# The GNOME Panel Manual

2000 Red Hat, Inc. Dan Mueth Alexander Kirillov

Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.1 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license can be found here.

Many of the names used by companies to distinguish their products and services are claimed as trademarks. Where those names appear in any GNOME documentation, and those trademarks are made aware to the members of the GNOME Documentation Project, the names have been printed in caps or initial caps.

This is version 1.0 of The GNOME Panel manual.

## Introduction

The GNOME Panel is the heart of the GNOME user interface and acts as a repository for the Main Menu, user menus, application launchers, applets (applications which run entirely within the panel), drawers, and several special objects. The Panel was designed to be highly configurable. You can easily customize its behavior and appearance and add or remove objects to suite your personal needs and preferences. You can even have multiple panels, each with its own appearance, properties, and contents. This flexibility allows you to easily create a comfortable and efficient personalized desktop environment.

Panel

This manual describes version 1.2 of the GNOME Panel.

## Panel Basics

Using the GNOME Panel is very simple and will come easily to anyone who has used a graphical desktop environment. This section will give you a basic introduction to help you get started, and the following sections will discuss the various Panel objects and features in more detail.

### Introduction to Panel Objects

A Panel can hold several types of objects. The example Panel in shows each type of Panel object.

An Example Panel

An Example Panel.

This example Panel contains the following objects:

- Menus

  Menus are lists of items, each of which either starts an application, executes a command, or is a submenu. In the example Panel in , the left-most icon after the arrow is a stylized footprint icon (the GNOME logo). This is the Main Menu, one of the most important objects in the Panel. This menu provides access to almost all the applications, commands, and configuration options available in GNOME. The Main Menu is described in detail in . The second icon shown is a folder, the default icon used for user menus. GNOME allows users to create their own menus with personalized contents to use in addition to the Main Menu. To open a menu, just click on the icon with the left mouse button. For more information on menus, see .

- Launchers

  Launchers are buttons which either start an application or execute a command when you press them (click with the left mouse button). The third icon in the example Panel is a launcher which starts the Gnumeric spreadsheet. For more information on launchers, see .

- Applets

  Applets are applications which run inside a small part of the Panel. The fourth through eighth icons in the example Panel are applets. The first applet shown is the GNOME Weather applet, which periodically downloads the current weather conditions off the Web and displays the information. The second applet shown is the Drive Mount applet, which shows whether a disk (in this case, the floppy drive) is mounted and allows you to mount and unmount the drive with a single click of the mouse. The third applet shown is the Quick Launch applet, which acts as a container for launchers, but saves more space than placing your launchers directly on the Panel. In the example shown the Quick Launch applet contains six application launchers. Next is the GNOME Desk Guide, which allows you to control multiple virtual desktops, each of which can have multiple screens. You can move between desktops and screens by clicking with your left mouse button. The final applet shown is the Tasklist, which allows you to control your application windows in various ways, including changing the focus, iconifying windows, closing windows, and killing applications. The Tasklist shown is for a screen with only two windows, both of which are Electric Eyes. For more information on applets, see .

- Drawers

  Drawers are essentially extensions of a Panel which can be opened or closed. They can hold anything the Panel can. The brown icon of a drawer in the example Panel is the default icon for drawers, although any icon can be used. Click on the Drawer icon with the left mouse button to open or close it. For more information on drawers, see .

- Special Objects

  Special objects are items you can add to a Panel which perform functions which are generally not available through the other Panel objects. The last item in the example Panel is a special object called the Logout Button. Pressing this with the left mouse button begins the logout sequence to end your GNOME session. For more information on special objects, see .

Each of these object types is described in detail in the following sections. You can easily add, move, or remove Panel objects (see ).

### Right-Click Menu

Clicking on any Panel object with the right mouse button brings up the Panel object's right-click menu. This menu contains Remove from panel for removing the object from the Panel, Move for moving objects within the Panel or between two Panels, the Panel submenu described below, and typically one or more object-specific menu items. For drawers, menus, and launchers the only object-specific item is Properties... which allows you to customize the properties and settings of the object. For applets, the right-click menu will often contain About... for viewing information about the applet such as the author's name and the applet version, Help for viewing the applet's documentation, and Properties... for configuring preferences and settings for the applet. Applets often have other applet-specific controls in their right-click menus.

The Panel submenu allows you to create and remove Panels and add objects to the Panel. It also allows you to modify the properties of the particular Panel of interest using the Properties menu item (see ) or the properties of all Panels using the Global Preferences... menu item (see ).

You can also right-click on the Panel itself. This will bring up the Main Menu. In particular, this menu also contains the Panel submenu described above.

### Hiding the Panel

The left and right arrow icons seen at either end of the example Panel and in are used to hide the Panel.

The Hide Button

The Hide Button
Panel Hide Buttons
Panel Hiding

Pressing one of these arrows will hide the Panel by sliding it in the direction of the arrow pressed, so that the only part of the Panel which remains visible is the Hide button itself. Pressing it a second time will expand the Panel.

Panels can be configured to automatically hide when you are not using it and reappear when you move the mouse to the part of the screen where the Panel resides. This can be useful if you are unable to run your system in a high resolution. To learn how to have a Panel auto-hide, see .

