Working With Menus

This chapter describes how to use menus in the GNOME Desktop.

• Introduction to Menus

• Menu Features

• Applications Menu

• Actions Menu

• GNOME Menu

Introduction to Menus

You can access all desktop environment functions through menus. The Menu Panel contains menus, so you can use a combination of menus and panels to perform your tasks. You can perform various actions on your menus, such as copy menu items to panels.

You can access the following menus in your desktop environment:

• Applications menu: You can access many of your applications, commands, and configuration options from the Applications menu. You can also access the desktop environment preference tools from the Applications menu.

• Actions menu: You can access various commands that enable you to perform desktop environment tasks from the Actions menu. For example, you can start the Search Tool application, or log out of the desktop environment.

• GNOME Menu: You can also access the items in the Applications and Actions menus from the GNOME Menu. You can have many GNOME Menu buttons in your panels.

You can also right-click on the desktop to open the Desktop menu. The Desktop menu enables you to perform desktop-related tasks.

All of these menus provide you with multiple ways to perform your tasks, and enable you to work in the way that you prefer.

Menu Features

Menus can contain the following items:

• Submenus

• Launchers or menu items

An arrow to the right of an item in a menu indicates that the item is a submenu. When you point to the submenu, the submenu opens. You can choose items from the submenu.

When you choose a launcher, the launcher starts an application or runs a command. You can also right-click on a launcher to open a popup menu. The popup menu enables you to add the item to a panel, and perform other tasks. For more information on the popup menu, see the next section.

You can change the theme for your session to change how all your menus look. To change the theme, choose Applications -> Desktop Preferences -> Theme.

Menu Item Popup Menu

Items in menus have an associated popup menu that enables you to perform tasks related to the item. When you right-click on an item in a menu, the popup menu for the item opens. The popup menu also contains a submenu that allows you to perform menu-related tasks.

You can use the menu item popup menu to perform the following tasks:

• Add menu items as launchers to panels.

• Remove items from menus.

• Open the Run Program dialog with the menu item command in the dialog.

• Add menus to panels. You can add a menu as a menu object or as a drawer object.

• Add new items to menus.

• Change the properties of submenus and menu items.

Figure 5-1 shows the popup menu.

Figure 5-1 Menu Item Popup Menu

Table 5-1 describes menu item popup menus.

Table 5-1 Menu Item Popup Menus

Applications Menu

The Applications menu contains a hierarchy of submenus, from which you can start the standard GNOME applications and preference tools. The Applications menu contains the Desktop Preferences menu. You can use the Desktop Preferences menu to start the preference tools. The Applications menu also includes the file manager and the help browser.

The Applications menu resides in the following places:

• Menu Panel

• Start Here location in Nautilus

• GNOME Menu