Re: Comments, suggestions, "issues" re: Gnome, GMC, E, E-Term, etc (long)

["James M. Cape" <jcape jcinteractive com>]

James Green wrote:
> 
> Hi all,

Note: suggestions that I agree with, or things that I think are bugs, I
left out.

> OK, let's see how much I remember:
> 
> 1. In Enlightenment, you can create a directory (or symlink) called
> ~/.enlightenment/backgrounds containing all the backgrounds you want
> possible on your desktop. When you access them (root menu -> desktop ->
> backgrounds) a menu containing thumbnails appear. I have two things to say
> about this:
> 
>    o  if you have a large number of backgrounds, the menu's width shoots
>       across the screen and you have to tentitively 'rub' the mouse
>       pointer against the rhs of the menu to move the menu across the
>       screen leftwards and access the next pictures. This is very
>       cumbersome. Could we have scrollbars for this job at all?

This is theme dependent. The themes I've made set this to "wrap to next
column" after 10 images. Other have it at 15, still others, a number so
high it doesn't wrap at all.

> 2. When a window opens, it observes clearance of the panel correctly.
> However, when a dialogue (e.g. yes, no) opens, it very often opens with
> half the window below the panel. The effect is to have to drag the
> dialogue
> up to see the buttons. Very annoying.

You can set it to center the dialogs from the Control Center's UI
properties (Dialog, I think).

> 5. In GMC, could the toolbar be configured as in Windows Explorer such
> that the text underneath can be switched off, and thumbnails of the icons
> used? This, in conjunction with the Location toolbar being placed on the
> same line as the main Toolbar, could lead to greater screenspace. Also in
> GMC, could we have a small amount of padding for the information bar at
> the bottom, else the far-left character is flush with the lhs of the
> window.

You can configure quite a few things from the Control Center's
Application Default's screen. Although Gmc doesn't always obey this
(non-tearoff toolbars, for example).

> 6. The Control Center Gnome-Edit capplet does not permit the adding and
> removing of applications. Currently, it's stuck on 'gEdit' which of course
> is wrong, it should read 'gedit' (note case). This causes the gnome-edit
> configuration option to be useless if you want to use gEdit (or gedit as
> the executable file is).

Well, I added "gxedit" by just typing the command in to the dropdown.
:-) There really isn't any complicated procedure here.

> 7. For the Shut Down or Reboot menu entry, rather than saying "must be
> root", could we have a dialogue asking for the root password?
> 
> 8. The editing of global-options is extreemly annoying for those who
> remain in X as a normal user. Could we have a Control Center "Root access"
> feature so that menus can be edited, selected users can perform selected
> functions (like menu editing, Shut Down/Reboot, etc.)?

The above two cases were things that I was thinking about last week. I
would like to propose some sort of libgsudo shared library that handles
root access. When a user is going to access something that requires root
permissions, it should check to see if that user is authorized, and if
so, prompt him or her for the root password, and remember that decision
for the remainder of the session.

> 9. I note that my Enlightenment Root Menu does not have a GUI
> configuration module. Can this be added? I heard in IRC that the menus.cfg
> file should be edited, but the only one that exists is in
> /usr/local/enlightenment/config/ and this does not match that of my root
> menu (I have not altered either).

If you are using the RedHat RPMS, this is in
/usr/share/enlightenment/config. Note that E automatically hides entries
that point to non-existant programs or submenus.

> 10. Could E-Term be made so that is uses true-transparancy with options
> just to show the background wallpaper or include the display of windows
> between in and the background? Surely if you are merely overlaying the
> term's display over X, then the memory being used by the wallpaper in the
> term currently is no longer used and the term is faster?

Actually, from my understanding, Eterm acesses the Imlib shared memory
cache that Esetroot (or Enlightenment) uses to display, and simply uses
that to display the background (negativly offset based on the current
window geometry), so the actual background image is only loaded into
memory once. I could be wrong on this, and Michael Jennings reads this
list, so if I'm wrong, I'm sure he will point this out.

> 12. Just what *does* the long bar across the top of the Enlightenment
> screen do???

If you are using multiple desktops, you can click and drag it down to
show the last accessed desktop. You can configure multiple desktops from
either e-conf or the Multiple Desktop's dialog in CVS E.

> 14. In Enlightenment's Theme capplet, there is no "Add new theme" button.
> There is only a list of currently-installed themes. I'm sure before I
> upgraded to RH6 (using the sane E-Conf tarball) that such a button
> existed.

There never was an Add Theme button to my recollection. It's not that
hard, just copy the .etheme file to /usr/local/enlightenment/themes or
/usr/share/enlightenment/themes.

    Jim Cape
    http://www.jcinteractive.com

    Less is More. Learn it. Use it. Get an X Terminal. :-)