### Logging Out

To log out of GNOME, right click on the Panel and select Log out. This will bring up the Logout dialog, shown in .

The Logout Dialog

Logout

If you would like to save your current setup, select the Save current setup checkbox. This will save any GNOME applications you have open and configuration changes you may have made in the Control Center.

The default way to log out is by using the Logout option, which ends your GNOME session but does not shut down the computer. Depending on your system configuration, you may also have the Halt option, which shuts down the computer, and the Reboot option, which will reboot the computer.

Note for advanced users

The Halt and Reboot choices will only be shown if you have permission to execute the command `/usr/bin/shutdown`.

If you do not want to log out, press the No button and you will be returned to your GNOME session. Otherwise press the Yes button to log out.

Logging Out and Window Managers

If you are running a window manager that is GNOME compliant, the logout feature will quit the window manager as well as GNOME. If you are running a non-compliant window manager you will have to quit the window manager yourself.

You can disable the Logout dialog so that selecting the Log out menu item will end your GNOME session without asking any questions. To do so, start the GNOME Control Center by selecting Main Menu Settings Startup programs and uncheck the Prompt on logout button.

### Locking the Screen

Sometimes you may want to leave your computer with GNOME running and not allow others to use or view your GNOME session. GNOME allows you to do this by locking the screen, requiring a password to unlock it. To lock your GNOME session, right click on either end of a Panel and select Lock screen. Alternately, if you have the Lock Button(see ) on a Panel, you may just press this button to lock the screen. To unlock the screen, just type your login password.

Screensavers and the Lock Button

The Lock screen button uses a feature of the xscreensaver program. This is the same program that the Control Center uses to set your screensaver. In order for the Lock screen button to work properly, you must have a screensaver enabled in the Control Center.

## The Main Menu

The footprint icon seen towards the left end of the example Panel (see ) and in is the Main Menu (yes, you guessed right, it is the footprint of the gnome). This menu provides access to almost all GNOME features — all the applications, configuration tools, command line prompt, Logout and Lock Screen commands, and much more. To access any of these items, click on the Main Menu button. You should release the mouse after pressing the Main Menu button so that you can take advantage of other mouse-activated features in the Main Menu such as right-click pop-up menus and drag-and-drop from the menu to the desktop or Panel.

Main Menu

The Main Menu Button

The Main Menu Button

You can have several Main Menu buttons on different Panels; all of them can be configured independently.

### Global menu

In addition to the Main Menu which you get by clicking on the foot icon, GNOME also provides a Global Menu, which contains the same commands but is not linked to any button. To access the Global Menu, right-click on any empty place on the Panel. You can also access the Global Menu by pressing Alt F1 . (You can change the default key for activating the Global Menu in the Miscellaneous tab of the Global Panel Preferences dialog.)

Note that the Global Menu is configured independently from the Main Menu, by using the Menu tab in the Global Panel Preferences dialog.

### Components of the Main Menu

The primary component of the Main Menu is the Programs submenu, which contains a list of preconfigured submenus and menu items. Here you will find all the GNOME applications, from the Gnumeric spreadsheet to the Free Cell game, as well as quite a few non-GNOME ones, such as the Netscape web browser and the emacs text editor. In addition, the Programs submenu also contains the following commands:

- File Manager — launches the GNOME graphical file manager.

- Help system — launches the GNOME Help Browser. The GNOME Help Browser gives you access to most of the documentation installed on your system — not only GNOME documentation (the GNOME User's Guide, application manuals, …), but also other types of documentation (man pages, info pages, …).

In addition to the Programs submenu, the Main Menu also contains a number of other submenus and useful commands. Depending on your configuration, you may not see all of these. Also, some of them may be shown as submenus, and others included as part of the Main Menu, separated by horizontal lines from the other parts. These additional submenus and commands are:

- Favorites. This submenu, which is originally empty, is a place where you can put your favorite applications for quick access. You can edit this menu using the Menu Editor, which can be accessed from the Main Menu by choosing Settings Menu editor . You can also add any item from any other menu (in particular, from the Programs menu) to the Favorites menu by clicking on the item with the right mouse button and selecting Add this to Favorites menu.

- Applets. This submenu contains all the applets installed on your system. Selecting an applet will add it to your Panel.

- KDE menus. This shows the menus of the K Desktop Environment (KDE) if you have it installed on your system.

- AnotherLevel menus and Debian menus. These submenus show the default application menus for Red Hat Linux and Debian GNU/Linux, respectively. These will only appear for users of the particular distributions.

- Panel. This submenu can be used to change Panel properties (both for individual Panels and global, i.e. for all Panels), add an object to the Panel, remove the whole Panel, create a new Panel, or view the Panel Manual.

- Desktop— This submenu contains Log out, which ends your GNOME session (see ), and Lock screen (see ).

- Run … — This menu item opens the Run Program dialog for executing shell commands (see ).

### Configuring the Main Menu

To change the configuration of the Main Menu, right-click on the Main Menu button (shown in ) and select Properties … from the pop-up menu. This will show the Menu Properties dialog. In this dialog, for each of the submenus of the Main Menu listed above (Programs, Favorites, …) you can choose whether you want it to be shown as part of the Main Menu, as a submenu, or not at all.

