Terminal special colors, etc

[David A. De Graaf]

On Wed, Nov 15, 2006 at 10:01:39PM -0500, Erik Harrison wrote:
> On 11/15/06, David A. De Graaf <dad at datix.us> wrote:
> > *Snip*
> > But...   There's a problem.
> > When I reboot, the session manager captures the command for each
> > window, but not the environment variable.  Thus the new session has
> > root windows that prompt for the root password, but the special colors
> > are lost.
> >
> > How can the proper XDG_CONFIG_HOME value be saved for each window?
> 
> I don't know that the session manager can handle this - Benny correct
> me if I am wrong.
> 
> However, rather than using a saved session to launch the Terminals,
> you can use use a script. The method will differ slightly if you are
> using the latest stable Xfce (4.2.x) or if you are using one of the
> recent RCs of Xfce 4.4.0.
> 
> If you are using Xfce 4.4 RC, you can use the autostart editor.
> Admittedly, it requires a GUI, but I think you can handle it ;-). Run
> the Autostarted Applications from the Settings submenu (alternatively,
> run xfce4-autostart-editor from the command line). Then click the Add
> button, and write in a short label and description for your Terminal
> script, and then browse to the location of your script.
> 
> 
(I am using Xfce 4 Desktop Environment, version 4.3.99.2 (Xfce 4.4 RC2))

Thanks to Erik Harrison and Alexander Toresson for suggesting solutions.
Unfortunately, both ideas fail.

Erik suggests using the autostart editor to create a root window that
opens using the special ~/.configroot parameter.  While this does
work, it imposes unwanted rigidity - a single window is opened on a
desktop that I cannot choose.  On reboot the session manager regurgitates
this window WITHOUT the special colors and other ~/.configroot parameters,
plus another new window WITH the special config added by autostart.

Alexander suggests forcing a full shell via this launcher command:
  bash -c "export XDG_CONFIG_HOME=/home/dad/.configroot; \
      Terminal -x /bin/su -"
To my surprise, this doesn't work, either.  That is, the session
manager fails to capture the XDG_CONFIG_HOME variable and use it when
reconstructing the window layout.

I tried three other variants of launcher commands:

1)  /usr/local/bin/rootwindow
where that file contains 
    export XDG_CONFIG_HOME=/home/dad/.configroot
    Terminal -x /bin/su -

2)  sh -c /usr/local/bin/rootwindow

3)  env XDG_CONFIG_HOME=/home/dad/.configroot Terminal -x /bin/su -

All methods produced a colored root window, but it lost it's color on
reboot when the session manager failed to notice the environment variable.

Apparently, there is no way to cause the session manager to capture
this essential environment variable for reuse.  That makes the
environment variable in Terminal somewhat useless.  That's
disappointing.

Please!!!   Show me that I'm wrong.

> 
> I don't know how I missed this before, but you're from just down the
> road David - I'm in Asheville. One of these days I mean to give a demo
> of Xfce to the LUG - should our LUG ever have a meeting again.....

An excellent idea.  Perhaps we can combine forces, Eric.

-- 
	David A. De Graaf    DATIX, Inc.    Hendersonville, NC
	dad at datix.us         www.datix.us