More Panel Fun

From this window you can change the position of the Panel, alter its size , change its color , or make it (but not the launchers on it) invisible — very cool. You can also set the Panel so that it will automatically disappear when you are not using it, and have it reappear when you bring your mouse cursor into the area where the panel normally resides. Don’t feel afraid to play around and give things a try — that’s half the fun!

Mac Users Can Feel Right at Home

Another cool feature of the GNOME Panel program is that you can add additional panels to other parts of the screen. Former Macintosh users can create a fairly Mac-like desktop by right-clicking any open Panel space and selecting Add Panel , which will cause a new panel to appear at the top of the screen. As is, the new panel will be a bit too fat to look like a Mac menu bar, but you can reduce its size in the Panel Properties window (a size of 29 or 30 pixels should do the trick).

To further Mac-ify things, you can right-click the panel to add a Menu Bar in the left corner (select Add to Panel > Add Menu Bar ), a Window Menu to the far right corner (select Add to Panel > Utility > Window Menu ), a Clock (select Add to Panel > Accessories > Clock ), a pair of Eyes next to that (select Add to Panel > Amusements > Eyes ), and a Sticky Notes utility (select Add to Panel > Accessories > Sticky Notes ) to the left of that. This will give you a sort of hybrid Mac OS 9/X menu bar. With a few more touches here and there, Mac emigrants can quite easily create a desktop environment that looks very much like that in Mac OS X (see Figure 3-16).

Figure 3-16: A Mac OS X–like desktop with panels at the top and right side of the screen

If you are curious how to get the Aqua-like window borders and controls shown in Figure 3-16, flip to Chapter 5.

Virtual Desktops

It is now time to discuss a rather unique and convenient feature of Linux: virtual desktops. And the best way to understand what this virtual-desktop business is all about is to just give it a try.

In your GNOME Panel, click on Wanda, your Home folder, and Mozilla. You will then have three windows open in your present desktop, or workspace. Now look at the Workspace Switcher icon on your panel. The top half of the icon should be blue; this is your present workspace. Click the bottom half of the icon, the gray half, and all your open windows will suddenly disappear.

Actually, nothing has really disappeared — you are just viewing a new desktop. All your other windows are still open and running in the previous desktop. In this second desktop you can open something else: Go to the Main menu and select Games > AisleRiot . The AisleRiot solitaire card game will soon appear.

You now have windows open in two different desktops, and you can switch back and forth between them. To do so, just go to the Workplace Switcher in your Panel and click the top gray box, which will take you to your original desktop. Once you’ve done that, the bottom box will become gray, and you can then click that one to go back to your game desktop.

As you can imagine, this feature has some potential benefits for you, in addition to helping you avoid clutter. Just imagine that you are at work typing up some long document in OpenOffice.org Writer. Eventually, you get a bit tired and decide to goof off a bit by playing GNOME Mines for a while. To do this, you switch to another desktop where you open and play the game. A bit later, when you notice your boss making the rounds of the office, you simply switch back to the first desktop so that you look busy when he walks by and says, “Keeping yourself busy, Boaz?”

Phew!