problems with Gnome installation

[Herman Roozenbeek <hermanr mailroom com>]

Who can help me out?

This is the problem: I installed Gnome on my new computer, using basically
the same versions as on my old one (gnome-libs 1.2.8, gnome-core 1.2.4,
control-center 1.2.2, etc.).

Everything works just fine, BUT:

1. My Gnome menu doesn't display any of the installed apps, even though
they're in /usr/local/share/gnome/apps.
2. Control center doesn't work, complaining it can't find any capplets,
even though they're in /usr/local/share/control-center.

There are a few more strange things, along the same lines, but I suppose
they all have the same cause.

When I run gnome-config --prefix, the answer is /usr/local; gnome-config
--datadir returns /usr/local/share.

This baffles me, so there must be some stupid thing which I have overlooked
up to now... 

Any help?

Thanks in advance,

Herman