Menu Properties Dialog

Menu Properties Dialog

You can also edit the contents of the Favorites submenu (or, if you are the system administrator, also of the Programs submenu) using the GNOME Menu Editor. To start it, right-click on the Main Menu button and select Edit Menus …. Alternatively, you can start GNOME Menu Editor by selecting Programs Settings Menu editor from the Main Menu itself.

## Menus

In addition to the Main Menu, discussed in , you can also add "normal menus" to a Panel. An example menu, in this case a Favorites menu containing three application launchers and one submenu titled Games, is shown in . Unlike the Main Menu, normal menus only contain whatever launchers and submenus you place in them - no default submenus, Run... command, etc. as the Main Menu has. You can also add any submenu of your Favorites menu or the Programs menu as a separate menu to a Panel; to do so, bring up this submenu from the Main Menu, right click on the submenu title, and select Add this as menu to panel.

An Example Menu

An Example Menu

### Adding a Menu to a Panel

To learn how to add a menu to a Panel, see .

### Tearing Off a Menu

All menus in GNOME have the tear-off feature: if you left-click on the "perforation" (thin dashed line at the top of the menu, right above the menu title), the menu will be turned into a separate window on your desktop, which will stay there even after you move the mouse cursor elsewhere. This is very convenient if you will be using the same command from some deeply nested submenu frequently. To remove a "torn-off" menu from your desktop, click on the Close button in the window title (its appearance and location depends on the window manager you are using, but usually it is the rightmost button, labelled by an "x").

### Configuring a Menu

You can easily change a menu name and icon (for user menus only, not for submenus taken from the Main Menu). To do so, click on the menu, right-click on the menu title (at the very top of the list, above all other items), and select Properties… from the pop-up menu. This will bring up the Desktop Entry Properties dialog, quite similar to the Launcher Properties dialog.

To add a new item to the menu, click on the menu button, right-click on the Menu name, and select Add new item to this menu. This will bring up Create Menu Item dialog, in which you can enter the menu item name, comment, command, and type (see for more information). To remove an item from the menu, right-click on the item and choose Remove this item.

Finally, a frequently asked question is "How I can change the font and the background used by the menus?" The answer is that it is determined by the current GTK Theme, which can be changed using the GNOME Control Center by selecting Main Menu Programs Settings Desktop Theme Selector .

## Launchers

Launchers are buttons which reside in your Panel and start an application or execute a command when clicked. A launcher can use any icon and has a customized tooltip to display a message when the cursor is passed over the launcher.

You can change a launcher's properties, such as the icon it uses and its name, by right-clicking on the launcher and selecting Properties... from the pop-up menu. This brings up the Launcher properties dialog, shown in . A similar dialog is used when you create a new launcher (see ). Note that internally GNOME makes no distinction between menu items and launchers: these are just different representations of the same thing. You can place any menu item on a Panel, and it will appear as a launcher. Therefore, all the information below applies equally to launchers and menu items.

Create Launcher/Launcher Properties Dialog

Create Launcher/Launcher Properties Dialog

The Laucher Properties dialog has two tabs: Basic and Advanced. In the Basic tab, you can set:

- Name — this is the application name, for example, `GNOME terminal`. This name will be used if you later put this launcher in a menu.

- Comment — this is a brief explanation of what this application does, for example, `Terminal emulation program`. This will be used for tooltips.

- Command — the actual command that runs the application, for example, `gnome-terminal`.

- Type — should be Application; do not change it unless you want to create something other than an application launcher.

- Icon — this is the icon which will be used to represent the launcher in the Panel. If no icon is specified, a default icon will be used. To change the icon, just click on it to launch the icon browser.

- Run in Terminal — this specifies whether the application should be run inside a terminal. If the application doesn't create any windows on its own, check this button. If you are unsure, leave it unchecked.

The Advanced properties tab is shown below. It is intended for advanced users; most of the time, you will not need to change any of these settings.

Launcher Advanced Properties Dialog

Launcher Advanced Properties Dialog

In the Advanced tab, you can set:

- Try this before using — you can enter a command here, and GNOME will check if this command can be executed. If the command cannot be successfully executed, the launcher (or menu item) will not be shown even if you added it to a Panel or menu. It is mostly used by people preparing GNOME distributions. For example, the default GNOME Main Menu contains an item for the TkRat e-mail program, but you will only see this item if you have TkRat installed on your system.

- Documentation — currently not used.

- Name/Comment translations — here you can set translations of the Name and Comment to other languages. For example, for GNOME Terminal, the translations to Spanish (es) are name: `Terminal UNIX de GNOME` and comment: `Emulador de terminal GNOME`. This means that if a user sets his language to Spanish during login (this can be done by selecting the desired language from Languages menu of the GNOME Display Manager when logging in) he will see Terminal UNIX de GNOME in the menu and Emulador de terminal GNOME as the tooltip. The actual command that runs the terminal is unchanged.

  To add a new translation, enter the language 2-letter code and translations of Name and Comment fields in the empty fields under the list of current translations, and press the Add/Set button. To change one of existing translations, select the row from the list, edit the fields you want to change, and press the Add/Set button. To remove one of existing translations, select it in the list and press the Remove button.

