The Sun Java Desktop

Remove all  launchers from the desktop
The MS-Windows philosophy of having a desktop cluttered with launchers is counterproductive. Launchers are seldom organized, and are hidden when applications are open on the screen. As well, all of the same apps can be found in the Launch menu.

To avoid this "feature", we will remove all launchers from the desktop, to start with a clean screen. Choose Launch --> Applications --> Utilities --> Configuration Editor.
Next, open the Apps --> Nautilus --> Desktop menu. In the Value column, deselect all "icon_visible" choices.   The Gconf window will appear as seen at right.

Next, go to Apps --> Nautilus --> Preferences. Set the following parameters:

add_to_session: off
default_folder_view: list_view
show_desktop: off

Window focus

Choose Launch --> Preferences --> Desktop Preferences --> Display --> Window Behavior.
The Window Preferences menu governs the 'focus' of the screen, ie. where the keyboard and mouse take effect. By default, the 'active' window is chosen by clicking on a window. This will also bring that window to the front. However, the extra clicking required with these default settings can get tedious.

The best starting choices are to choose "Select windows when the mouse moves over them" and DE-select "Raise Window after an interval".  The combination of these two settings is usually the most convenient, and certainly the least frustrating for new users.

Window List Preferences

To make it easier to have a large number of windows open simultaneously, go to the vertical bar next to the window list on the control panel. Hold down the right mouse button to bring up the menu for the window list:


Choose Preferences, which will bring up the Window List Preferences. Select "Group windows when space is limited"

Create a launcher for the Nautilus file manager

To start, we first need to make some room for a new launcher on the Panel. Hold down the right mouse button on the  vertical bar to the left of the Window List. Choose "Move" and then slid the bar to the right a bit so that you create some extra space.

Next, open the menu for the panel by right clicking on the blank area of the panel.

Choose Add to Panel --> Launcher (do NOT choose Launcher from menu). Now, fill in the Basic tab window as shown at right. To get the folder icon, click on the icon button, and  choose the icon named 'blueprint-gnome-fs-directory-accept.png'.

 
NOTE: In the Command box, type

nautilus --browser .

 This will launch nautilus in the browser mode, which is a bit more convenient. Remember to include a blank space, between 'nautilus' and '--browser'. The period at the end of the command stands for the current working directory, which for programs launched from the launcher, will always be your $HOME directory.

Choose Nedit as the default text editor

This will be done is two steps. First, we'll add Nedit to the Launch menu. Open the Launch --> Applications --> Accessories menu and hold down the right mouse button. Choose entire menu --> Add new item to this menu. Fill in the Create Launcher menu as shown at right. Choose the 'blueprint-gnome-mime-text.png' icon.

Next, we will make nedit the default text editor. Choose Launch --> Preferences --> Desktop Preferences --> File Associations. Open Documents --> Plain Text. Choose Plain text document, and press the Edit button.

In the "Program to run" box, type 'nedit', as shown at right. In most cases, simply double-clicking on a plain text document will cause it to pop up in the Nedit editor.

Q: Why don't we just use the default editor, gedit?

A: First Nedit is far more powerful than gedit. Secondly, gedit is threaded, and when you have several files open at the same time, it is impossible to get them to appear in separate windows. Gedit will force multiple files into tabs within a single window. Nedit lets you view several files in independent windows: a very important capability when working with data.

Add a Terminal Launcher

Go to the control panel and hold down the right button. Choose Add to Panel --> Launcher from menu --> Utilities --> Terminal. A terminal icon should appear on the control panel:


Start a terminal by clicking on the icon. In the terminal window, choose Edit --> Current profile. Open the 'Compatibility' tab pane, and make sure that both the backspace and delete buttons generate 'ASCII DEL'.

This means that either the backspace key or the delete key can be used for correcting text as you type.

Add a Printer Manager to the Panel

The printer manager lets you monitor print jobs, cancel print jobs, choose a favorite set of printers to display, and even drag and drop files directly from the Nautilus file manager.

Note: Only text and PostScript (.ps) files can be dragged and dropped. For specialized file types (eg. .pdf, .jpg, .gif) you need to open the application and print from the application.

To add the printer manager to the panel, choose Launch --> Preferences  and right click on Printer Preferences. Choose Add this launcher to panel.

Click on the printer icon and the Print Manager will be launched. Choose View --> Select Printers to Show to add the printers that you are most likely to use to your printer list.

Making Nautilus open GenBank files in a text editor

The .gen file extension is commonly used for GenBank flatfiles. Unfortunately, the MIME types used by Nautilus use the .gen extension for Sega Genesis ROM files. To disable this feature, and make it possible to get Nautilus to open GenBank files in a text editor, we need to do several steps.

Choose Launch --> Preferences --> Desktop Preferences --> File Associations. Open Software Development --> ROM Images. Click on "Genesis ROM" and then click on Remove. Do the Same for "Game Boy (some people use .gb, so we might as well get rid of it.

Under the heading 'Misc',  Remove any item with a .gen extension.

Nautilus still won't let you off that easily. It's writers have an obsession with forcing  every file to be of some type, and have a single application associated with it. The real world doesn't work that way, so we are forced to associate an application with a GenBank file.

In the Documents section, add an entry similar to the one at right.

If that still doesn't work, you may be forced to associate nedit withthe Sega-Genesis ROM type. Unfortunately files with the GenBank extension will be labeled as Genesis files.

Sorry about that. Please feel free to complain to the creators of Nautilus at gnome.org. Maybe if enough people tell them about the number of yours of time people have wasted trying to get around their supposedly 'easier' file manager, they will realize that simpler is usually better.