"Do nothing" actually does something

[Darkraven]

Hello everyone,

sorry if this topic was already covered in another thread, but if that's the case I couldn't find it. Yesterday I installed Mint 13 MATE and I realised that the Power Manager did not include the "do nothing" option when closing the laptop lid (in an AC connection, to be more specific). Through mateconf-editor I could add this option, and I made it my default. In the office I connect my netbook to a larger screen and I'd like to work only with that one and have the netbook lid closed meanwhile. Although I selected the "do nothing" option, when I close the lid the large screen goes blank. I'm pretty sure that my monitors settings are correct: large screen is on and netbook screen is off. This works exactly as I wish when the netbook lid is open, but as I said, it doesn't as soon as I close it.

Thanks in advance.

[Darkraven]

I tried editing the file ~/.mateconf/apps/mate-power-manager/buttons/%mateconf.xml. As expected the string 'nothing' was already there for the lid_ac option, so apparently everything is correct. However, while editing the file (as root user) several messages appeared in the terminal warning me that changes could not be stored in /root/.local/share/recently-used.xbel. Something very similar happened when editing /root/.mateconf/apps/mate-power-manager/buttons/%mateconf.xml. Does this make any sense to you? Can this explain the problem or these are two non-related questions?

Thanks in advance.