Re: disable tooltips in etch

["Russell L. Harris" <rlharris@oplink.net>]

* Liam O'Toole <liam.p.otoole@gmail.com> [061122 02:52]:
> On Tue, 21 Nov 2006 14:02:45 -0600
> "Russell L. Harris" <rlharris@oplink.net> wrote:
> > I have been unable to discover how to disable tooltips in X in Debian
> > Etch.  In particular, I need to disable the rectangular yellow box
> > which appears when the mouse cursor rests upon any of the window
> > selector buttons at the bottom of the screen.  
> 
> A search of the gconf tree ...
> 
>     gconftool -R / | grep tooltip
> 
> ... suggests a number of things you could try.

This helps greatly; thanks.  I think the culprit is
"window_list_applet". 

I have a little progress to report: In the upper panel of the Gnome
desktop, the menu selections:

    Applications -> System Tools -> Configuration Editor

brings up the configuration editor window.  In that window, following
the tree:

    apps -> panel -> global

opens a pane in which the next-to-last item is "tooltips_enabled" with
a check-box.  Unchecking the box disables the tooltips for the top,
side, and bottom panels -- with one exception.  

In the bottom panel, there is a window list, and tooltips continue to
be displayed when the mouse moves over the buttons of the window
list.  The window list is displayed by the "window_list_applet".  It
appears to me that the remaining tooltips are being displayed by the
window list applet.

Regrettably, the tooltips displayed by the window list applet are the
most obnoxious of all, for they hide the minibuffer of XEmacs, as well
as the bottom line of X-terminal -- the active line being used for
input. 

The window list applet may be added to the panel in the same manner
other applets are added to the panels: right-click on the panel to
bring up a menu and select "Add to panel".  However, unlike other
applets which, when right-clicked, display a menu which includes
"remove from panel", the window list applet has no obvious means of
removal.

While some aspects of the window list applet can be customized by the
Configuration Editor, display of the tooltip is not one of them.  This
oversight needs to be submitted as a bug of at least moderate severity.

RLH