  You can find the list of all languages supported by GNOME along with their 2-letter codes in GNOME Frequently Asked Questions.

All of the changes you make in the Launcher Properties dialog will take effect when you press Apply or OK. Pressing OK closes the dialog; pressing Apply will allow you to continue editing.

## Applets

Applets are GNOME applications which reside in a Panel. An applet's appearance typically reveals the state of the applet or other information. Applets often have buttons, sliders, entries, or other methods to allow you to control their behavior.

Example Applets

Example Applets

Some example applets are shown above(see ). At the very left is the Mixer Applet which allows you to change the volume level and mute the sound. Next is theSound Monitor Applet, which displays the current volume of sound being played and allows you to control various sound features. The third applet is the GTCD Applet, a CD player which has all its controls available in the applet and displays the track and time.The next applet is the Drive Mount Applet, used to mount and unmount drives with a single click of the mouse. This is followed by the Desk-Guide Applet which shows you your desktops and the applications which are running on them. The last applet shown is the Tasklist Applet which allows you to control certain aspects of each application or window which is open.

GNOME has many useful applets. Just right click on a Panel and add some applets to your Panel to find out which applets are available and which ones are best for you. Right click on each applet to see a menu listing various commands and operations the applet can do and to access the documentation for the applet.

## Drawers

The simplest way to think about a drawer is that it is a container to store things. Typically one may use a drawer to hold multiple launchers which are related to each other in some way, such as the various applications in GNOME Office. The drawers in the GNOME Panel take this one step further by making a drawer an actual extension of the Panel itself. Thus, a drawer is a collapsible branch of an existing Panel. It can contain anything that a Panel can, including launchers, applets, and other drawers.

An open Drawer

An open Drawer

Once you have placed a drawer on a Panel, you may click on it to "open" the drawer, revealing its contents. You may then add items to the drawer in the same way you would add items to a Panel, right clicking on the end of the drawer with the arrow to open the Global Menu. You can close the drawer by clicking on its icon again or by clicking on the arrow at its end.

You can configure a drawer's properties by right clicking on the drawer's icon and selecting Properties.... This brings up the Drawer Properties dialog. Here you can select the icon used for the drawer by clicking on the icon. A tooltip may be entered by typing in the Tooltip/Name entry. This tooltip will be displayed whenever the mouse is moved over the drawer to remind you what is inside. One may also select whether the hide button and arrow are displayed at the end of the drawer.

Drawer Properties Dialog

Drawer Properties Dialog

You may also control the background color or image of the drawer. Just right click on the drawer and select Properties... to open the Drawer Properties dialog. Then select the Background tab to bring up the Panel Background Dialog (see ).

## Special Panel Objects

There are several special Panel objects which are not considered menus, applets, or launchers. These special objects are described below.

### The Lock Button

The Lock Button

The Lock Button

The Lock Button is a Panel button which starts a screensaver which locks the screen. In order to remove the screensaver and access the GNOME session again, you must supply your password. For more information on locking the screen, see .

### The Logout Button

The Logout Button

The Logout Button

The Logout button is used to exit the GNOME desktop environment. It initiates the logout sequence, bringing up the Logout Dialog, as described in .

### The Run Button

The Run Button

The Run Button

The Run button opens the Run Program dialog, shown in . This gives you access to the command line prompt. It is not a full-blown shell, so it is not a replacement for GNOME terminal, but it is very convenient when you need to enter just one command quickly. You can also open the Run Program dialog by using a keyboard shortcut. The default keyboard shortcut is Alt F2 but you can change this in the Miscellaneous tab of the Global Panel Preferences dialog.

The Run Program Dialog

The Run Program Dialog

The command entry has a history buffer which allows you to execute a previously entered command by pressing the down arrow icon located to the right of the text field and selecting the command. It also has a Browse… button, which allows you to choose a file — this filename will be appended to the end of your command. For example, you can enter `emacs` (an extremely powerful text editor) on the command line and then use the Browse… button to select the file to be edited.

### Swallowed Applications

You can run many applications which are not applets inside the Panel as if they were applets. Applications which you pull into the Panel, even though they are not GNOME applets, are called "swallowed applications". Applications do not have to be GNOME-compliant to be swallowed. In general, the only constraints for swallowing an application are that the application must be small enough to fit in your Panel and you must know the title of the window you would like to swallow. In many cases, the application can be automatically shrank to fit in the Panel, as specified in the Create Swallowed Application Dialog. If the application is not small enough to fit in the Panel, the Panel will generally grow to allow the application to fit.

Create Swallowed Application Dialog

Create Swallowed Application Dialog

The Title of application to swallow is the window title, typically displayed on the top left edge of the window. (Note that the window title is case sensitive.) The Width and Height determine the size of the swallowed application in the Panel in pixels.

If you leave the Command field empty, this dialog will create an empty window of given size on the panel which will sit there waiting for a window with the given title to appear on your desktop. As soon such a window appears (for example, when you choose appropriate item in the menu), it will be swallowed.

You can also enter any command in the Command field; this command will be executed before trying to swallowing the window to the Panel (and each time the Panel is restarted afterwards). This is normally used to start an application which you want the Panel to swallow.

