Solution for OEMs/Gnome

[Stanislav Brabec]

Daniel Carrera writes:
> Stanislav Brabec wrote:
> > They are: /apps/panel/default_setup/applets and /apps/panel/applets.
> 
> I see it. I also see /apps/panel/default_setup/objects. But I don't see 
> a way to change what's there. Adding an icon means adding a new object 
> and I can't see a way to do that from gconf-editor. Also, if I add an 
> icon to my panel, it won't show up on Gconf.
> 
> Gconf seems like an incredibly complicated way of adding an icon. And it 
> doesn't seem to work at all. There is no connection between what I see 
> on gconf-editor and the icons I see on my desktop.

Yes, for panel it is true. But there is one chance, much simpler with
GNOME 2.14 (it has merged gconf tree in ~/.gconf/%gconf-tree.xml):
- Create new user account.
- Configure it as you want.
- Logout.
- Open your ~/.gconf/%gconf-tree.xml in an text editor.
- Find everything with /apps/panel/default_setup in its key.
- Insert it to updated panel-default-setup.entries.

> > You can take a help from user account with properly reconfigured panel.
> 
> Except that I don't understand the contents of ~/.gconf

These are XML files with user's changes of configuration read by gconf
daemon.

> It seems easier to just cp ~/.gconf ~/.gnome2 /etc/skel/

Yes, but once user makes mistake, there is no way to reset to OEM
default. Removing of ~/.gconf or using gconf-editor "Reset to default",
both will return to vendor state, not to OEM customization.

> > - Edit .schemas or .entries in installed environment and use gconftool
> > after setup.
> 
> If you are talking about .../gconf/schemas/panel-default-setup.entries 
> then I have no idea how to edit it.

See above.

> > - Use gconf-editor as root and set values.
> 
> Doesn't give me the option to add an icon.

Not icon, you are adding keys there. But even this is not intuitive, if
you need a new drawer:
- Go to lowest existing drawer
- Right click in right empty window
- Enter the key name, including missing part of the path and /.
- Exit gconf-editor.
- Run gconf-editor.
Drawer and key are here.
I have just filled it as a bug:
http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=338239

> > - Change GConf path and use custom .schemas or .entries and use
> > gconftool after setup.
> 
> Still don't know how to edit .entries or .schemas. Like you said, they 
> aren't exactly straight forward.

In a text editor with a little understanding of XML.

You can help yourself by looking at customized ~/.gconf directory.

> > - Change GConf path and use separate GConf database
> 
> No use unless I can generate a separate GConf database.

Yes, you can, it should be simple:
Create $sysconfdir/gconf/2/local-defaults.path (or edit
$sysconfdir/gconf/2/path)
Add there a directory (see the syntax in the path file).
Create this directory and make it world readable (default in most
distributions).

I did never tried it, but I plan to test it for SuSE Linux 10.2 to
simplify OEM customizations, which will survive upgrade.

> > But as I wrote before, for panel all these ways are very unintuitive.
> 
> You could say that :)

It is unintuitive only for default panel setup. For other things, it is
very straightforward. For example - change the init splash:
- Find /apps/gnome-session/options/splash_image in gconf editor.
- You see nice help, which will say you, what you can do.

-- 
Best Regards / S pozdravem,

Stanislav Brabec
software developer
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