Running Linux, 5th Edition - Matthias Kalle Dalheimer [63]
Open or activate an item on the desktop
Double-click it. If you double-click a folder icon, it opens the folder in the Nautilus file management tool. If you double-click a spreadsheet document, the Gnumeric spreadsheet starts up and opens the document. If you have a window open and Shift-click or middle-click a folder in it, the current folder will close as a new one opens in its place.
Get a list of options or set preferences for any object
Click with the right mouse button to get a menu of available options for any object. For example, you can change the desktop background by right-clicking the background and choosing Change Desktop Background. More general preferences are available in the GNOME Control Center, which you can access by choosing System → Personal Settings or Applications → Desktop Preferences, or by typing gnome-control-center at the command line. The exact menu arrangements may vary slightly depending on your distribution and version.
Paste text into any text area
As with other operating systems, Ctrl-C copies, Ctrl-X cuts, and Ctrl-V pastes in every application except Emacs and XChat. You can also use the more traditional Unix mode pasting by selecting any text and then middle-clicking.
The panel
The preset configuration for many systems has a thin panel along the top and bottom of the screen. The top panel has a set of menus along the upper left, and a few buttons and a clock at the right. The bottom panel contains the window list applet, which should feel familiar to Microsoft Windows users; it displays a list of all open windows so you can switch applications easily.
To create a new panel, click any blank space in an existing panel, and choose Panel → Create New Panel, then select the type of panel you would like. To change a panel's properties, such as its size and color, right-click it and choose Properties (the menu panel at the top of the screen has no available properties; it is preconfigured for one position and size). Experiment with different kinds of panels and with different sizes to see which ones you like best. If you use a smaller screen, such as a laptop screen, you will want to choose a smaller panel size than if you have plenty of screen real estate to use.
To add application launcher buttons to your panels, you can drag them from menus, or right-click the panel and choose Panel → Add to Panel Launcher. Then, enter the name of the application you want to run, and choose an icon. You may also choose a description of the launcher that will display as a tool tip when you hover the mouse over the icon in your panel. If you want to launch the application from a terminal, check the "Run in Terminal" box.
For more information on the panel, right-click any empty spot in the panel and select Panel → Panel Manual.
Panel applets are small applications that run inside the panel. You can add them to the panel from the Add to Panel menu or just run them by clicking Applications → Applets. Panel applets come in a bewildering variety of flavors, from games to utilities. Some of the most common are the following:
Notification Area
The notification area is similar to the Windows system tray and holds a variety of system status displays. Applications such as the Gaim instant messenger tool (described in "Instant Messaging" in Chapter 5) and the Rhythmbox music player use it as a control area that allows users to access them without keeping any windows open. System alerts and print queues will also display in this area. Both KDE and GNOME make use of the same notification area system, so applets that use the notification area will work in both desktops.
Netapplet
Netapplet runs in the notification area and allows you to browse and choose available wired and wireless network connections. This is particularly useful for laptop users who need to use Wi-Fi (802.11x) connections. To run Netapplet, you must also be running netdaemon.
System Monitor
A graph that