Anatomy of a Desktop

Most desktops have common basic components, as shown in Figure 6-3. This desktop should look fairly familiar to Windows users.

Figure 6-3. Desktop.

The desktop workspace contains icons, in this case two icons, that perform actions when clicked, just as Windows desktop icons do. You can customize the desktopadding, removing, and rearranging icons. Handling icons is discussed later in this chapter.

The panel (also sometimes called kicker) is the bar across the bottom of your desktop. The panel can be moved to the left, right, or top. You can have more than one panel.

In Figure 6-3, the left side of the panel contains several icons. You can customize these iconsadding and removing them from the panel. To the right of the icons is a four-button pagerbuttons that you can click to open alternative virtual desktops, explained later in this chapter. To the right of the pager is a section, called the taskbar, where application buttons appear when an application is running. To the right of the taskbar are icons for useful system tools. A clock displays on the far right of the panel. You can reorganize the paneladding, removing, moving the objects on it.