Until I started this I didn't really know that all the items on the taskbar were Gnome Applets. I guess they took the best of them and made them default. You can pick other ones though to replace the standards or add to them. Here is a Lite Guide to Gnome Applets on Linux-Mandrake 8.0.
Clock and Mailcheck: Here are a few of the samples available.
In the General Window you can put your mail box in there and have it blink. I tried this and already had 6 messages in my inbox. It said so, but they weren't unread and it still listed them and the envelope turned red and blinked. I got rid of 5 of them and it still said 6, sent out a test messages and received it, but the value changed to zero. Never could get it to work right. In the Themes Window you can pick between numerous themes. Here are the Properties windows:
Overall: Useful clock, mail doesn't work right. If want just another clock you might find one here you like.
Another Clock: Only one clock theme available .
Not much in Properties for this clock. You can only change the color of the needles and not the clock itself.
Overall: To small, unless you like that. Hard to read, I think it is pretty useless.
AfterStep Clock: Here are a few of the samples available.
The Apply button didn't work until I started choosing different clock themes. Different themes to choose from.
Overall: The best one I found. Picked one of them to replace the Standard Gnome Clock.
Binary Clock: Only one theme available. No properties to change.
Overall: Neat, but certainly not for the quick glance. Good if you want to practice your binary.
Clock: The default Gnome Desktop Clock.
Default settings pretty good.
Overall: Normal average good generic clock.
GDict: Neat little Dictionary Applet. Just type in a word and hit Return. A window pops up with the definition. Here is a look at the applet and output.
You can also pull up a Spell Checker by right clicking on the Bar. Looking at the Properties it seems that you either might have to be connected to the internet or it will connect for you.
Overall: Nice little app. If you type a lot of stuff and need to check out spelling or a definition, could be useful at times.
Printer: Couldn't get to work. Even changed the Name to my printer name and didn't work.
Overall: Totally Useless.
Floppy-Mount: This applet will show your floppy drive on the taskbar.
Click on it once and it will mount/unmount the floppy drive. It will turn blue where the disk is when mounted and holding the cursor over it will tell you if it is or not.
Overall: Not really useful, maybe before things got too graphical. Plus, never seen a floppy that would eject unless you pressed the button physically. This has a setting to eject it on unmount though.
Gnome Weather: Neat little applet to show the weather in your area.
Right click on the applet and a window pops where you can pick Detailed Forcast, Update and Properties. If you just move your mouse over it it will give you a little more detail than it shows on the taskbar. The Properties can be setup to change the updating time, location (you need to set this up for your area), whether to have detail forcast and radar map available.
When you checkout the details you will get these windows. You can also go right to the weather channel if your online.
Overall: A rather nice applet. Doesn't take up much space, you can see if it is nice outside and you would rather get off your computer and go outside. One bad thing is that the border around the Applet is messed up a lot and looks cheap.
GKB Keyboard Switcher: Totally useless for most people as far as I can tell. Didn't include any pictures cause I didn't see a reason to. Anyone have any ideas on when this might be useful?
DeskGuide: Standard Gnome Applet. The default settings are pretty good. Do not see much reason to change them. If you want to change anything, right click and select properties, there are four tabs to change properties for. This is a must have I think, that is why it is a Standard Applet!
You can also click on the Arrow Bar and select an individual App that is running in any window and it will open that Desktop and App and make it your current Desktop.
Overall: Really handy when you have a lot of things going on.
Tasklist: Another Gnome Standard Applet.
Display Tab defaults are good, but I do like the look of the 'Sink Tasklist into panel' better. You can also change the number of Apps that are open before it starts grouping them.
Size Tab defaults are good. You are able to pick Apps faster though if make 'Tasklist height is dynamic', especially if you have a lot of Apps open. You can also change the size, make it dynamic or fixed, number of rows,...
Overall: A must have, really handy. You could eliminate it and just use the DeskGuide Applet though.
Mini-Commander: You can start Apps with this program.
The Black Dot in the applet will make the popup Start Windows appear. You can start a program by going to the file and selecting it. The Down Arrow is the the History List (doesn't work) I loaded up several apps with the Start Window, but it never remembers and always says the history list is empty. You also cannot type anything in the applet box.
Overall: Would be good it was fully functional. Looks like someone started it and didn't finish. Takes up a lot of taskbar space for what little it does. The properties are no help either and the macros confusing. Note: If you start this one up you will have to click on the exact spot in the lower right corner to remove it from the taskbar.
Screenshooter: It's a Screen Grabber! Never tried it, but it's only con is changing the directory on the fly is not real easy. The right side takes a snapshot of a Window (just put the cursor on it and left click. The right side (monitor) take snapshot of the whole screen.
There are a lot of settings in the properties pages. The General Tab has a few notable: Put checkmark in the 'Display Spurious Options (I got carried away)' box and you get even more options of Crazy things to do with you snapshots. You can compress them,....
Files, Apps Tab is where you can choose a folder to save snapshots in or it will default to your home directory. Also if you want, put a checkmark in the ' View screenshot after saving it' to see your snapshot or it won't show you.
Extra: check out the Thumbnails, PostProcessing, Frills, Spurious 1 & 2 Tabs to see all kinds of extra things you can do. I have fully investigated them so don't know how well they work yet.
Overall: Really Neat Applet. I would use it more if you could change the Save folder after you took the snapshot.
QuickLaunch: Applet to put Application Icons into to quickly launch them.
Neat, but you can do the same things on the taskbar. It also expands and fills up space. No bells and whistles or properties to change.
Overall: Not useless, but not needed at all. Just a duplicate applet.
Where am I?: Applet to show you where the mouse cursor is on the Desktop.
Overall: Not useless, but not useful. Unless you can't see your mouse cursor and need to know where it is or just want to check out the cursor coordinates.
Character Picker: Applet that has some characters you can added to text or put in your own. The last character on the right I added.
You can find a character in a letter or on the internet that you want to add. I had to use the mouse wheel to copy it. Highlight the character, click on the mouse wheel to copy, then again in the default list in properties to paste. Then increase the numbers of cells in the Size window if you want it to show or delete one of the other characters.
Overall: Maybe useful if needing to do something small in a different language. Would be nice if you could enter the ascii code for a character instead of having to find it and paste.
Tic-a-Stat: Name kind of gives it away, show stuff in ticker form.
Lot of options in the properties to choose from. Didn't find it very useful though so not showing any pictures. What will it ticker: Test, System Load Average, Core Dumps and a File Tailer. I have used these items before, but don't see much use for them in a ticker format and it takes up a lot of space on taskbar. If you want to use a Task (module) you need to enable it. I don't think it works too good with more than one enabled.
Overall: Waste of space.
Other tutorials in this Section:
