Customizing Your Session

Although the default CDE session offers a lot, chances are you will want to customize your environment. When it comes to configuration options, the architects of the CDE stayed with the true UNIX spirit by supplying many different ways to accomplish the same thing. Most configuration preferences can be altered to suit a user's taste with a few simple clicks of the mouse; just about any aspect of the CDE can be managed through its configuration files at an individual user level, that is, without altering the entire system. This allows power users to tailor their environment as much as they want, while still giving less skilled users a very comfortable environment.

In addition, site administrators can easily tailor the desktop to suit their organization's needs by setting up configuration defaults in a shared system area (usually /etc/dt). Files in this area can not only make the necessary applications available, but they can also define what users can and cannot alter on their desktop.

The Style Manager

The Style Manager is one of the most convenient features of the CDE. Most X Window environments require changes to be made through the X resource configuration files, which is too complicated for the average user. Others provide limited configurability through menus and dialog boxes, such as modifying color schemes and basic window behavior, but still leave a bit to be desired when compared to user-friendly systems such as Windows and Macintosh. The CDE's Style Manager goes a long way toward addressing this issue.

The Style Manager, shown in Figure 6.3, is launched from the Front Panel by clicking the icon that resembles an artist's palette.

With the Style Manager, you can configure various attributes of the CDE using the following options:

• Color—A color palette manager, which comes with more than thirty palettes already defined. Because the CDE is based on the Motif window manager, color can be changed dynamically. Therefore, you can view color changes as you select them. In

addition, you can add, delete, or modify palettes. Instead of specifying colors for each display attribute (such as active window, inactive window, and so on), you can adjust the palette with a set of slide controls that affect all aspects of the color scheme as one.

• Font—Enables you to set the default font size for all applications.
• Backdrop—With this option, you can select a bitmap background from the 26 bitmaps that come with the desktop. For each virtual screen, you can choose an individual background to help you keep track of which screen is active.
• Keyboard—Offers the options to choose whether keys will repeat when held and to enable a "click" sound for each keypress.
• Mouse—The CDE offers a surprisingly complete set of options for the mouse. You can switch buttons for left- or right-handedness, adjust the click speed, and set the acceleration and threshold.
• Beep—Allows you to adjust the volume, tone, and length of the default "beep," usually intended as an alert or notifier of an error.
• Screen—Offers you the option of setting the screen to automatically blank after a specified period of inactivity. In addition, you can configure a screen saver that is activated after a similar interval. The screen saver has all the familiar xlock options, such as fireworks, fractals, and Conway's "game of life." The screen saver can also be activated from the Front Panel lock control.
• Window—Enables you to select window behavior, such as whether to activate a window by placing the mouse over it or by clicking it.
• Startup—The CDE's startup options are sometimes the source of confusion for new users. This option enables you to select a "home session" or specify that the state of the desktop when you last logged out be restored.

The Front Panel

You can customize the Front Panel either from the desktop or by editing configuration files. This section covers the methods available from the desktop. In the section "Advanced Front Panel Customization," I will go over some of the configuration file settings.

The Workspace Manager

Unlike other versions of the CDE, TriTeal places a virtual window manager (called the Workspace Manager) on the front of the toolbar. From this manager, windows can be moved

between virtual workspaces by clicking and dragging with the mouse. However, in the Workspace Manager, windows cannot be dragged from the active workspace the way they can in olvwm.

You can configure the Workspace Manager by right-clicking it and selecting the Properties menu entry. From the Properties dialog, you can remove the Workspace Manager from the Front Panel. This will replace it with the default for all CDE versions—buttons that select each virtual workspace. Other options include the number of virtual workspaces and how they will be displayed within the Front Panel or its separate display window.

Subpanels

The initial Front Panel configuration supplies three subpanels: Help, Personal Printers, and Personal Applications. Adding panels is easy, as is adding additional icons to subpanels.

To add a panel, right-click the icons over which the new panel will be added and select the Add Subpanel option. A new panel is created, with two selections already defined: the icon that was already on the Front Panel and an Install Icon selection.

For example, add a subpanel above the Mail control. First, right-click (or left-click if your mouse is in left-handed mode) the Mail icon immediately left of the virtual screen manager. A small menu appears with three selections, the middle one being Add Subpanel. Select it by pointing the mouse at it and releasing the button. An up arrow will appear above the Mail icon. When you click this arrow, the subpanel pops up with the title Mail.

In order to display the use of the Install Icon icon, start the Application Manager by clicking the file drawer icon next to the Style Manager icon. The Application Manager window is shown in Figure 6.4.