utf-8 and solaris 10 proudly present: the nagging box - and how to remove it
i, as a native-speaker of german, tend to use my desktop o/s in a localized manner. this does not apply to my servers, where i usually use posix-c as a locale.
anyway, when setting the locale to de_DE.UTF-8 on solaris 10 1/06, something strange happens: the almighty box appears!
PASTE SCREENSHOT HERE
where does it come from? what is it good for? well, it's entitled "Htt IM status". as far as i found out, using this box you can set FILL TEXT HERE. as this is supposed to help you, it's merely annoying - as it is placed under nearly (not all!) every window on screen. actually it's just a misplaced user interface item. the sun developer network (sdn) (why is it there? it's a user problem, isn't it?) has a nice faq-page on this topic. the thing is, that it's incomplete. it lacks some command and just applies to individual user-settings. what to do if you're a sysadmin and what set it system-wide? here you go:
the problem splits into two, as the box will appear for motif and gtk+ applications. making them disappear from one, does not mean it disappears from the other.
first, to remove the box from gtk+ apps, you have to set some gconf values, making them mandatory for all users. gnome's guide for system-administrators tells you how. before making it mandatory for all, check the actual command first. here comes the relevant entry for our box-problem, as stated on the sdn-page:
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gconftool-2 -s /desktop/gnome/interface/gtk-im-status-style -t string none
but you have to set another interface-option as well, which is 'gtk-im-preedit-style'. so here's the real command:
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gconftool-2 -s /desktop/gnome/interface/gtk-im-status-style -t string none
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gconftool-2 -s /desktop/gnome/interface/gtk-im-preedit-style -t string none
firing this as a user removes the nagging box from gtk+ applications, but just for this one user. what if we want to set the recommended gconf-values system-wide? the gnome document mentioned above tells us how. here's the command:
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gconftool-2 --direct \
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--config-source xml:readwrite:/etc/gconf/gconf.xml.mandatory \
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--type string \
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--set /desktop/gnome/interface/gtk-im-status-style none
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gconftool-2 --direct \
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--config-source xml:readwrite:/etc/gconf/gconf.xml.mandatory \
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--type string \
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--set /desktop/gnome/interface/gtk-im-preedit-style none
okay, now all gtk+ apps should come without this freaking box. let's get rid of it in motif apps as well!
November 10th, 2006 at 10:32 pm