### Status Dock

The status dock is a Panel object which can hold status docklets — small windows which applications place in the status dock to provide status information. Status docklets can also be used to control the application. Essentially, docklets are small (both in size and in complexity) applets. GNOME currently does not have many applications which place status docklets in the status dock. However, GNOME's status dock is compatible with that of the K Desktop Environment (KDE), so KDE applications, such as kscd, may place status docklets in GNOME's status dock. Future versions of GNOME applications will make use of this recently added Panel object.

Example Status Dock With Docklet

Example Status Dock With Docklet

The above example shows the status dock with a status docklet from the kscd CD player program. This particular docklet is used to open and close the main kscd window without ending the program.

## Adding, Moving, and Removing Panel Objects

### Moving objects

To move any object in a Panel to a different location, just hold down the middle mouse button and drag it to the new location. Or, you can right-click on it and choose Move, then move the mouse to the new location and press any mouse button to anchor it in its new position. You can move it to a different location on the same Panel, or to a different Panel. If in the course of this movement it hits other objects, the behavior depends on the global preferences (see ): the object you are moving can switch places with other objects, "push" all objects it meets, or "jump" over all other objects without disturbing them. You can also override the default behavior by holding the Shift button (for "push" mode), the Ctrl button (for "switched" mode), or the Alt button (for "free" mode, i.e. jumping other objects without disturbing them) while moving the object.

### Removing objects from the Panel

To remove an object from a Panel, right-click on it and choose Remove from panel from the pop-up menu.

### Adding objects to the panel

By default, the GNOME Panel contains only a few basic objects, such as the Main Menu. However, there are many Panel objects you can add to it. For example, every menu item in the Main Menu or its submenus can be added to a Panel as an application launcher. GNOME also has many applets that can be added to a Panel, ranging from Printer Applet, which prints files which you drag and drop onto the applet, to Wanda the Fish. There are many additional GNOME applets and applications available on the Internet.

Applets

  To add an applet to a Panel, right-click on the Panel and select Panel Add to panel Applet. This will show you a menu of all the applets on your system, divided into categories; choosing any applet from this menu will add it to the Panel.

Application launchers

  To create a new application launcher, right-click on the Panel and select Panel Add to panel Launcher. This will open the Create Launcher dialog, shown below. In this dialog you should enter a name for your launcher, a comment, and the command line to launch the application. This dialog is virtually identical to Launcher Properties dialog. See for a more detailed description.

  The Create launcher dialog

  Create launcher dialog

  You can also add any application in the Main Menu or application launcher on your desktop to a Panel. To do so, use the first mouse button to drag the object onto the Panel. Be careful to drop it in an empty space on the Panel and not on any existing object: for example, if you drop it on the Printer Applet, it will be printed. You can also right-click on an item in the Main Menu and select Add this launcher to panel. After this, you can change any options for that launcher by clicking on it with the right mouse button and selecting Properties....

Menus

  To add a menu, right-click on the Panel and select Panel Add to panel Menu . This gives you a choice of the Main menu, Programs menu, and Favorites menu.

  You can also add the Main Menu or any its submenu as a new menu to the Panel by right-clicking on the menu title (the top line of the menu, separated from menu items by a thin line) and selecting Add this as a menu to the panel.

  Creating Menus By Hand

  Advanced users can also create new menus manually. To do so, you need to know that internally, GNOME represents a menu by a directory, with menu items presented by files of special type (`.desktop` files — these files also represent the application launchers), and submenus presented by subdirectories. For example, the Favorites menu corresponds to the directory `~/.gnome/apps` (where `~` denotes your home directory), and the Programs menu corresponds to the directory `/usr/share/gnome/apps`. Thus, you can create a new directory, using the GNOME File Manager, drag and drop there any `.desktop` files from any other directories you might have (for example, from `/usr/share/gnome/apps`) or from the desktop, and then drag and drop this directory from the File Manager window to the Panel. This will add this directory as a menu to the Panel.

  After you have added a menu to your Panel using any of the methods described above, you can modify its properties (for example, add new items to this menu or change the icon used by the menu), as described in .

Drawers

  To add a new empty drawer, select Panel Add to panel Drawer. Then right-click on the drawer and select Properties... to change its properties (for example, the icon it uses). You can add new items to this drawer in the same way as you add items to a Panel: all the methods for adding new objects to the Panel described in this section will also work for adding new items to a drawer.

  You can also add the Main Menu or any of its submenus to the Panel as a drawer by right-clicking on the menu title and selecting Add this as drawer to panel.

Swallowed application

  To add a swallowed application to your Panel, select Panel Add to panel Swallowed app. This will open the Create Swallowed Application dialog. For detailed information on using this dialog, see .

## Creating, Moving, and Removing Panels

### Creating new panels

To add a new Panel to your desktop, select Panel Create panel from the Main Menu. Choose from the following Panel types:

- Menu Panel — The Menu Panel is a special Panel which is always placed at the top of your screen and contains several pull-down menus. These are Programs, Favorites, Settings, Desktop, and a special menu which provides quick access to GNOME-related Internet resources (look for the bullet hole icon). This Panel can also hold the other objects which other Panels can hold, but it does not have the configuration properties which other Panels have. Note that the Menu Panel is more restrictive than other Panels, and some normal Panel operations, such as moving the Panel, cannot be performed on it.

