one more dumb gnome question -- well, actually, two or three

[Tyler Regas]

> okay. bonus point time.

Whadduh ah get :P

> i cannot make the frigging panel autohide. looking at gnome list 
> archives, i see that it *can* be done, but going through the control 
> center i also cannot find the place to do it. anybody know how this 
> is done?

Right click the Panel and look in the Panel menu. There's a Global
something-or-other in there. Otherwise, check the Panel tab in the Panel
section of the GNOME Control Center. I missed the tabs when I first
started using it, too :)

> desktop icons. i want there to be none. i've gotten it down to two -- 
> the little house thing and the trashcan. the latter i can live 
> entirely without; the former i'd like to move elsewhere, onto the 
> panel or something. seeking "panel manual" i got nautilus (which on 
> first blush causes me to think that eazel should not have just gone 
> out of business but its principles beaten as well) and my home 
> directory -- no documentation of any sort. anybody know how to do 
> this?

Aaron is correct. Nautilus does draw the desktop. Run Nautilus and open
the Options dialog. There is an option in there that tells the Big "N"
to draw the desktop. Its very poorly implemented so keep in mind that,
for a reason I have never been able to determine, the option may not be
available. I've had this happen to me.

> gmc. see above for the short-form review of nautilus. i have gmc 
> installed and am happy with it. of course, it therefore appears on no 
> menu, and there seems to be no equivalent of the kde kaapfinder. how 
> does one add an application to the panel?

Either right click on the Panel and go to Panel > Add > Launcher and
then enter the appropriate info, go to Panel > Add > From Menu and
select an app from the list, or find it in gmc or Nautilus and drag it
on. I've generally found the last to be the slowest as I'm not always
able to intuit where the packagers decided it should go.

HTH :) Hope I'm accurate ;P