Translations by Adam Collard

Locking Your Screen

Lock button

Choose <menuchoice><guimenu>System</guimenu><guimenuitem>Quit...</guimenuitem></menuchoice> and then select <guibutton>Lock Screen</guibutton>.

To unlock the screen, move your mouse or press any key, enter your password in the locked screen dialog, then press <keycap>Return</keycap>.

preference tools

logging out

When you end a session, applications with unsaved work will warn you. You can choose to save your work, or cancel the command to log out or shut down.

Before you end a session, you might want to save your current settings so that you can restore the session later. In the <link linkend="prefs-sessions"><application>Sessions</application></link> preference tool, you can select an option to automatically save your current settings.

Using the Panels

This chapter describes how to use the panels at the top and bottom of the GNOME Desktop, how to customize the objects that appear on them, and how to add new panels to the desktop.

panels

introduction

A panel is an area in the GNOME Desktop where you have access to certain actions and information, no matter what the state of your application windows. For example, in the default GNOME panels, you can launch applications, see the date and time, control the system sound volume, and more.

You can customize panels to your liking. You can change their behavior and appearance, and you can add or remove objects from your panels. You can create multiple panels, and choose different properties, objects, and backgrounds for each panel. You can also hide panels.

By default, the GNOME Desktop contains a panel at the top edge of the screen, and a panel at the bottom edge of the screen. The following sections describe these panels.

top edge panel

By default, the top edge panel contains the following objects:

Your distribution of GNOME may have altered this default setup.

<application>Menu Bar</application> applet

Evolution Email Launcher

Click on this launcher to open the email client.

Help Launcher

Click on this launcher to open the help browser

<application>User Switcher</application> applet

Click on the icon to switch user without logging out yourself. For more information, see the <ulink type="help" url="ghelp:fast-user-switch-applet">User Switcher Applet Manual</ulink>

<application>Deskbar</application> applet

Click on the <application>Deskbar</application> icon to search for files, applications or the internet. For more information on searching, see <xref linkend="nautilus-searching"/>

<application>Notification Area</application> applet

Displays icons from other applications that may require your attention, or that you may want to access without switching from your current application window. For more on this, see <xref linkend="panels-notification-area"/>.

Until an application adds an icon to the notification area, only a narrow bar is visible.

<application>Clock</application> applet

<application>Volume Control</application> applet

<indexterm><primary>top edge panel</primary><secondary>shutdown icon</secondary></indexterm><application>Quit</application>icon

Bottom Edge Panel

bottom edge panel

By default, the bottom edge panel contains the following objects:

default contents

<guibutton>Show Desktop</guibutton> button

<application>Window List</application> applet

<application>Workspace Switcher</application> applet

Enables you to switch between your workspaces. For more on workspaces, see <xref linkend="overview-workspaces"/>.

<application>Wastebasket</application> applet

Managing Panels

The following sections describe how to manage your panels.

Moving a Panel

moving

Drag a panel to another side of the screen to move it there. Click on any vacant space on the panel to begin the drag.

A panel that is not set to expand to the full width of the screen can be dragged away from the edge of the screen and placed anywhere. See <xref linkend="panel-properties"/> for details on how to set a panel's expand property.

modifying properties

You can change the properties of each panel, such as the position of the panel, the hide behavior, and the visual appearance.