[Techtalk] Gnome 2: menu editor?

[Erin Raasch]

On Thursday 05 September 2002 03:55, Rebecca J. Walter wrote:

> If you are thinking about missing applications, it is because many
> haven't been ported yet.  So you need to continue to use your 1.4 apps
> for a little while yet.  Some applications are waiting for the next
> stable release to begin porting (like Evolution).  Others are available
> for GNOME2 from CVS or in beta versions (I haven't tried getting any
> that way yet, but I think someone told me I could get GAIM for GNOME2
> out of CVS).

I had read that there weren't a lot of apps yet available for Gnome2, so I was 
prepared for that.  I think that what bothers me the most is that the 
configuration menus seem to be "dumbed down" quite a bit.  

> Have you checked out launchers yet?  I am finding that launchers are an
> ideal way for me to simplify access to apps I use a lot (like xchat).  I
> am using the top panel for the menu, applets, and launchers and using a
> small bottom panel for my tasklist and workspace switcher.

I have played around with launcers - which are ideal for accessing apps that I 
use a lot.  But for the times when I just want to browse my apps list - 
because there are still a lot that I haven't tried out yet, or because I 
can't remember the name of a particular app - I want to be able to do that.
I can now since I've added some menus, but it took me awhile to get to that 
point and it took a little more persistence than I expected.

> Which window manager are you using?  I am really liking metacity (the
> new one) and it has some nice themes.  Also some of them are influenced
> by the GTK theme (whee!).  If you are wanting a different theme than the
> ones available, there is a themes site... sunshineinabag.co.uk i think.
> i might be remembered the URL wrong.  Anyway, that site (if i have the
> url right) has sawfish themes and gtk2 themes too!

I've played around with both, though I'll confess that I haven't used metacity 
enough yet to have developed a preference.  I have found sunsine in a bag and 
have installed a few themes, but for everyone that has installed, I have 
another one that has failed.  (On my list of things-to-check-out:  why does 
this happen?)  
The drag-and-drop feature didn't work at all - I believe this is because it 
looks for themes in /opt/gnome2/metacity/themes, which is a directory owned 
by root.  I want to see if I can change this so that the theme manager looks 
to a user-owned directory.  In the meantime I've had to su and copy the theme 
to the theme directory, then when I back out I'm able to use the new theme.  

I guess I've just been venting, I know that with some persistence I wil make 
it work exactly the way I want it to.

Thanks for the support!

Erin