Backing up or copying a user's gnome desktop settings?

[Nathan]

Hi all,

What is the best way to back up, or copy to another machine, a user's
desktop settings? This would include the gnome/gtk theme, the gnome
panels and their configuration and session startup files.

It looks like the settings are stored all over the place -- ~/.config,
~/.gnome2, ~/.gconf and so forth. I have been unable to find a
description of what's what here -- perhaps my Google-fu is just weak.
My goal is simply to identify the set of files which describe the
user's gnome desktop environment, but no more than that -- i.e. I do
not want to copy the entire home directory.

Thanks in advance.
-N