NAME

       gDesklets - provides an advanced architecture for desktop applets

SYNOPSIS

       gdesklets open [ display ]

DESCRIPTION

       gDesklets  provides an advanced architecture for desktop applets -- tiny displays sitting on your desktop
       in a symbiotic relationship of eye candy and usefulness.

       Populate your desktop with status meters, icon bars, weather sensors, news tickers...  whatever  you  can
       imagine! Virtually anything is possible and maybe even available some day.

FIRST START

       You  can  find an entry in the GNOME menu after a successful installation.  This will start the gDesklets
       Shell where you can install and run desktop applets. When you log out or quit 'gDesklets',  the  settings
       will be remembered for the next session.

COMMAND LINE TOOL

       The command line tool gdesklets lets you perform all administration tasks from the command line.

       Display files can be opened using

       $ gdesklets open <displayfile>

       If  the  gdesklets-daemon  wasn't  running,  this will start up the daemon as well. You can only have one
       daemon per X-display. The daemon can be stopped again by calling

       $ gdesklets stop

       Usage of the command line frontend:

       gdesklets [option] <command> [arguments...]

         <command>: open <files>      (Opens the given display files)
                    start             (Runs the gDesklets daemon)
                    stop              (Stops the gDesklets daemon)
                    list              (Lists open displays)
                    restart           (Restarts the gDesklets daemon)
                    profile <profile> (Switches to the given profile)
                    profile           (Shows the current and the available
                                       profiles)
                    shell             (Opens the graphical shell)
                    slay              (Kills the daemon -- use in emergency)
                    status            (Checks daemon status)
                    about             (Prints information about gDesklets)
                    version           (Prints gDesklets version)
                    configure         (Opens the configuration dialog)
                    help              (Displays this text)
                    check             (Dependency check for python bindings)

           [option]: --no-tray-icon   (disables the systray icon)

         If you don't pass a command, the script will fall back to
         gdesklets start which is the default.

GDESKLETS-SHELL

       The shell is a graphical frontend for managing your desklets. You can start it  either  by  selecting  it
       from  the  GNOME  menu  (Accessories  -> gDesklets), by selecting it from the tray icon popup menu, or by
       calling:

       $ gdesklets shell

       The shell currently lets you create and switch between profiles, install  new  desklets  and  search  for
       desklets.  New  desklets  can be installed by dragging links from your web browser or files from the file
       manager into its window, or by selecting the menu item "File -> Install package...".

       Displays (as we call the applets) will usually appear in the top left corner  of  your  screen  when  you
       first  run  them.  You  can  move  displays  around by pressing and holding down the middle mouse button.
       'gDesklets' will remember the new position of the display for the future.

USAGE

       If you press the right mouse button over a display, a popup menu will open.  It depends  on  the  display
       what you will see there, but the following items are always available:

       Configure desklet

              Opens the configuration dialog for this display. It depends on the display what you can configure.

       Move desklet

              Attaches desklet to cursor for moving it around. Click to release it.

       View Source

              Lets you view the desklet's source file (.display).

       Restart desklet

              Restarts this display. This menu item is mainly for sensor debugging.

       Remove desklet

              Removes this display from your desktop.

       About

              Lets you view desklet's "About" information, license and readme file.

LOGFILE

       The     gdesklets-daemon     writes     a     log     file.     That     file    can    be    found    in
       ~/.gdesklets/logs/gdesklets<display>.log where <display> is the name of the X-Display.

       You can select the item View log in the popup menu of the tray icon to view the log messages.

SUPPORTED WINDOW MANAGERS

       In order to run on as many desktops  as  possible,  gDesklets  relies  on  the  EWMH  specification  from
       freedesktop.org.  This  specification  is  respected among many window managers. We currently know of the
       following EWMH compliant window managers:

       * metacity

       * xfwm4

       * openbox

       * enlightenment (>= 0.16.6)

       * fvwm (2.5.x, see http://www.fvwm.org/features.php)

       * sawfish

       * kwin

       * evilwm

       * fluxbox (recent versions)

       * waimea

       * ...and certainly some others which we forgot here.

