Currently I am learning the Solaris GNOME and Linux Red Hat 9 GNOME environments with the goal to transition a group of users from OpenWindows to GNOME. Metacity in the Solaris and Linux environments is currently not meeting some user requirements, and so I am seeking what alternative GNOME applications might be added or used in replacement to achieve these requirements. Issue 1: the user has a wide variety of tools, both graphical and text based. None of these applications are GTk+ based, and there are not resources available to modify the applications to make them GTk+ based. The users also have 2 monitors attached to their workstations. 1. When the user places a variety of applications in a variety of virtual desktops across their two monitor/headed systems, then indicates at logout they wish to save their sessions, the next login on SPARC Solaris does not place the applications in the correct virtual desktops. In fact, all applications are opened in one desktop. While some of these can be moved, other applications have to be shut down and restarted on the second monitor. 2. A significant portion of the applications are not recognized by the session saving mechanism in GNOME. The gconf preference for handling such sessions appears to provide no support for specifying workspace or monitor location for the manually started applications. Issue 2: the user has various applications with more data than will fit on one window, and scrolling the graphical application windows takes too long. The users are currently using OpenWindows and the open windows virtual window manager, which provides them these two abilities, which they have felt is acceptable. 1. Ability to create GUI windows that can be placed across virtual desktops. That is to say, a user might have one large application that sits across 4 different virtual desktops and then switch desktops to see relevant portions. 2. Ability to switch virtual desktops as close to instantly as possible. Metacity does not provide a fast transition - one sits and watches each window drawn and contents refilled. Even after specifying minimal themes, turning off animations, etc., the time taken to switch virtual desktops is longer than the users require. Issue 3: assisting staff with problem resolution is difficult. 1. It is not clear where one can find error logging to identify GNOME application problems. On Solaris, there are a couple of files in $HOME/.dt/ which appear to contain error information during login - it's not yet clear whether these will contain all errors. Issue 4: differences in environment that frustrate users. 1. Under OpenWindows, the users had the ability to move applications from the desktop into the workspace switcher, reposition items within the workspace switcher, etc. They would prefer to find a window manager or switcher which continued to provide them this ability. 2. Replacing xterm with gnome-terminal might fix some of the positioning issues, but we have been unable to identify how to modify the gnome-terminal behavior so that function keys generate the sequences we need generated. Also, gnome-terminal doesn't support all of xterm's functionality - such as the ability to resize the window via escape sequences, etc. 3. Users have reported that they see, occasionally and without being able to duplicate, cases where desktop menu panels disappear. 4. Users see on a regular basis applications start up which are so large that the top (and sometimes bottom) are off the top and bottom of the virtual desktop. They are unable to find a way to cause the applications to resize to fit the virtual desktop. As you can see, there's quite a daunting task ahead. Telling users to just forget about previous functionality doesn't work very well when their work environment needs the functionality. So I'd like to find some methods of meeting as many of the needs as possible. -- Tcl - The glue of a new generation. <URL: http://wiki.tcl.tk/ > Larry W. Virden <mailto:lvirden@xxxxxxx> <URL: http://www.purl.org/NET/lvirden/> Even if explicitly stated to the contrary, nothing in this posting should be construed as representing my employer's opinions. -><-