- Edge Panel — An Edge Panel is exactly like the main Panel that starts up with GNOME; it stretches along the whole length of one of screen edges. By selecting this type of Panel, you may add a new Panel to another edge of your screen to give yourself more functionality.

- Aligned Panel — An Aligned Panel is also positioned along one of the screen edges. But unlike an Edge Panel, an Aligned Panel will not stretch across the entire edge of the screen it is on; It will only stretch as much as necessary to display the icons and applets it contains. It can be positioned either at one of the corners (in this case, it will stretch towards the opposite corner) or at the center of the edge (in this case, it will stretch in both directions, automatically recentering when you add new objects).

  If an Aligned Panel is aligned with one of the corners, the hide buttons will work slightly differently than for an Edge Panel. The hide button closest to the edge of your screen will hide the Panel as usual but the other hide button will send the whole Panel to the opposite corner. When the latter move is made it will not hide the Panel since it is changing the side of the screen it resides on. If you want to hide it you will have to press the hide button once again.

- Sliding Panel — A Sliding Panel is very similar to an Aligned Panel, but can be placed anywhere along the screen edge, not necessarily in one of the corners or in the center. As you add objects, it will only grow in one direction — it won't automatically recenter.

- Floating Panel — A Floating Panel can be placed anywhere on your screen, not necessarily along one of the edges.

Changing Panel Type

You can also change type of existing panel — for example, convert edge panel to a floating panel, see .

### Moving Panels

Any Panel you have on your desktop(except a Menu Panel) can be moved by pressing the middle mouse button, or by simultaneously pressing the left and right mouse buttons, while dragging the Panel to the desired position on your screen. If you do not have a middle mouse button and did not configure your mouse to emulate a middle button you may also move a Panel by changing its location in the Panel properties dialog. You can read more about this in of this documentation.

### Removing Panels

To remove an existing Panel, right-click on it and choose Panel Remove this panel. If the Panel is not empty, you will be prompted to confirm.

Removing Your Only Panel

You must have at least one Panel running at all times. GNOME will not allow you to remove your only Panel.

## Global Panel Preferences

To start configure the behavior of all of your Panels, select Panel Global Preferences from the Main Menu.

This will open the Global Panel Preferences dialog. (This dialog is a component of the GNOME Control Center). With this dialog you can control many properties shared by all of your Panels.

The Global Panel Configuration Dialog

The Global Panel Configuration Dialog

The Global Panel Configuration dialog contains the following five tabs: Animation, Buttons, Panel Objects, Menu, and Miscellaneous. Each of these tabs is explained below.

### Animation Tab

- Enable animations — This allows Panels and drawers to animate as the hide and unhide.

- Constant speed animations — By default, the animations start slowly, but then accelerate. If you enable this option, the animations will not use any acceleration.

- [Animation speed] Auto hide — This controls the speed of animation for any Panel which is set to hide automatically when the mouse leaves the Panel. The slowest setting is 1, and the fastest is 100.

- [Animation speed] Explicit hide — This controls the hide speed when you press a Panel's Hide Button. The slowest setting is 1, and the fastest is 100.

- [Animation speed] Drawer sliding — This controls how fast a drawer menu will raise when you press a drawer button on a Panel. The slowest setting is 1, and the fastest is 100.

- [Auto hide] Delay (ms) — If you have a Panel set to minimize automatically after the mouse leaves the Panel this will allow you to control how much time passes before it minimizes. The Panel will start the time count once the mouse is no longer over it. It will appear again when the mouse is passed over the portion of the Panel that remains visible. This time is measured in milliseconds.

- [Auto hide] Size (pixels) — This determines the number of pixels that show when a Panel is minimized, for any Panel which is set to hide automatically. To maximize the Panel, the pointer must enter the Panel area.

### Buttons Tab

In this section, you can set the appearance of the various types of buttons: launcher buttons, menu buttons, drawer buttons, and special buttons(such as the Logout Button and the Lock Button).

- Button Type — Select the type of button you wish to configure.

- Tiles enabled — This checkbox will enable background tiles for buttons of the given type on the Panel.

- Normal tile — This shows the image used for the tile in the up position (inactive, not pressed). To choose another image file, just click on the image, and it will launch the icon browser. Tiles must be enabled to access this option.

- Clicked tile — This shows the image used for the tile in the down position (active, pressed). To choose another image file, just press on the image, and it will launch the icon browser. Tiles must be enabled to access this option.

- Border width (tile only) — This determines the width of the border around an icon. For example, if you set border width equal to 5, this will ensure that at least 5 pixels of the tile will be shown on every side of the icon; if necessary, the icon will be cropped. This is very useful if you have an icon that would normally cover up a tile. Tiles must be enabled to access this option.

- Depth (displacement when pressed) — This determines the depth an icon will displace when pressed. Tiles must be enabled to access this option.

This tab also contains 3 options which affect all types of buttons simultaneously:

- Make buttons flush with panel edge — This allows you to align the button with the edge of the Panel. If this option is not set then the border width setting is obeyed. By default this option is off.

- Show button tiles only when cursor is over the button — If this option is enabled, the tiles will only appear when mouse cursor is over the button.

