GNOME Configuration

[ashley_y]

Dear Lazyweb, I want to set up GNOME 2.18 like this:

1. 
   the close button on windows in the top-left corner instead of the top right
   
2. 
   a "shade" or "rollup" button on windows
   
3. 
   my Kensington Expert Mouse (a trackball, confusingly) buttons like this:
   
   • bottom-right: click (my thumb, I use it left-handed despite being right-handed)
   • bottom-left: contextual menu,

Comments

[node]

I'll check my lunix laptop in a couple of hours. I've set my windows to shade, which is some checkbox under preferences.

#3 probably requires xmodmap and/or configuration in your X server; I don't think gnome alone can help you with that.

#4

#5 If you start xterms as your terminal, you can just shove something in your ~/.Xdefaults or ~/.Xresources file (I forget which gets read automatically when you login -- just hard-link the two). This should work:

XTerm*geometry: 100x50

I don't use gnome-terminal.

[node]

Oh, I forgot to fill in #4. I'll see what I can find.

[node]

#1 - System menu -> Preferences -> Themes: select an appropriate theme, or create one.
#2 - System menu -> Preferences -> Windows: titlebar action = roll up
#3 - as in the above comment
#4 - unknown
#5 - System menu -> Preferences -> Menu layout. navigate to Accessories -> Terminal, right-click and select properties, and append --geometry=100x50 to the command line

[ashley_y]

#1 - none of the themes or theme customisations have title bar buttons on the left side. I think Metacity doesn't support that at all, though I'm actually using Compiz, which might.
#2 - I'd rather have a button, but this is better than nothing.
#3 - I'll look into it.
#5 - works

Thanks!

[zanfur]

For #4, look at a program by jwz called "xkeycaps", which allows you to modify what each key does, which modifier bits it sets, etc. Ugly but functional. In addition to configuring the running session, it creates an xmodmap file you can import at the beginning of every session. Won't get you everything you're asking, but it's a start. I think you'll need some sort of automagickal per-app keymap changer to get everything you've described, and I don't know of any solutions for that.