Re: gnome-terminal

[Telsa Gwynne <hobbit aloss ukuu org uk>]

On Sat, Dec 15, 2001 at 12:36:19AM -0500 or thereabouts, Trevor Curtis wrote:
> On Fri, Dec 14, 2001 at 02:29:46PM -0500, Michael Soulier offered:
> > Hello. 
> 
> Hey Michael :)
> 
> > 
> > You might want to include, in the gnome-terminal users's guide,
> > instructions on how to save your settings permanently such that all
> > subsequent terminal invocations will use those settings. 
> 
> AFAIK, you don't need to save any settings. Just changing them, and 
> applying (or hitting ok) should be enough. But yes, maybe that should 
> be documented too.

As far as I recall, the problem here is that some versions of Gnome
auto-save stuff like the entire session, and others leave it to the
gnome-logout box or control-centre preferences and have a check-box
about auto-saving.

There is a fairly undocumented command, "save-session", which can
also be invoked as "save-session --kill" (which quits Gnome, beware :)).
But people shouldn't need that. I think it's just a hangover from
early days.

> > Also, most people are used to customizing their X apps through an
> > .Xdefaults file and using xrdb. Please include information on how to
> > configure the application with a text editor, as all Unix applications
> > should need nothing more. Also, manpages would be nice, as I may not
> > want to use your terminal in your environment. Choice is important. 
> 
> I've tried to do this myself and had problems. Turns out that there aren't 
> any GNOME apps that use Xrdb. I don't believe there are any plans to change
> this in the future. 
> 
> As for the man pages, this was brought up before, and there was a valid
> reason for not doing (which of course I can't seem to recall now). Does any one
> remember why? It might have something to do with the fact that most GNOME apps 
> are GUI-type apps, and as a result really need GUI-based docs as opposed to 
> man's.

Man pages are traditionally very much more detailed and terse than
our docbook docs. It wouldn't be enough simply to convert our
article/book-headed docs into refentries.

You'd be looking at much more of a traditional lay-out, since the
people who prefer man to gnome help may well prefer it due to the
traditional style of man pages. I know I would, for man pages.

For about two years now, I have been thinking, "must try to write
a few sample man pages". (gnome-terminal would be an obvious one
to start with, too.) For about two years now, I have not got
around to it. Gah :(

Telsa