Adjusting the Panel
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Adjusting the Panel
The panel is the part of your desktop which displays the Freespire Launch button and everything to the right of it. In the standard installation of Freespire it is located at the bottom of your screen.
Anatomy of the Freespire Panel The Panel displays a lot of information. A typical Panel is described below :-
Freespire Launch Section Freespire Launch button, also known as the K Menu Menu.
Application Launch Section
- Konsole button, runs Terminal program which opens up a terminal session (command line prompt)
- File Manager button to access your folders and files through a graphical interface
- Web Brower button - browse the internet
- Email button - read and write e-mails
- Instant Messager button - this will enable you to connect with a range of other instant messaging solutions such as ICQ, MSN etc
- Desktop Access button - click this to minimise all running applications down onto the panel bar and show a blank desktop.
Running Applications Section This section simply displays a "tab" on the Panel for any application which you have running. So, for example, I had Opera(an internet browser, available from CNR) running at the time of the screenshot and so it is displayed here. These application tabs allow you to quickly switch between applications which are running on your system. Hint: You can also use the ALT+Tab key combo to cycle through currently running applications.
The panel will display one application tab for each application which is running and it will stack multiple instances of the same application onto the same tab once space runs out for the application tabs to sit side by side on the Panel. If, for example, you have five browser sessions running they will be stacked up on top of each other under the same tab and when you click on that application tab you will see a little list representing the 5 browser sessions from which you select the one that you wish to switch to.
Desktops Section This is represented by the 4 windows, numbered 1-4. These display mini images of what you have running on each desktop. Simply click on any of the Desktops to switch and use.
System Tray Section This section (on this portable) displays a power, sound, wireless link, CNR and Opera browser icon. These are like quick launch buttons from which you can run the program (I have already customised this section by adding in Opera as my browser).
Lock and Logout Section Click on the padlock button to lock your session. You will need to use your login password to clear the lock and recommence using your system when you return. This stops prying eyes and sticky fingers from doing damage.
Clock Section This displays the current time and date and you can access time and date functionality from here too. More Adjusting the Time & Date.
Collapse Panel Section And finally at the end of time is a little arrow which allows you to collapse the panel to the right hand side of the screen should you require more display real estate on your screen for whatever it is that you are doing.
Adjusting the Panel The panel is hugely customisable so that it can work just as you want it to! But first you need to access the Panel. The Panel can be accessed anywhere along its length but the resulting menu which is displayed will vary slightly depending upon where you (right) click on the Panel.
Clicking on the Launch button
Clicking on the File Manager button
Clicking on a running application button
Clicking on a Desktop button
Clicking on a blank area of the Panel
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The Panel menu can also be accessed from the Freespire Control Center. Go to the Browsing the Control Center for more information.
This section is about Adjusting the Panel so we will concentrate on the Panel specific menu which appears when you right click on a blank part of the panel, rather than the context sensitive menus which appear when you click elsewhere in the Panel as shown above. The Panel specific menu looks like this :-
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There are 5 options, 4 with sub menus. Each option will be looked at in turn.
- Add
- Remove
Remove - same options as for ¨add¨ but use this to remove things from the Panel. So, if you want a real stripped down and simple panel go for it with the Remove option.
- Size
Use this option to change the size of the Panel. Experiment with the options to see what happens. The larger size may be useful for visually impaired Freespire users, whilst the small size is great for freeing up desktop space for more applications!
- Configure Panel
This is the main option for configuring the Panel.
- Help
The first option tells you more about the Panel. IT is called the KDE Panel handbook because the look and feel of the Freespire Desktop is heavily dependant upon one which is created by KDE. The other two "About" options are for informational purposes.
More documentation on the KDE Panel can be found here and here.
The main KDE documentation website is here.
Information on the Panel (Kicker) can be found on your Freespire system, by typing this into your browser, help:/kicker
This page is linked from the Freespire User Manual, please review the Editing Guidelines and follow the wiki Style Guide. Concerns about the topic should reside in the discussion tab.
