FIGURE 2.17 Placing applets on the panel makes accessing them easy.
After an applet is installed, right-click it on the panel to see what options are available. For example, select Preferences for the stock ticker and you can add or delete stocks whose prices you want to monitor. If you don't like the applet's location, right-click it, click Move, slide the mouse until the applet is where you want it (even to another panel), and click to set its location.
If you no longer want an applet to appear on the panel, right-click it, and click Remove From Panel. The icon representing the applet disappears. If you find that you have run out of room on your panel, you can add a new panel to another part of the screen, as described in the next section.
Adding another panel
If you run out of space on the top or bottom panels, you can add more panels to your desktop. You can have several panels on your GNOME 2 desktop. You can add panels that run along the entire bottom, top, or side of the screen. To add a panel, follow these steps:
1 Right-click an open space in the panel so that the Panel menu appears.
2 Click New Panel. A new panel appears on the side of the screen.
3 Right-click an open space in the new panel and select Properties.
4 From the Panel Properties, select where you want the panel from the Orientation box (Top, Bottom, Left, or Right).
After you've added a panel, you can add applets or application launchers to it as you did with the default panel. To remove a panel, right-click it and select Delete This Panel.
Adding an application launcher
Icons on your panel represent a web browser and several office productivity applications. You can add your own icons to launch applications from the panel as well. To add a new application launcher to the panel, follow these steps:
1 Right-click in an open space on the panel.
2 Click Add to Panel ➪ Application Launcher from the menu. All application categories from your Applications and System menus appear.
3 Select the arrow next to the category of application you want, and then select Add. An icon representing the application appears on the panel.
To launch the application that you just added, simply click the icon on the panel.
If the application that you want to launch is not on one of your menus, you can build a launcher yourself as follows:
1 Right-click in an open space on the panel.
2 Click Add to Panel ➪ Custom Application Launcher ➪ Add. The Create Launcher window appears.
3 Provide the following information for the application you want to add:Type. Select Application (to launch a regular GUI application) or Application in Terminal. Use Application in Terminal if the application is a character-based or ncurses application. (Applications written using the ncurses library run in a Terminal window but offer screen-oriented mouse and keyboard controls.)Name. Choose a name to identify the application. (This appears in the tooltip when your mouse is over the icon.)Command. This identifies the command line that is run when the application is launched. Use the full pathname, plus any required options.Comment. Enter a comment describing the application. It also appears when you later move your mouse over the launcher.
4 Click the Icon box (it might say No Icon), select one of the icons shown, and click OK. Alternatively, you can browse your filesystem to choose an icon.
5 Click OK.
The application should now appear in the panel. Click it to start the application.
NOTE
Icons available to represent your application are contained in the /usr/share/pixmaps directory. These icons are either in PNG or XPM format. If there isn't an icon in the directory that you want to use, create your own (in one of those two formats) and assign it to the application.
Adding a drawer
A drawer is an icon that you can click to display other icons representing menus, applets, and launchers; it behaves just like a panel. Essentially, any item that you can add to a panel you can add to a drawer. By adding a drawer to your GNOME panel, you can include several applets and launchers that together take up the space of only one icon. Click the drawer to show the applets and launchers as if they were being pulled out of a drawer icon on the panel.
To add a drawer to your panel, right-click the panel and select Add to Panel ➪ Drawer. A drawer appears on the panel. Right-click it and add applets or launchers to it as you would to a panel. Click the icon again to retract the drawer.
Figure 2.18 shows a portion of the panel with an open drawer that includes an icon for launching a weather report, sticky notes, and stock monitor.
FIGURE 2.18 Add launchers or applets to a drawer on your GNOME 2 panel.
Changing panel properties
You can change the orientation, size, hiding policy, and background properties of your desktop panels. To open the Panel Properties window that applies to a specific panel, right-click an open space on the panel and choose Properties. The Panel Properties window that appears includes the following values:
Orientation Move the panel to a different location on the screen by clicking a new position.
Size Select the size of your panel by choosing its height in pixels (48 pixels by default).
Expand Select this check box to have the panel expand to fill the entire side or clear the check box to make the panel only as wide as the applets it contains.
AutoHide Select whether a panel is automatically hidden (appearing only when the mouse pointer is in the area).
Show Hide buttons Choose whether the Hide/Unhide buttons (with pixmap arrows on them) appear on the edges of the panel.
Arrows on Hide buttons If you select Show Hide Buttons, you can choose to have arrows on those buttons.
Background From the Background tab, you can assign a color to the background of the panel, assign a pixmap image, or just leave the default (which is based on the current system theme). Click the Background Image check box if you want to select an Image for the background, and then select an image, such as a tile from /usr/share/backgrounds/tiles or another directory.
TIP
I usually turn on the AutoHide feature and turn off the Hide buttons. Using AutoHide gives you more desktop space with which you can work. When you move your mouse to the edge where the panel is located, the panel pops up—so you don't need Hide buttons.