Newbie Questions with Xfce 4.4

[Matt Thompson]

Sorry for a long meta-mail, folks, but I just upgraded my main box to 
FC6 which has Xfce 4.3.99.2 (according to the xfce4-panel version), and 
I'm wondering about a couple things to help me restore my "I'm used to 
it" 4.2 setup in 4.4 language, and add new things.  It is highly 
probable these are settings related, not bugs, and so I didn't want to 
file with Bugzilla unless I found out they were.

First, in the new panel-iconbox, is there a way to make the icons 
less...gray?  That is they seem to be very pale, grayed-out versions of 
the true icons I used to see in 4.2 and that I see in the current panel 
launchers.  I'd rather have the neat full-color ones I remember from ye 
olde iconbox.

Second, in my attempts to try out the new desktop file/launcher icons, I 
found that my conky seems to be stealing the desktop.  Now I'm sure it 
has to do with the own_window or buffer or something settings for conky:

    http://conky.sourceforge.net/docs.html
    http://conky.sourceforge.net/config_settings.html

but I really don't know the X-Xfce desktop drawing things well enough to 
figure out the right settings.  Could one of the devs help me figure out 
how to have both?

Third, when I try to get those icons to appear, they do for a second, 
then they flicker out as conky reappears.  But, when they do appear, 
they throw up an error:

    Unable to contact the Xfce Trash service.

    Make sure you have a file manager installed that supports the Xfce
    Trash service, such as Thunar.

Now, I do have Thunar installed, and I've used it (I like it!), so what 
is this about?  Is there a new setting I need to set?

Fourth, about Thunar, I see that Xfce or something is starting 
gnome-volume-manager.  I thought Thunar had its own VM and, trying to be 
as far from gnome as possible, is there a way to start Thunar's instead? 
  Or, if GVM works (and it seems to) it is easier to just let it run?

Finally (sorry...), when I go to the Settings Manager, and I click on 
the File Manager I get:

    Failed to open the File Manager Preferences.

    Either the Xfce File Manager was not build with support for D-BUS, or
    the D-BUS service was not installed properly.

I *really* don't know about this.  I tried starting Xfce with 
dbus-launch startxfce4, but that didn't help.  And that is the extent of 
my D-BUS knowledge.

Thanks,
Matt
-- 
The mayfly lives only one day, and sometimes it rains. - Geo. Carlin
    Matt Thompson -- http://ucsub.colorado.edu/~thompsma/
    440 UCB, Boulder, CO  80309-0440
    JILA A510, 303-492-4662