It also appears when you later move your mouse over the launcher.
4. Click the Icon box (it might say No Icon), select one of the icons shown, and click OK. Alternatively, you can browse your filesystem to choose an icon.
5. Click OK.
The application should now appear in the panel. Click it to start the application.
NOTE
Icons available to represent your application are contained in the /usr/share/pixmaps directory. These icons are in either.png or .xpm formats. If there isn't an icon in the directory you want to use, create your own (in one of those two formats) and assign it to the application.
Adding a drawer
A drawer is an icon that you can click to display other icons representing menus, applets, and launchers; it behaves just like a panel. Essentially, any item you can add to a panel you can add to a drawer. By adding a drawer to your GNOME panel, you can include several applets and launchers that together take up the space of only one icon. Click the drawer to show the applets and launchers as if they were being pulled out of a drawer icon on the panel.
To add a drawer to your panel, right-click the panel and select Add to Panel
Figure 2.18 shows a portion of the panel with an open drawer that includes an icon for launching a weather report, sticky notes, and a stock monitor.
Figure 2.18 Add launchers or applets to a drawer on your GNOME 2 panel.
Changing panel properties
You can change the orientation, size, hiding policy, and background properties of your desktop panels. To open the Panel Properties window that applies to a specific panel, right-click an open space on the panel and choose Properties. The Panel Properties window that appears includes the following values:
● Orientation– Move the panel to a different location on the screen by clicking a new position.
● Size– Select the size of your panel by choosing its height in pixels (48 pixels by default).
● Expand– Select this check box to have the panel expand to fill the entire side, or clear the check box to make the panel only as wide as the applets it contains.
● AutoHide– Select whether a panel is automatically hidden (appearing only when the mouse pointer is in the area).
● Show Hide buttons– Choose whether the Hide/Unhide buttons (with pixmap arrows on them) appear on the edges of the panel.
● Arrows on hide buttons– If you select Show Hide Buttons, you can choose to have arrows on those buttons.
● Background– From the Background tab, you can assign a color to the background of the panel, assign a pixmap image, or just leave the default (which is based on the current system theme). Click the Background Image check box if you want to select an Image for the background, and then select an image, such as a tile from /usr/share/backgrounds/tiles or another directory.
TIP
I usually turn on the AutoHide feature and turn off the Hide buttons. Using AutoHide gives you more desktop space to work with. When you move your mouse to the edge where the panel is, the panel pops up – so you don't need Hide buttons.
Adding 3D effects with AIGLX
Several initiatives have made strides in recent years to bring 3D desktop effects to Linux. Ubuntu, openSUSE, and Fedora used AIGLX (http://http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/RenderingProject/aiglx).
The goal of the Accelerated Indirect GLX project (AIGLX) is to add 3D effects to everyday desktop systems. It does this by implementing OpenGL (http://http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/RenderingProject/aiglxhttp://opengl.org) accelerated effects using the Mesa (http://www.mesa3d.org) open source OpenGL implementation.
Currently, AIGLX supports a limited set of video cards and implements only a few 3D effects, but it does offer some insight into the eye candy that is in the works.
If your video card was properly detected and configured, you may be able to simply turn on the Desktop Effects feature to see the effects that have been implemented so far. To turn on Desktop Effects, select System
Enabling Compiz does the following:
● Starts Compiz– Stops the current window manager and starts the Compiz window manager.
● Enables the Windows Wobble When Moved effect– With this effect on, when you grab the title bar of the window to move it, the window wobbles as it moves. Menus and other items that open on the desktop also wobble.
● Enables the Workspaces on a Cube effect– Drag a window from the desktop to the right or the left, and the desktop rotates like a cube, with each of your desktop workspaces appearing as a side of that cube. Drop the window on the workspace where you want it to go. You can also click the Workspace Switcher applet in the bottom panel to rotate the cube to display different workspaces.
Other nice desktop effects result from using the Alt+Tab keys to tab among different running windows. As you press Alt+Tab, a thumbnail of each window scrolls across the screen as the window it represents is highlighted.
Figure 2.19 shows an example of a Compiz desktop with AIGLX enabled. The figure illustrates a web browser window being moved from one workspace to another as those workspaces rotate on a cube.
Figure 2.19 Rotate workspaces on a cube with AIGLX desktop effects enabled.
The following are some interesting effects you can get with your 3D AIGLX desktop:
● Spin cube– Hold Ctrl+Alt keys, and press the right and left arrow keys. The desktop cube spins to each successive workspace (forward or back).
● Slowly rotate cube– Hold the Ctrl+Alt keys, press and hold the left mouse button, and move the mouse around on the screen. The cube moves slowly with the mouse among the workspaces.
● Scale and separate windows– If your desktop is cluttered, hold Ctrl+Alt and press the up arrow key. Windows shrink down and separate on the desktop. Still holding Ctrl+Alt, use your arrow keys to highlight the window you want and release the keys to have that window come to the surface.
● Tab
