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Configuring the chooser through X resources and scripts:Well, now that we've got everything basically working, all that we have left is to clean up the configuration of the chooser so it is a little more useable and visually pleasing. The chooser can be configured using X resources. By changing these resources we can do things such as change the chooser fonts, the layout of the list, and the colors. These resources are set in /etc/X11/xdm/Xresources (or a similar location on non-Debian machines). On our systems, we wanted to do the following:
Chooser*geometry: 810x500+300+225 Chooser*allowShellResize: false Chooser*ShapeStyle: Oval Chooser*viewport.forceBars: true Chooser*label.font: *-new century schoolbook-bold-i-normal-*-240-* Chooser*label.label: Available MEnet Hosts !Chooser*list.font: -*-*-medium-r-normal-*-*-230-*-*-c-*-iso8859-1 Chooser*list.font: -misc-fixed-medium-r-semicondensed--13-120-75-75 -c-60-iso8859-1 Chooser*Command.font: *-new century schoolbook-bold-r-normal-*-180-* #ifdef COLOR Chooser*Form.background: gray80 Chooser*label.foreground: white Chooser*label.background: midnightblue Chooser*Command.background: gray80 Chooser*list.columnSpacing: 25 Chooser*list.defaultColumns: 2 Chooser*list.forceColumns: true Chooser*list.verticalList: true Chooser*internalBorderColor: black Chooser*Command.font: -adobe-helvetica-bold-r-*-*-12-* Chooser*viewport.useRight: true #endif Finally, we wanted to get rid of the default X11 "thatch" pattern on the root window, since it gives a horrid moire effect on small monitors. To do this, we tell xdm to use a shell script, called "chooser.script" instead of the normal "chooser". This script simply sets the background to "skyblue4" and runs the normal chooser. We set this in /etc/X11/xdm/xdm-config, adding the line DisplayManager*chooser: /usr/lib/X11/xdm/chooser.scriptwhere "chooser.script" is #!/bin/sh xsetroot -solid skyblue4 /usr/lib/X11/xdm/chooser $*The final result looks like: Much nicer, no? A lot more customization is possible, through both X resources and the XDM configuration scripts. Consult the xdm man page for more details.
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