gnome-settings-daemon necessary to have icons

[Jehan]

I was using cairo-dock in a bare openbox session (no GNOME/KDE) and many of the icons in various plug-ins were broken (ok so maybe that is a bug report which should go in cairo-dock-plug-ins then, but since it happened all over the place, I was unsure if this is not rather a core issue.

For instance in the attached image, you can see that all icons in shortcuts are question-mark icons instead of usual partition/folder icons. In the Applications Menu plug-ins, they would be ugly red-crossed "no icon" icon.

But if I run `gnome-settings-daemon &` in my autostart script *before* I run cairo-dock, then I have nice icons in shortcuts/Applications Menu (and even the application menu icon itself would change to the Mint icon for some reason).

Why is that? Can't you run cairo-dock without some minimum of GNOME running (or KDE or other, I have not tried if it fixes the issue there) and have nice-looking icons? It would be nice to have a nice-looking system, even without any desktop environment running in background. :-)

[Fabounet (fabounet03)]

Hi,
the theme of your desktop is defined by gnome-settings-daemon on Gnome,
XFCE has its own daemon, KDE its own too, you get the idea.

The settings daemon is a tool that sets some properties shared over all
applications (like what is the icons theme, the cursor theme, etc).
GTK use these info, gvfs too (gvfs is used by the Shortcuts applet for
instance).

Now, Cairo-Dock doesn't require gnome-settings-daemon, nor any other one,
but if you want to have a nice look, the properties need to be set. You can
do it yourself (see
http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Specifications/xsettings-spec/) if you
prefer not relying on gnome-settings-daemon.

2013/9/18 Jehan <email address hidden>

> ** Attachment added: "Same for Applications Menu: without and with the
> gnome-settings-daemon running."
>
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/cairo-dock-core/+bug/1226925/+attachment/3826374/+files/cairo-dock-icons-menu.png
>
> --
> You received this bug notification because you are a member of Cairo-
> Dock Devs, which is subscribed to Cairo-Dock Core.
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1226925
>
> Title:
> gnome-settings-daemon necessary to have icons
>
> Status in Cairo-Dock : Core:
> New
>
> Bug description:
> I was using cairo-dock in a bare openbox session (no GNOME/KDE) and
> many of the icons in various plug-ins were broken (ok so maybe that is
> a bug report which should go in cairo-dock-plug-ins then, but since it
> happened all over the place, I was unsure if this is not rather a core
> issue.
>
> For instance in the attached image, you can see that all icons in
> shortcuts are question-mark icons instead of usual partition/folder
> icons. In the Applications Menu plug-ins, they would be ugly red-
> crossed "no icon" icon.
>
> But if I run `gnome-settings-daemon &` in my autostart script *before*
> I run cairo-dock, then I have nice icons in shortcuts/Applications
> Menu (and even the application menu icon itself would change to the
> Mint icon for some reason).
>
> Why is that? Can't you run cairo-dock without some minimum of GNOME
> running (or KDE or other, I have not tried if it fixes the issue
> there) and have nice-looking icons? It would be nice to have a nice-
> looking system, even without any desktop environment running in
> background. :-)
>
> To manage notifications about this bug go to:
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/cairo-dock-core/+bug/1226925/+subscriptions
>
> _______________________________________________
> Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~cairo-dock-team
> Post to : <email address hidden>
> Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~cairo-dock-team
> More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp
>

[Jehan (jehan-marmottard)]

Hi,

actually right now, using gnome-settings-daemon is acceptable because it gives me some nice features (like support of ICC profiles, etc.). But I am wondering if there is not a way to at least tell the user about these kind of tools. Not all users know all Freedesktop specifications. ;-)

For instance, I was certain for days that there was something broken with cairo-dock when I saw all these broken icons. And I stumbled upon gnome-settings-daemon completely by chance by seeing this command commented out in a default openbox autostart script. I tried to see what it did, and kept it in my own autostart only because I saw it got me back the support of ICC profiles. Then at the next restart, the icons were there! That was just chance after chance.

A better way would be to be able to somehow tell the user who does not use one of the common desktops about common tools to still have features and a nice-looking UI.

[Fabounet (fabounet03)]

well that's why using a distribution is easier than doing things by
yourself :-)
you can for sure create your own desktop by plugging several programs
togather, but then you need to know about certain things.
We could detect that X settings are missing, but after all, all
applications could, and all applications will look ugly without them.

Openbox is a Window-manager, like Compiz or Metacity, so it's not its job
to define the X settings. Your distribution should have set
'gnome-settings-daemon' as auto-start on logging (I wonder why it was not
the case for you).
In any case, I think that when you start tweaking your desktop like that,
you need to learn a bit (what you did), and that's part of the fun :-)

2013/9/18 Jehan <email address hidden>

> Hi,
>
> actually right now, using gnome-settings-daemon is acceptable because it
> gives me some nice features (like support of ICC profiles, etc.). But I
> am wondering if there is not a way to at least tell the user about these
> kind of tools. Not all users know all Freedesktop specifications. ;-)
>
> For instance, I was certain for days that there was something broken
> with cairo-dock when I saw all these broken icons. And I stumbled upon
> gnome-settings-daemon completely by chance by seeing this command
> commented out in a default openbox autostart script. I tried to see what
> it did, and kept it in my own autostart only because I saw it got me
> back the support of ICC profiles. Then at the next restart, the icons
> were there! That was just chance after chance.
>
> A better way would be to be able to somehow tell the user who does not
> use one of the common desktops about common tools to still have features
> and a nice-looking UI.
>
> --
> You received this bug notification because you are a member of Cairo-
> Dock Devs, which is subscribed to Cairo-Dock Core.
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1226925
>
> Title:
> gnome-settings-daemon necessary to have icons
>
> Status in Cairo-Dock : Core:
> New
>
> Bug description:
> I was using cairo-dock in a bare openbox session (no GNOME/KDE) and
> many of the icons in various plug-ins were broken (ok so maybe that is
> a bug report which should go in cairo-dock-plug-ins then, but since it
> happened all over the place, I was unsure if this is not rather a core
> issue.
>
> For instance in the attached image, you can see that all icons in
> shortcuts are question-mark icons instead of usual partition/folder
> icons. In the Applications Menu plug-ins, they would be ugly red-
> crossed "no icon" icon.
>
> But if I run `gnome-settings-daemon &` in my autostart script *before*
> I run cairo-dock, then I have nice icons in shortcuts/Applications
> Menu (and even the application menu icon itself would change to the
> Mint icon for some reason).
>
> Why is that? Can't you run cairo-dock without some minimum of GNOME
> running (or KDE or other, I have not tried if it fixes the issue
> there) and have nice-looking icons? It would be nice to have a nice-
> looking system, even without any desktop environment running in
> background. :-)
>
> To manage notifications about this bug go to:
> https://bugs.launchpa...

[Jehan (jehan-marmottard)]

I agree. That's part of the fun. :-)

Well I still think a small feedback would be nicer for the user, but I also see what you mean. And also I am not sure which form could take this feedback anyway. So seeing what you say, I guess we should just close the ticket as a NOTABUG, then?

[Matthieu Baerts (matttbe)]

> So seeing what you say, I guess we should just close the ticket as a NOTABUG, then?

Yes, we can do that. If someone else has the same problem, this bug report is still available ;-)
(and it's also possible to add a section on our wiki ;-) => http://www.glx-dock.org/ww_page.php?p=Recurrents%20problems&lang=en )