easy enough, and you can
remove the panel as well if you wish. I'm not sure how well WMaker
supports the FreeDesktop standards, tho - if it doesn't do so well
enough, it may not work that nicely w/ Nautilus no matter what.
>
> So I would like to add GNOME or GTK+ apps to Windowmaker to make it
> moderately complete.
>
> As it turns out, gnome-settings-daemon is the culprit/solution to my
> problem. Users in this setup will login to the machine using XDM, KDM,
> or WDM and will likely select wmaker as the window manager. The current
> version of GDM does not support this option. Once logged in the user
> shuld be able to run a GNOME or GTK+ app with the settings they have
> used before. Since gnome-session-manager was not used during login the
> gnome-settings-daemon is not run. Therefore the applications load with
> their system defaults including theme. This is annoying for people with
> specific visual needs. This can be resolved by running
> gnome-settings-daemon manually or with a login script of some kind.
> However this clobbers the desktop background to be a color gradient. Now
> any GNOME app that was run will switch to the correct theme and setup
> the user had previously defined. So aside from the background bit it
> sorta works. Oddly I have not found a place to fully disable the
> background change. The Background settings tool does not provide a
> "Don't use me" option.
I'm not entirely sure, but I believe a ~/gtkrc-2.0 file will be used if
it exists. Could likely be wrong there...
As for the background, there may be several solutions. One could be to
just tell Nautilus which background you want, and let it go at it. As
for using gnome-settings-daemon, perhaps you shoul start if *before*
WindowMaker and the other apps in your start-up script. Adding such a
script to GDM is quite easy - look at teh examples already present (in
/etc/gdm/Sessions, iirc)
<snip/>
>
> Unless anyone disagrees I think it is best for me to file bugs against
> some of the GNOME 2 stuff with the hope that it will be resolved.
I doubt it would be. It would be a great waste of effort to make pieces
of GNOME2 work outside of GNOME2; it's not the GNOME desktop's job to
provide mini-utilities to people who don't want to use a real desktop
environment. There are other projects that have that goal.
>
> In the end GNOME 2 is a great Desktop and suite of Applications,
> and there are numerous improvements over GNOME 1.4. However GNOME 1.4
> apps ran without any problems in other window managers and in KDE. It
> would be very usefull for GNOME 2 apps to work equally well.
GNOME1.4 was kind of a hodge-podge of technologies and apps that didn't
play well together, and weren't well integrated.
Any GNOME2 (or GTK2) app will run outside of the GNOME2 desktop
perfectly well, except the core GNOME2 apps - i.e., Nautilus, the panel,
etc. They are not general applications. They are the core of GNOME2,
and aren't designed for use elsewhere. The developers might accept
patches to make them work elsewhere, but I'd guess they'd have to be
quite non-intrusive (i.e., no GUI modifications, no massive code changes
or huge #ifdef blocks)
Other desktop/file managers:
Rox Filer -> http://rox.sourceforge.net
iDesk -> http://linuxhelp.hn.org/idesk.php
And I'm sure there are a lot more out there. I found at least several
others, but they seemed rather old and icky - if you don't mind/care
about eye-candy (they seemed more like eye-poison) a quick freshmeat
search will help find many more easily. ^,^
>
> Big thanks for your patience. If you got this far, you deserve a cookie.
> :)
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Matthew McGuire
>
>
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>
> ----- End forwarded message -----
--
Sean Middleditch <elanthis@awesomeplay.com>
AwesomePlay Productions, Inc.
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