Launching Applications

Using the Application Starter and the Panel
At the bottom of the screen you will find the desktop panel, which is called . You use the panel to launch applications. Have a look at the button on the left with a large K.
This button is called the Application Starter. It has a small arrow on the top to indicate that it will pop up a menu if you click on it. Just do it! The pop-up offers you easy access to all applications installed on your computer system.

Customizing
If you use one application or tool very often, then you may want to have even faster access to it, of course. In this case, you can add a single application, or an entire sub-menu of the Application Starter menu, as a special quick-launch button, on to the panel. If you want to reach the application directly via a launch button, simply choose Application Starter Panel Menu Add Button Find Files (By this we mean that you should first click the Application Starter, then select Panel Menu, where the small arrow to the right indicates that another menu will pop up. In this menu, choose Add, then Button, and in the next sub-menu, Find Files).
You can add an entire menu this way, or one of the K button sub-menus. For example, if you have installed and want quick access to all the applications, without having to navigate through the application starter, then instead of choosing an application, click on the Add this menu menu entry. Now you will have instant access to all the applications, without having to put an icon for each on the panel.
You can move all items of the panel around with the move command of the context menu. Just click with the third mouse button (the third mouse button is normally the right button, but if you have configured your mouse differently, for example for left-handers, it might also be the left one). A menu will pop up where you can choose Move. Now move the mouse and see how the icon follows while still staying on the panel. When you are done, simply hit the first mouse button (by default the left one). As you may have noticed, there is also a menu entry Remove in case you are tired of a certain launch button on your desktop.

Using Context menus
This leads us to another interesting topic: in many places, you can click the right mouse button to display a context menu with choices that are applicable to the item you clicked. It is therefore always a good idea to try out the third mouse button on something, if you do not know what to do with it. Even the background of the desktops has such a menu!

Other Panel features
There are other interesting things possible with the panel. One may be important if you have a low resolution on your monitor: it is the hide-and-show function, activated by clicking on the small arrowed button, which is at one or both ends of the panel.
Perhaps you just don't like the panel extending the full width of the screen. That's easily changed! on an empty space in the panel, and choose Panel Preferences. In the dialog that pops up, you can choose Panel Size on the General tab, and use the slider there to set the panel to less than 100% width.
If you're following along, and have that dialog open anyway, then feel free to play with all the options, and use the Apply to see the effect they have. You can easily reset everything to the default configuration, by simply pressing the Use Defaults button.
By the way, if you are not sure what a certain button does in , just move the mouse pointer over it and wait for a short while: has a built-in mini context help, called tool tips, which explains the functionality of such controls in a few words.

But I want my command line back!
Just calm down, there is nothing to fear. does not want to take your beloved (and sometimes very effective) command line away from you. You can move your files with the desktop, but you can also use the commands you are accustomed to. In fact, puts command line power at your fingertips, in perhaps some surprising places.
provides a very sophisticated command line window called . Choose Application Starter System Terminal to start it. This may be something you want on your panel, luckily it's already there in the default configuration!
Sometimes, you only want to enter one command on the command line. In these cases, you do not need a full-blown terminal. Just hit F2 and you get a small command line where you can enter one command. The command line window will disappear afterwards, but it remembers your command.
When you pop up this window (which we call minicli by the way) and hit the Up arrow, you can browse through all the commands you have previously entered. Also, you can enter s in minicli to open a window with the specified .
and the editor can both display terminal windows, which behave just like . In , you can turn this on with the menu choice Window Show Terminal Window. The embedded terminal will display at the bottom of your window, and the really clever thing is that it will follow your clicks in the file manager view, changing directory as you do. In you can display a terminal with the menu choice Settings Show Console.
To display a man page, enter man: command in minicli, where command is the name of a command.
To search for a word or words on the Google search engine, you can try gg: word or words. There are a whole lot more of these shortcut commands, and you can even add your own! Take a look in , in the tab Web Browsing Enhanced Browsing.
Finally, there's a way to have your command line always available, no matter what you're doing - add one to your panel!
Simply click on an empty space in the panel, and choose Panel Add Applet Application Launcher. This will embed a mini-cli directly into your panel, complete with command history.
So, in conclusion, the command line is never far from view when you're using .