Preface

This manual covers advanced tasks in customizing the appearance and behavior of the Solaris Common Desktop Environment (CDE). It includes chapters on:

• Customizing system initialization, login, and session initiation

• Adding applications and providing interface representations for applications and their data

• Configuring desktop processes, applications, and data across the network

• Customizing desktop services such as window management, printing, colors, and fonts

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Note –

In this document the term “IA” refers to the Intel 32–bit processor architecture, which includes the Pentium, Pentium Pro, Pentium II, Pentium II Xeon, Celeron, Pentium III, and Pentium III Xeon processors and compatible microprocessor chips made by AMD and Cyrix.

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Who Should Use This Book

The audiences for this book include:

• System administrators. Many of the tasks in this book require root permission.

• Advanced users who want to perform customizations that cannot be accomplished using the desktop user interface. The desktop provides user-specific locations for many of its configuration files.

Before You Read This Book

Users should be familiar with the following books:

• Solaris Common Desktop Environment: User's Guide

• Solaris Common Desktop Environment: User's Transition Guide

How This Book Is Organized

This manual includes the following chapters:

Chapter 1, Configuring Login Manager covers how to configure the appearance and behavior of the desktop Login Manager.

Chapter 2, Configuring Session Manager covers how the desktop stores and retrieves sessions, and how to customize session startup.

Chapter 3, Troubleshooting Login and Session Startup Problems describes Solaris CDE startup files, possible Solaris CDE startup problems, and suggests solutions to startup problems.

Chapter 4, Adding and Administering Applications covers how Application Manager gathers applications, and explains how to add applications.

Chapter 5, Registering an Application covers how to create a registration package for an application.

Chapter 6, Miscellaneous Configurations addresses advanced configuration topics such as custom login configurations, setting up multiple screens, networked desktops and X terminals, modifying user dot files, mail printing customization, desktop environment setup, and types of error logs.

Chapter 7, Configuring the Desktop in a Network covers how to distribute desktop services, applications, and data across a network.

Chapter 8, Configuring and Administering Printing from the Desktop covers how to add and remove desktop printers, and how to specify the default printer.

Chapter 9, Desktop Search Paths covers how the desktop finds applications, help files, icons, and other desktop data across the network.

Chapter 10, Introduction to Actions and Data Types introduces the concepts of actions and data types, and explains how they are used to provide a user interface for applications.

Chapter 11, Creating Actions and Data Types Using Create Action covers how to use the Create Action application to create actions and data types.

Chapter 12, Creating Actions Manually covers how to create action definitions by editing a database configuration file.

Chapter 13, Creating Data Types Manually covers how to create data type definitions by editing a database configuration file.

Chapter 14, Creating Icons for the Desktop covers how to use the Icon Editor, and naming conventions, sizes, and search paths for desktop icons.

Chapter 15, Advanced Front Panel Customization covers creating new system-wide controls and subpanels, and other panel customizations.

Chapter 16, Customizing the Workspace Manager covers customizing windows, mouse button bindings, keyboard bindings, and Workspace Manager menus.

Chapter 17, Administering Application Resources, Fonts, and Colors covers how to set application resources, and how the desktop uses fonts and colors.

Chapter 18, Configuring Localized Desktop Sessions covers system administration tasks for systems running international sessions.

Appendix A, dtconfig(1) Man Page is a copy of the dtconfig(1) man page.

Accessing Sun Documentation Online

The docs.sun.com^SM Web site enables you to access Sun technical documentation online. You can browse the docs.sun.com archive or search for a specific book title or subject. The URL is http://docs.sun.com.

Typographic Conventions

The following table describes the typographic changes used in this book.

Table P–1 Typographic Conventions

Typeface or Symbol	Meaning	Example
AaBbCc123	The names of commands, files, and directories; on-screen computer output	Edit your .login file. Use ls -a to list all files. machine_name% you have mail.
AaBbCc123	What you type, contrasted with on-screen computer output	machine_name% su Password:
AaBbCc123	Command-line placeholder: replace with a real name or value	To delete a file, type rm filename.
AaBbCc123	Book titles, new words, or terms, or words to be emphasized.	Read Chapter 6 in User's Guide. These are called class options. You must be root to do this.

Shell Prompts in Command Examples

The following table shows the default system prompt and superuser prompt for the C shell, Bourne shell, and Korn shell.

Table P–2 Shell Prompts

Shell	Prompt
C shell prompt	machine_name%
C shell superuser prompt	machine_name#
Bourne shell and Korn shell prompt	$
Bourne shell and Korn shell superuser prompt	#