Is there a terminal/command-line interface to the 'Appearance Preferences' dialog?

Hopefully the title sums it up, but I'm looking for a way of being able to switch the Appearance Preferences' Visual Effects option to 'None', from a terminal/script (and optionally later to be able to switch back to 'Normal', though that's not such a big deal).

I'm a total Ubuntu-noob, so I can't tell you which window manager/widget-set/whatever I am using (Gnome 2.30.0?). It's on Ubuntu 10.4 patched up to date as of late July 2010.

From ubuntu robsoft

• This might help you on your journey, best I can understand your question

  robsoft : Thanks, I'll have a look at that - but really I wanted something I could potentially script, rather than a desktop icon.
  From garbagecollector

• If all you need to do is to disable and enable effects this is fairly easy done with metacity --replace to disable effects and compiz --replace to enable effects. This is scriptable too.

  robsoft : Thanks - I haven't tried scripting this yet but the metacity --replace command certainly seemed to kill the desktop effects (and thus allow me to use VNC properly). Cheers!

  Li Lo : FWIW, if what you're trying to solve is VNC not working properly with desktop effects enabled you can set /desktop/gnome/remote_access/disable_xdamage to true in gconf-editor. The side effect will be that it will update more than just the changed regions so it will be slower and consume more badnwidth.

  robsoft : +1 @Li Lo - thanks for that. That would certainly be useful when I'm using VNC on the same local network. In this particular instance I'll be remoting into a machine across the internet, behind a slow broadband connection, so I'll stick with the 'faster' side effect.

  Li Lo : In that case I suggest you try ouy Nomachine NX, FreeNX or neatx. It's much faster than VNC.

  robsoft : Thanks, I will do.
  From Li Lo