Re: [gdm-list] how to change GDM gui

[mike _ <arizonagroovejet gmail com>]

On 24 July 2010 17:38, pj <pjezek164 ahoj cz> wrote:
>  Hi, there are several PCs i my family with GNU/linux onboard: One with
> Ubuntu, another with LinuxMint and the last two with Archlinux. While
> Debian-based GDM packages offer changes of greeter and bacground look by
> more ways, Archlinux offers only settings via gconf-editor which doesn't
> offer change geometry, icons and background (I know this has been integrated
> with general Gnome appearace settings). A standard boxy login frame is not
> ergonomic, I would have the user list and user icons much smaller as well as
> the login frame. Are there any solution or am I wait for Gnome 3.0 packages?
> Thanks a lot!
> Regards,
> Petr

I've found that the appearance of the box containing login prompt etc
can be altered by editing the file gdm-greeter-login-window.glade  (on
my SuSE machines this is located in /usr/share/gdm/ but other distros
may have it somewhere else).
I've successfully edited it using glade-3. My advice is to make small
changes and then test, it is possible to end up with the window not
displaying at all. Make sure you keep a copy of your own version of
gdm-greeter-login-window.glade somewhere other than where gdm uses it
because an update to gdm may overwrite it. And of course you make a
back up copy of the original before doing anything.

I found that the size of the box displayed can be altered by setting a
Width request and Height request on the window-box element.

regards,

mike