On 08/04/2011 03:13 PM, Herb Flanders wrote:
> Hi folks,
>
> I'm using SL6.1 with GNOME and gedit 2.28.4 and all gedit preferences
> are locked (greyed out). Does someone see the same behaviour
> or has any pointers how I can change the gedit preferences?
>
> What I've found so far:
> gconf-editor shows a list of variables under
> /apps/gedit-2/preferences/editor/ but they have no name/value.
>
> Using the following on the command line:
> gconftool-2 --set /apps/gedit-2/preferences/editor/auto_indent/auto_indent
> --type bool false
> the preference in gedit for indentation is now working and gconf-editor
> shows a name/value pair for auto_indent but says: "This key has no schema".
>
> So far so good, but I'd like to replace tabs insertion with spaces
> and don't know the gconftool command for that. Also, there must be an
> easier way to change gedit preferences.

I haven't seen this particular gray-out problem yet (still running 
mostly 6.0) but the command to set tab/space insertion to a global 
default is this:

gconftool-2 --direct --config-source \
  xml:readwrite:/etc/gconf/gconf.xml.defaults \
  --type bool --set /apps/gedit-2/preferences/editor/tabs/insert_spaces \
  true

Of course, this doesn't fix the real problem of grayed out options, or 
the problem of some gconf keys being "no schema" type (which drives me 
up the wall). If the above command doesn't work out or starts behaving 
weirdly, try to locate the key above in the gconf editor and see if its 
there or not and what effect your change had. Comparing across another 
account is useful sometimes, too, in the event that upgrade-carryovers 
or something similar didn't go well.

I've seen strange things happen when people try to copy dotfiles from 
backups using cp command options that do things like set/preserve 
SELinux contexts from the backup or basic file permissions that don't 
allow the programs to know or adjust their preferences any longer, etc. 
Anyway, my point is there are a few things that can go just weird enough 
to make your system seem mysterious, but still basically work fine.

-Iwao