MEMORY CONSUMPTION

       This is taken seriously. In every release we're addressing these  issues.   Unfortunately,  gDesklets  is
       relying  on  libraries  which  contain  their own bugs or leaks. In some places it's possible to create a
       work-around. Sometimes, we

       have to wait until an issue in bugzilla is fixed.  gDesklets itself shouldn't  leak.  We've  checked  the
       relevant C code to make sure of that.

       At  startup  the  program  claims  approximately 16 MB of RAM. In the future we're going to decrease that
       number. Some people in the GNOME and GTK+ community are also addressing these problems at a  lower  level
       (gtk+ and gnome libraries).  gDesklets will automatically benefit from these efforts.

COMMUNITY

       The  site  'http://www.gdesklets.de'  is  the  place  where  you  can get new desklets or upload your own
       creations for sharing them with other users.

       Discussion and Help http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gdesklets-list

       gDesklets Developer's Book  (for developing on the gDesklets platform) http://develbook.gdesklets.de

       A printed reference in German language is available from 'Software  &  Support  Verlag  GmbH'.  The  book
       'Exploring Python' covers desklet development on 34 pages.

       You  can  meet  the  'gDesklets'  developers  and  other  fans  on  the IRC channel #gdesklets on GIMPnet
       (irc.gimp.org).

AUTHOR

       gDesklets was written by

         * Martin Grimme <martin@pycage.de>.

         * Christian Meyer <chrisime@gnome.org>.

         * Jesse Andrews <jdandr2@cs.uky.edu>.

THANKS

       I'd like to thank all people who supported (and are still supporting) me so well with 'gDesklets'. Please
       complain if I forgot you... ;)

         * Christian Meyer -- ideas and sensor programming

         * Jesse Andrews -- sensor programming

         * Johannes "Waldgeist" Rebhan -- artwork

         * Christian Neumair -- installation

         * Sebastien Bacher -- man page and lots of other stuff

         * Luke Stroven -- gdesklets.gnomedesktop.org and 'gDesklets' forum

         * James Henstridge -- excellent GTK bindings for Python

         * Joe Sapp  -- documentation

         * Bjoern Koch  -- additional programming, documentation

         * Robert Pastierovic  -- additional programming, documentation

         * Lauri Kainulainen  -- additional programming, gdesklets website

BUGS

       If    you   encounter   bugs   which   are   not   listed   here,   please   post   a   bug   report   at
       https://launchpad.net/gdesklets/+filebug for gDesklets. Please don't report  useless  bug  reports,  like
       "gDesklets  crashes"  without  checking  the log file first, because that doesn't tell us much. Also make
       sure, that you have all the necessary dependencies installed.

       If the log says: "ImportError: No module named X" then you clearly  don't  have  the  python  module  "X"
       installed  on your system.  We are going to close useless bug reports immediately(!), so please save your
       time and ours and be smart!

LICENCE AND DISCLAIMER

       This software is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY;  without  even
       the  implied  warranty of MERCHANTIBILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the file 'COPYING' for
       more details.

       You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this software; if not, write
       to the

       Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 390, Boston, MA  02111-1307  USA

       This  software  is  provided  "as is" and the author is not and cannot be made responsible for any damage
       resulting from the use of this software.

COPYRIGHT

       gdesklets is copyright (c) 2003 - 2007 by

       * Martin Grimme  <martin@pycage.de>,

       * Christian Meyer  <chrisime@gnome.org>,

       * Jesse Andrews  <jdandr2@cs.uky.edu>

       * Benoît Dejean  <tazforever@dlfp.org>

       glibtop Python wrapper in libdesklets is copyright (c) 2003 - 2005 by

       * Benoît Dejean  <tazforever@dlfp.org>

       The latest version of gDesklets can be found at http://www.gdesklets.de/ The Desklets bzr repository  can
       be found at https://code.launchpad.net/gdesklets/

                                                 March 29, 2008                                     gdesklets(1)