Gnome

Gnome Hacks

Fore the more advanced user (!) you should read

the rss-feed gnome-hacks.org/gnome-hacks.

Main menu

A very quick way to make launchers

Open the application run dialog with Alt+F2.

Then just drag & drop the icon onto your desktop or in the panel. ;)

Restore original menu

cd ~/.config/menus

Here you find all menu files (ending: .menu). Delete them.

You also might delete all entries under

/etc/xdg

Install the packages

apt-get install menu-xgd menu

As root with

dpkg-reconfigure menu-xdg menu

you will trigger the reload of the menu entries.

Crossover Office Menu vanished

If you are configuring crossover settings (extended settings), you can choose a different name for the applications root directory - default is /Windows Applications. If the menu entries in your gnome menu disappear, simply change this, and a new menu will be created.

See: Wine - Crossover Office.

Gnome notification

You can send informations to the notification area of the gnome panel. You need the following package

apt-get install libnotify-bin

I do this with a little script

vim ~/bin/send_message

# !/bin/bash
#
# See man notify-send
# for more informations

# Params
# -t seconds : waits until vanish

notify_params=" -u critical -t 300000 "
title="$1"
text="$2"
/usr/bin/notify-send $notify_params $title $text"

More informations you will find on galago-project.org, in the manual or help:

man notify-send
notify-send --help

Troubleshooting

There is an option DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS= to pass in front of a call to notify-send. You can get this adress like this (taken and CORRECTED from here:

vim send_message

# !/bin/bash
#
user=$(/usr/bin/whoami)
pids=$(pgrep -u ${user} gnome-session)
title="$1"
text="$2"

for pid in $pids; do
  # find DBUS session bus for this session 
  DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS=$(grep -z DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS \
  /proc/$pid/environ | sed -e 's/DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS=//')

  # use it 
  DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS=$DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS \
  /usr/bin/notify-send -u low -t 30000 "$title" "$text"
done

chmod 755 send_message