How to use Network Manager GUI to easily switch between multiple predefined n/w configs ?

["manoj mathai" <manojpmathai gmail com>]

Hi,

I need to connect  my laptop to 3 different networks and i wanted to know how it can be done using NetworkManager.

1) At my work place i need to use a fixed ip,mask,gw,dns settings n mac address
2) At my home its DHCP
3) At my other work place, there is another set of fixed ip, mask, gw,dns settings and mac address.

What i want to do is to give a name to each of these settings like work1, work2, home,etc and then be able to switch to any of this config by simply clicking on the network manager menu. Is this possible ? How can this be done ? 

OS = Ubuntu Intrepid 8.10 i386
network-manger version = 0.7~~svn20081018
network-manger-gnome version = 0.7~~svn20081020

What i used to do in Ubuntu 8.04 :

1) under /etc/network, i created an interface definition file for each connection e.g interfaces_work1, interfaces_home, etc with the correct definitions

2) then i wrote a small bash script, which, given the config name, copies /etc/network/interfaces_{config_name} to /etc/network/interfaces and then did an "/etc/init.d/networking restart".

It worked fine and i was happy with it. But, for the new n/w manager in 8.10, i cant figure out how to do the same using the GUI.

Had a few questions about the GUI :

(a) In the GUI, for each wired connection i created, there are 2 checkboxes

i) Connect automatically 
ii) System setting.

what do they indicate ? Hovering over them gives no tooltip.

(b) I created the 3 configs that i wanted and gave it names. But when i left click on the n/w sys tray icon, i see "Auto Ethernet" and some times i see an "Auto eth0" along with it. . What do these options mean ? Also, the other 3 that i had defined are missing. One would expect to see 3 radio buttons showing each of my custom connection config names but thats not the case. and its really confusing. 

c) In the first tab, what does the grayed text to the right of each connection name indicate ? it shows strings like Now, Never, 'n' days ago,etc Does it indicate the last time the config was used/created/edited ?

-- Manoj