Re: gnome session

[David Wang <dwang mitre org>]

Hi,

This is my first post to a large list, so if I'm doing something grossly
wrong... I apologize profusely.  I'd gladly take friendly
advice/comment/suggestions. :-)

> At 09:44 23.04.2000 -0300, you wrote:
> >Don't know if this is a know bug somewhere in gnome.
> >I log in, start the programs I wish to have started everytime, configure the
> >panel, tasklist size, swallowed app, launcher, etc..
> >When I log out (saving settings) and log in again, it *sometimes* loses some
> >of its configurations.

> Sometimes this happens to me too. I do not use swallowed apps, so I can't
> tell about that, but I had to reconfigure everything a few times. As of I
> am using an early 1.0 gnome (built april 99 at suse), I don't know if my
> gnome is too old and has alzheimer yet :)

I know what you mean.  I use Gnome/E from the Mandrake 7.0 distro, and I have
very finicky requirements for my desktop so I layout everything: size,
location, window border, groups, etc.  I reason that the "Save Current
Session" menu option in the Gnome menubar must be saving these things, so I
use it profusely.  However, I've found that if I DO NOT check the "Save
current setup" checkbox on logout, everything is lost and not remembered at
all.  So what's the use of the "Save Current Session" menu option?

What is worse is that Gnome/E, for more than one open gnome-terminal, does not
save the settings correctly.  For example, I have five gnome-terminal windows
open at fixed locations/size/etc.  I'd make the rounds in telling each window
to remember its borders, size, and location, and by the time I finish with the
fifth window, some/all of the previous windows would randomly "choose" some
setting (i.e. not what I had picked).  This game of musical chairs keeps going
on (the settings just don't seem to stick and change if I change the settings
on some OTHER window with no relation to what I chose) until one of two things
happen.  One, E core dumps and loses everything.  Two, I get tired and just
leaves one of the windows uncustomized.

The nastiest thing is that if I have to, for some reason, reboot the X
server... the settings are not saved and lost forever.

The only way I've figured out to layout my windows the way that I want is to
bypass Gnome session all-together.  I'd let it figure out and write all the
configuration files for me, then I'd make copies of the config files in
~/.gnome  and do the layout calls myself during my .login .

So, I'd grab the appropriate randomly named gnome-terminal-foobarbaz config
file in ~/.gnome and invoke gnome-terminal --sm-config-prefix with it.

BTW, I don't know if this is a bug in Gnome-terminal 1.0.50 that's been fixed,
but the parsing of --sm-config-prefix just does not work properly in a shell
(either that, or it's wrongly documented).  If I understand correctly, I'm
supposed to use:

  gnome-terminal --sm-config-prefix=gnome-terminal-foobarbaz  

to start a gnome-terminal with config info from
~/.gnome/gnome-terminal-foobarbaz, but that syntax does not work.  I have to
copy what ~/.gnome/session uses, which is:

  gnome-terminal --sm-config-prefix /gnome-terminal-foobarbaz/

So, which is right?  Or are they both right and I just misunderstand what
PREFIX means?

Finally, I have one big question, and that is "how can I get involved with
Gnome in helping out with problems like this?"  I'd love to slowly immerse
myself into helping out with the Gnome effort because I'm a Q&A guy by
personality, but I don't know how to join.... :-)

/David