- Prelight buttons on mouseover — Choosing this option will make the buttons brighten up when the mouse cursor is over them.

### Panel objects Tab

This tab shows some options related to the placement and moving of objects on the Panel.

- Default movement mode — Here you can choose the default mode for moving objects on the Panel. Possible variants are

  - Switched — When the object you are moving hits another object, they switch places.

  - Free — When the object you are moving hits another object, it "jumps" over it, so no other object is disturbed. This is a convenient option if you like the current arrangement of objects on your Panel and want to leave the other objects in place.

  - Push — The object you are moving pushes all other objects in front of it, like a snow plow.

  You can override the default movement mode by dragging an object while holding Ctrl (for switched movement), Alt (for free movement), or Shift (for push movement) button pressed.

- Padding — This changes the amount of space (padding) between objects on the Panel. It is measured in pixels.

### Menu Tab

In this tab, you can set the options determining the appearance of Panel menus.

- Use large icons — This will use large icons (rather than the default size) in menus. This is only practical for those with high resolution screens (1280x1024 and higher).

- Show [...] buttons — This will add small buttons labelled by three dots (...) to all the items of the Main Menu. Clicking on such a button with the left mouse button will bring the pop-up menu for this item, i.e. the same menu which you get by clicking on the menu item with the right mouse button.

- Show popup menus outside of panels — When this button is on, it allows pop-up menus to appear away from the Panel. When toggled off, the pop-ups will appear over the Panel. This can be useful on smaller screens or cluttered desktops.

- Keep menus in memory — This will keep your menus in memory so that they do not rescan for added items. This can increase the speed of GNOME, but may also result in you missing new items added to your menu.

- Global menu — This allows you to configure the Global Menu which you get by right-clicking on a Panel, or by using the keyboard shortcut. For each of the possible submenus (Programs, Favorites, etc.), you can choose whether it should be included as a part of the Global Menu, as a submenu, or not included at all. A description of these submenus is given in .

### Miscellaneous Tab

The Miscellaneous tab contains options for various customizable behavior that didn't fit anywhere else.

- Tooltips enabled — This option defines whether GNOME should show a tooltip when the pointer pauses on a Panel item.

- Close drawer if a launcher inside it is pressed — By default drawers will remain open when you select an item within one. This can be annoying as the drawer will remain open until you close it with a mouse click. With this option selected drawers will close automatically when you select any item within one.

- Raise panels on mouse-over — If you are using a window manager that is not GNOME compliant it will not understand its relationship with the Panel. This can cause your Panel to be covered by applications. If you enable this feature you can have the Panel automatically raise when your mouse is over it.

- Keep panel below windows — If you are using a GNOME compliant window manager, the window manager will understand its relationship with the Panel. If you choose this feature the window manager and GNOME will allow applications to appear over the Panel. This can be useful on smaller screens.

- Confirm removal of panels with a dialog — If this option is enabled, GNOME will ask for confirmation before removing a Panel.

This tab also allows you to configure some global key bindings. You can define key bindings for the Global Menu(ie. Popup Menu) and for the Run Program dialog. (The default key bindings for these are Alt F1 and Alt F2 respectively.) To change these key bindings, select a key from the drop-down list or press the Grab key… button and then press the desired key.

Using the Menu and Window keys

You should be able to use the special Menu and Windows keys for keybindings. If you have problems with using these keys, the most probable reason is that your X server was incorrectly configured: the keyboard type chosen during installation does not match your actual keyboard. If you are using XFree86 server, you can fix it by manually editing the configuration file. This file, named `XF86Config`, is usually located in the `/etc` or `/etc/X11` directory. Open this file with any text editor (not a word-processor!) and find the line containing the word `XkbModel`. Change it to read

                  XkbModel "pc104"

You must be root (system administrator) to do this. Now, logout of GNOME and restart the X server by simultaneously pressing Ctrl Alt Backspace .

Use Caution When Editing XF86Config

Making a mistake while editing the `XF86Config` file can make your keyboard or screen unusable in X Windows. Before editing this file, you should make a backup copy of it and make sure you know how to restore it from the backup file without using X Windows or GNOME, i.e., from a terminal. If you don't know how to do this, then do not edit this file.

## Individual Panel Properties

In addition to global Panel properties, described in , some properties can be configured individually for each Panel. This includes Panel type (Edge, Aligned, Sliding, Floating), size, location, background color, and hiding preferences. To change these properties for a Panel, click on it with the right mouse button and select Panel Properties. You may also press the Main Menu button and select Panel Properties.

Panel Individual Panel Properties
Panel Properties

From the Properties submenu, you can choose All properties..., which will launch the Panel properties dialog. If you are already familiar with this dialog, you can more quickly change some of the properties — say, Panel size or type — by selecting the appropriate item in the Properties menu.

The Panel properties dialog contains two tabs to help you set the active Panel properties: Edge Panel (or Aligned, … - depending on your Panel type) and Background. Both of these tabs are explained below.

