Utility
The Utility Applets are a set of general utilities to use in your work environment.
Clock Applet
The Clock applet is the one of the only applets that is loaded by default when you install GNOME for the first time. To access the clock properties, right mouse click on the clock and select the Properties menu item from the pop-up menu. The Clock Properties dialog box will appear allowing you to specify whether you would like 12 or 24 hour time to be displayed.
Printer Applet
The Printer Applet is represented by a small printer icon that lives on your Panel. If you drag a file to the Printer Applet it will print the file for you. To set up the Printer Applet, right mouse click on it and select the Properties menu item from the pop-up menu. This will bring up the Printer properties dialog box. In this dialog you can specify a printer name and the Print Command. For most systems the Print Command will be
lpr |
Figure 19-7. The Printer Applet Properties
Drive Mount Applet
On many UNIX-like systems, after inserting a disk you must tell the computer to mount it in order to use that disk.
The Drive Mount Applet allows you or your systems administrator to mount a drive on your system by simply clicking the icon on your Panel. In order for this to work you will to have to set the drive you want to access to be user mountable.
This can be done quite easily with someone with root permissions if they have linuxconf installed on your machine. Just select the drive you want to access in the Access local drive section. In the Options tab select the User Mountable option. This drive will now be mountable by all users.
If you do not have linuxconf someone with root access must edit your /etc/fstab to include user access. This is done by adding user access to the drive specification. For Example:
If your fstab file looks like this:
/dev/mnt/cdrom iso9660 exec,dev,ro,noauto 0 0
|
/dev/cdrom /mnt/cdrom iso9660 user,exec,dev,ro,noauto 0 0
|
Now that you can mount the drive without being root you can add the Drive Mount Applet to your panel by selecting Drive Mount from the Utilities menu in the Add new applet menu.
You will see a small drive image on your Panel that looks like a floppy drive.
Figure 19-8. The Drive Mount Applet
The Drive Mount applet will always default to access your floppy drive. You can change this by right mouse clicking on the applet and selecting the Properties item from the pop-up menu.
Figure 19-9. The Drive Mount Applet
The Drive Mount Settings dialog allows you to define which drive you want to mount and where it is located.
The first option is how many seconds you wish to have between applet updates. During updates, the applet will check the drive status to see if it is mounted (in case it was mounted or unmounted by other means) and will display the applet accordingly.
The second option you have is which icon to be displayed. You have a choice of four icons, Floppy, CD-ROM, Zip Disk, and Hard Drive. After you have selected the icon you must put the correct mount point for the drive in the Mount point text box.
The last option to set in the Drive Mount Settings is whether or not you wish to Use automount friendly status test If you are using a system that utilizes autofs to auto-mount your drives the Drive Mount applet might interfere with autofs. If this is the case you should select this option. If you are not using autofs (which is most likely the case) do not select this option as it is taxing on your system and is much slower.
GNOME Pager
The GNOME Pager is an applet that will show you all of your virtual desktops and the applications within them. There are two main areas on the GNOME Pager, the desktops view and the applications view. In the desktop view each of your desktops will be represented as a small rectangle. If there are any applications on the desktops, they will show up as small outlines according to their position on the desktop. The Applications view will show you the applications on your active desktop in a list view. If you press the button in the middle that contains the arrow it will show you a view of all desktops and list the applications that are currently on them.
Figure 19-10. The GNOME Pager
NOTE: If windows "disappear" from your screen when you iconify them, just add a GNOME Pager to your Panel.
You can access the GNOME Pager Settings dialog with a right mouse click on the Pager and select the Properties menu item from the pop-up menu.
The GNOME Pager Settings dialog contains two tabs, the Pager and the Tasklist tabs. The Pager tab allows you to change the setting for the Pager (graphical representation of desktops) and the Tasklist tab allows you to change the settings of your Tasklist (list of open applications on your desktop).
Figure 19-11. The GNOME Pager Properties
Pager -
Show Pager - This allows you to show the pager or not. Not showing the Pager will allow you to just use the tasklist.
Place pagers after tasklist - This allows you to switch the location of the pager and the tasklist from left to right and top to bottom depending on the orientation of your Panel.
Width of small pagers - If you have the small pagers on you can define the width here.
Height of small pagers - If you have the small pagers on you can define the height here.
Width of large pagers - If you have the large pagers on you can define the width here.
Height of large pagers - If you have the large pagers on you can define the height here.
Tasklist -
Show task list button - This toggles the tasklist button. The task list button is the small button with the up arrow which brings up a list of all tasks on all desktops when pressed.
Show task list - You can choose to show the task list or use the pager alone.
Show button icons - This will toggle icons on the task list buttons. Turning them off may save you some space.
Which tasks to show - this area lets you define which applications will show up in the task list and when. You can choose to have all tasks, normal tasks only, minimized tasks only, all tasks on all desktops, or all minimized tasks on all desktops.
Geometry - this area allows you to change the geometry of the tasklist. You can have the tasklist always display at minimum size or change the width of the horizontal and vertical task lists. You can also specify the number of rows of horizontal tasks and the number of vertical columns of tasks.
Quicklaunch Applet
The Quicklaunch Applet is a small applet that gives you a repository to place launchers. The Quicklaunch applet holds the application launchers you wish to have and allows you to click on them to launch the applications. Drag and drop functionality makes the set up of the Quicklaunch applet very easy and quick.
Figure 19-12. The Quicklaunch Applet
To add a launcher to the Quicklaunch applet you must already have the launcher set up either in the Main Menu, on your Panel, or on your desktop. Once you have the launcher you can drag it onto the Quicklaunch applet to create a small launcher button. To launch the application simply press the launcher button.
To drag a launcher from your Main Menu click once on the Main Menu to open it, and click once on the sub menu to open it. Now move the mouse to the application desired, press (but do not release) the left mouse button, drag the application to the Quicklaunch applet and release the button. To drag a launcher from either the Panel or your desktop, move the mouse to the launcher, press and hold the left mouse button, drag the application to the Quicklaunch applet, and release the button.
Once the launcher is in the Quicklaunch applet you can right mouse click on it and select Properties to change any properties associated with the launcher. The dialog that is launched is the standard GNOME launcher properties dialog, which you can read more about in the section called Adding Application Launchers in Chapter 12.