[Pkg-xfce-devel] Bug#708002: "RE:Re: Processed: Re: Bug#708002: sylpheed: "ignores gtk-can-change-accels = 1

[José Luis González]

Yves-Alexis Perez wrote:

> On mer., 2013-05-15 at 21:09  0200, José Luis González wrote:
> > In brief: ~/.gtkrc-2.0 preferences are ignored in XFCE. This goes
> > again
> > the documentation (XFCE FAQ), general GTK behaviour and user
> > expectations.
> 
> .gtkrc-2.0 is always less priority than XSETTINGS. If you want gtk
> accelerator, enable them in Xfce (go to Settings Manager, Appearance,
> Settings, Enable editable accelerators).

This isn't documented, and goes the third item in http://docs.xfce.org/FAQ .
I have filed a bug in XFCE's bugzilla so that this FAQ is removed (it's
subsumed by the wiki FAQ, where modifying ~/.gtkrc-2.0 isn't mentioned).

Besides, not all GTK settings can be modified through the Settings Manager.
Some, like the KeyTheme, have to be modified in the settings editor, which,
once again isn't documented and is obscure.

> >  What is worse, they are applied to all GTK applications,
> > including the pure ones like Sylpheed.
> 
> What exactly is a “pure“ GTK application? And what is an “unpure” GTK
> application?

For pure GTK app I meant one that doesn't belong to a desktop environment
and doesn't depend on their components, like Sylpheed.

> >  Sylpheed's maintainer suggested
> > reassigning to xfce4 since it's an XFCE problem and doesn't seem to be
> > documented. And in my opinion, not honouring gtkrc-2.0 is bad
> > behaviour.
> 
> See https://developer.gnome.org/gtk2/2.24/gtk2-Resource-Files.html:
> 
> > Note that settings in RC files are overwritten by system-wide settings
> > (which are managed by an XSettings manager on X11).

Thanks for the pointer. I didn't know about this.

Anyway, I don't think this is a good policy for all settings, only those the
user has explicitly set in the settings manager. In XFCE all GTK
preferences are overwritten by XFCE defaults. If the user had explicitly
set some in gtkrc-2.0 they should be preferred to XFCE defaults. If
current behaviour is not going to be changed, at least explain it clearly
in the documentation. There are records in forums of people puzzled
because they gtkrc-2.0 preferences are ignored in XFCE (some in
one of the links posted by Ricardo in this report).

Please, don't close bugs without considering all the issues reported by
the submitters. It is disconsidered towards them and makes all
waste time. In my private email, after your complaint about not explaining
the reassignment, I had already bother to brief it:

"This goes again the documentation"

I would appreciate if this bug  remained open until the documentation
explains this behaviour and how to change *all* GTK preferences, not just
the accels. Lower severity to wishlist if you want, but make sure the
documentation deficiencies are solved. This was basically what Ricardo
suggested and the reason for reassignment.