### Edge Panel Tab

Panel Edge Properties Dialog

Panel Edge Properties Dialog

- Panel Position — This changes the position of the Panel on the screen. For Edge Panel, you must specify an edge (Top, Right, Left or Bottom). For Aligned Panel, you have to specify an edge and one of the edge's ends or the center. For Sliding Panel, you must specify the edge and offset from one of the corners (in pixels). Finally, for Floating Panel you must specify orientation (horizontal or vertical) and position of Panel's left top corner (relative to the left top corner of the screen and measured in pixels).

  The Panel will change position once you have pressed the Apply or OK button.

  Manually Moving a Panel

  You can also change Panel position by dragging it with the middle mouse button to the new location.

- Panel size — Here you can choose the Panel width. The default size is 48 pixels, which is also the default size of icons used by GNOME. Users with low screen resolution might want to decrease the Panel size to free some screen space; conversely, users with high resolution displays may try using larger Panel sizes.

  Changing Panel size automatically resizes all the icons on this Panel, which can lead to some quality loss. Also, the Panel will ask all the applets to resize themselves. Most of the applets will comply; however, if some applets do not obey this request, then the Panel will resize itself so that it can fit all the applets.

- Hiding — In this section, you can choose whether you want to Enable Auto-hide — that is, have the Panel automatically hide when the mouse is not over the Panel. The autohide parameters can be configured in the Global Preferences dialog. If you choose to auto-hide, you might want to disable the hide buttons here as well. You may also disable the hide button arrows graphics on the hide buttons.

  Panel Auto-hide

### Background Tab

Panel Background Properties Dialog

Panel Background Properties Dialog

These options allow you to change the background of the Panel itself. You may choose, if you wish, to have the Standard, Pixmap, or Color background. The standard look for the Panel is determined by the GTK theme you are running at the time (you can configure the GTK theme using the GNOME Control Center). The Pixmap option allows you to choose an image to tile or scale to the Panel. The Color option allows you to specify a particular color for the Panel.

- Color to use — If you choose to have your Panel one color, this button will launch a dialog which allows you to specify which color to use.

- Image — If you wish to have a Pixmap for the background of your Panel, this section of the dialog allows you to choose which image to use. If you press the Browse button, you can search for the file you want to use. The current filename is shown to the left of this button. The window above it shows you the preview of this background.

Drag and Drop With Images

An easier way to change the background of your Panel is to drag and drop an image file from the GNOME File Manager onto the Panel. This will automatically change the background of the Panel to that image.

- Don't scale image to fit — If this button is checked, the background image will be tiled to cover the Panel, rather than scaled.

- Scale image (keep proportions) — If this button is checked, the background image will be scaled as much as possible preserving image's proportions, and then the scaled image will be used to tile the Panel.

- Stretch image (change proportions) — If this button is checked, the background image will be stretched in both dimensions to the size of the Panel.

- Rotate image for vertical panel — If this button is checked, the image will be rotated when you change Panel orientation (horizontal/vertical).

Panel Background

## Current bugs and limitations

Most of the things here are not really bugs; rather, they describe situations when the Panel's behavior is not what you would expect.

You cannot place an ordinary file or directory on the Panel. If you try to drag and drop a file from the File Manager window to the Panel, it won't work. The only type of file that can be placed on the Panel are `.desktop` files, which describe launchers (and `.kdelnk` files, which describe launchers in the format used by K Desktop Environment); any directory dropped on the Panel will be interpreted as a menu — that is, all the files other than `.desktop` files will be ignored.

Editing menus other than the Main Menu is rather confusing. Menu Editor at the moment cannot be used for this, and the Properties item of the right-click menu is not too helpful either - for example, it doesn't allow one to change the menu's icon (see for instructions for doing this). This will be improved in the next release.

The Global Menu (which you get by pressing the Alt F1 key on the keyboard or by right-clicking on the Panel), and the Main Menu (which you get by clicking on the foot icon) are configured separately. The reason is that you can have several Main Menu buttons on different Panels.

The Screen Lock button does not lock the screen if No Screensaver is set in the GNOME Control Center.

The only way of changing a Panel's type (Edge, Aligned, etc.) is by choosing Panel Properties Type from the Main Menu or Global Menu: you can not change Panel type in the Panel Properties dialog. Conversely, Panel Properties Background type allows you to change the background type (Pixmap/Color/Standard), but not to choose the actual color or image to use.

## Authors

GNOME Panel was written by many GNOME developers; you can find a partial list in the About dialog. By the way: if you wonder what is the name of the animal shown in the About dialog, it is called "Gegl" and it has its own Web page.

Please send all comments, suggestions, and bug reports to the GNOME bug tracking database. You can also use the Bug Report Tool (`bug-buddy`), available in the Utilities submenu of Main Menu, for submitting bug reports.

This manual was written by Dave Mason (dcm@redhat.com), Dan Mueth (d-mueth@uchicago.edu), and Alexander Kirillov (kirillov@math.sunysb.edu). Please send all comments and suggestions regarding this manual to the GNOME Documentation Project at docs@gnome.org or enter your comments online using the GNOME Documentation Status Table.

## License

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.

A copy of the GNU General Public License is included with the GNOME documentation. You may also obtain a copy of the GNU General Public License from the Free Software Foundation by visiting their Web site or by writing to

        Free Software Foundation, Inc.
        59 Temple Place - Suite 330
        Boston, MA 02111-1307
        USA