First Glance at GNOME: Desktop and Panel
Figure 1 shows an example of GNOME running. GNOME is very configurable, so your screen may look quite different.
- 4.1. Panel
- 4.2. Desktop
- 4.3. Using the Mouse
- 4.4. Logging Out
4.1. Panel
The two long bars at the top and bottom of Figure 1 are panels. The top one is called the menu panel, the bottom one is an edge panel (you can have more than one edge panel). Panels can contain a number of useful objects, such as
- button
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This is the button with the stylized footprint (in the example of Figure 1, it is the left-most button on the top panel). Clicking this button brings up a menu containing all GNOME applications and commands, including the logout command.
- Other menus
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Panels can also contain other menus, either submenus of the or menus created by user. In the example above, the top panel contains and menus. Both of them are actually submenus of the .
- Application launchers
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These are buttons that start various programs.
- Panel applets
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These are are tiny programs designed to work inside the panel. For example, the clock applet on the far right of the top panel shows the current time, and Window List applet (in the left side of the bottom panel) shows the list of all application windows on your desktop (this will be discussed in detail in Section 5.1 ― Window List Applet).
As with all GNOME components, panels are highly configurable: you can add or remove application launchers and applets, edit the , change panel background, or even remove and create new panels. This will be discussed in Section 7.3 ― Customizing Panels.
The top panel in Figure 1 is called menu panel and is slightly different properties than other panels. For example, you can not move it to a different location.
To configure an object, get help on it, or remove it from the panel, right-click on it and select the appropriate item from the popup menu. To hide the panel when you are not using it, click on one of the (with small arrows) at the ends of the panel.
More panel operations are available from the menu, which you can open by right-clicking in any vacant space on the panel (for example, in the hide arrows) and selecting from the menu. The menu also contains Panel manual, which describes all these options in detail.
4.2. Desktop
Everything outside the panel is called “desktop”. You can place icons for files, applications, and other items on the desktop (a default collection of icons is installed with GNOME), after which you can double-click on an item to use it:
- If the item is a program, that program will start.
- If it is a data file, the appropriate program will start up with that data loaded.
- If it is a folder (directory), File Manager will start and show the contents of that directory. Your desktop will probably have a icon showing a house and labeled yourname's Home. Double-clicking on this icon will start the File Manager at your home directory.
The easiest way to place an item on the desktop is to drag a file from a file manager window, as described in detail in the Nautilus manual. Once the item is placed on the desktop, you can move it around the desktop using the left mouse button, or you can click on it with the right mouse button to bring up the popup menu which allows you to delete the item or change its properties.
4.3. Using the Mouse
As you have already seen, you can do almost anything just by clicking with your mouse. Here are some conventions which work almost anywhere in GNOME:
- Clicking on an item with the left mouse button selects (hilights) it. If you need to select several objects, hold down Ctrl key while clicking.
- Double-clicking on an item runs the default action for this item (running an application, opening the file, etc.)
- Clicking on an item with the right mouse button brings up the context menu, which contains all the commands and information available for this item. If you have selected a group of items, right-clicking on any of them will bring up the context menu which applies to all of these items.
- You can select text anywhere on the screen using the left mouse button, and then insert this text into any other place on the screen which accepts text input, by clicking with the middle mouse button.
In addition, right-clicking on any vacant place on your desktop brings up the menu, which allows you to change desktop background or other properties, or add a new object to the desktop. Clicking on the desktop with the middle mouse button produces the menu, provided by the window manager (see Section 5 ― Working With Windows).
4.4. Logging Out
To log out of GNOME, click on the button and select . GNOME will prompt you for confirmation; it will also give you an option to save the session — that is, information about currently open applications and their location on the screen will be saved, so that when you login next time, the same applications will be in the same places (this only works for applications which are fully GNOME-compliant).