GNOME Configuration Made Easy
Getting Comfortable With GNOME's Panels
Michael Hall
Monday, November 6, 2000 08:31:21 AM
One of the things people like most about GNOME is the flexibility it
provides, especially with the variety of configurations for the panels.
Helix GNOME has two panels out of the box: a menu panel at the top of
the screen and a panel at the bottom. The menu panel provides access
to menus for GNOME, your distribution, and even any KDE apps
on your system. It also includes a "Favorites" menu item, quick
access to the GNOME Control Center, and a "Desktop" menu that can
log out, tidy up desktop icons, and lock the screen.
On the far right of the menu panel, there's a small spider icon.
Clicking on that provides a menu of various web destinations in the
GNOME world, including the bugtracking database, mailing list
archives, and GNOME software list. Clicking on the clock provides a
menu of calendar views, and selecting one invokes the GNOME calendar
program.
The menu panel is somewhat inflexible: you can turn it off if you
don't like it, but most of the other things you can do with a GNOME
panel are missing: you can't resize it, make it automatically hide
itself, or alter its placement on the desktop.
The normal GNOME panel at the bottom of the screen, though, is much
more flexible. This week, we're going to look at how to create a
panel that provides quick access to favorite applications or
applets without being in the way constantly. It also spares
having to navigate the menus to get at a favorite application: put it
in a small pop-up panel and it will always be one click away. By
covering how to do this fairly simple operation uncovers where some of GNOME's configuration options are hidden away.
The first step is to create a new panel by right-clicking on either
the panel at the bottom or the menu panel at the top of
the screen. Move the mouse over the "Panel" menu entry, then over the
"Create Panel" entry. Select the entry labeled "Aligned." This will
place a new panel on one edge of the desktop.
The next step is to right click on that new panel and select the
Panel/Properties/All Properties item. That will bring up a window
that determines where along the edge of the display you
want the new panel will be placed and its size and hiding
characteristics.
Since we're aiming for an unobtrusive application launcher, consider
the following settings:
- Panel Size: 24 pixels
- Panel Position: select the edge of the screen where the mouse
pointer comes to rest naturally when not in use.
- Enable Auto-hide
- Disable 'Show hide buttons'
Having set all the panel's properties by clicking "OK", the panel
will hide itself against the edge where you placed it. Now it's time
to populate it with application icons. Since GNOME's panels are
drag-n-drop, just select an item from the "Programs"
menu and drag it over to your new panel, which will pop up long
enough to drop the icon onto it.
The panel will hide on the edge of the screen until you mouse
over it. If you decide you don't like it, right click on it,
mousing over the "Panel" menu entry, and select "Remove this Panel"
to get rid of it.
Quick Tip:
The GNOME mail notification applet (found under
Programs/Applets/Network/Mailcheck) has six different notification
graphics. More than one of these can run at a time, and you
can select which mailbox each monitors. If using procmail with multiple mbox files, or have multiple POP accounts, this is a
great way to keep track of which box has mail. Just add an applet for
each box you want to monitor, pick a separate notification graphic,
and point each one at the correct account, maildir, or file.
Next Week:
Evolution's getting closer, and I'll have a look at the newest preview
release. « Back: Getting GNOME
