Help! Hi All. Relatively New. dconf Editor's "Default" misled me now I have no menu's
 

Hi all! Being encouraged to ask and knowing this is simple stuff for you old pros, I misunderstood "default". Some background I've been testing, trying, enjoying, and admittedly getting "frustrated" at times over "root lockdown", figuring out ways to get around it, various distros including the latest Ubuntu, Linux Mint (various flavors), Debian 7, and Fedora 18 on VMware player in Windows 7 Pro. I guess I could just have a backup copy of the virtual machine, but I'm wanting to learn and I learn best through my many mistakes. Well on Debian 7 I went into dconf Editor and started clicking a few "defaults", but the "defaults" didn't turn the upper panel indicators back to their normal original "default" install status, but totally eliminated them all and all I have is a black bar. There is no "undo" or "restore" that I can find in dconf Editor. I messed things up in Ubuntu messing around with dconf Editor. You'd think I'd learn. :) But what is interesting is the changes that I click that I want to happen in dconf, via the editor, don't seem to happen but just the ones that sabotage me. I get the "sense" that there is another program above or "superior" to either gnome in my case or dconf that is not allowing the editor to make those changes but that is separate from my current problem and that is just "restoring" my desktop back to it's original install state.

Oh and I was not operating as a superuser or in root when I eliminated the content entirely from my gnome panel. I don't need "administrative privileges" to trash an operating system, just ask Bill Gates and all the times I've called them to reactivate Windows cuz if it ain't broke I'll tweak it until it is. Sucks being a "perfectionist" who is anything but... lol. :D

Got backup?
No? Now you have 2 problems. ;)

As a side-note, I belief gconf is just an interface editor of the content in ~/.config and/or ~/.gconf, yes?

I have always "reset" my gnome for my user (read:NOT root) by issuing
and/or Doing both WILL reset your desktop configuration to default.
You may do so after logging out of the desktop and then Ctrl+Alt+F1 and login as yourself and issue the above 2 commands.

YMMV.

LOL Habitual I'm going to copy that and tattoo it on my forehead...not the backup comment but how to get the default back. :)

I did go back into the dconf editor and I "THINK"...not sure..but I think my literally clearing out some text in the default lines actually "reset" the "system" for shortly after that my bar "magically" came back. In a way I do have back up because I've been exploring Fedora this evening. However, I'm too "old" to learn "two languages", i.e. the language of rpm yum lingo and the deb apt-get lingo all at the same time. I'll probably just get them all confused. I'm Yum in Ubuntu and sudo apt-get in Fedora. Doesn't take much to confuse me already. Thank you Habitual for the valuable info you shared for I will copy and reference it for future use for I know it will come in handy. I've already started my little handy list of "how to's".