The footprint icon seen towards the left end of the example panel is the Main Menu (yes, you guessed right, it is the footprint of the gnome). This menu provides you access to almost all you can do with GNOME — all the applications, configuration tools, command line prompt, Logout and Lock Screen commands, and much more. To access any of its items, click on the Main Menu Button. You should release the mouse after pressing the Main Menu button so that you can take advantage of other mouse-activated features in the Main Menu such as right mouse clicks and drag and drop from the menu.
Figure 3. The Main Menu Button
The main component of the Main Menu is the Programs menu, which contains a list of preconfigured menu items. Here you will find all the GNOME applications, from Gnumeric spreadsheet to Kanji terminal, as well as quite a few non-Gnome ones, such as Netscape browser and emacs text editor. Programs menu also contains commands File manager, which launches the GNOME file manager, Run program, which gives you the command line prompt where you can enter any command, and Help, which launches the GNOME help browser. GNOME help browser gives you an easy access to all the documentation installed on your system — not only GNOME documentation (Users guide, application manuals, …), but also all other types of documentation (man pages, info pages).
In addition to the Programs, the main menu can also contains a number of other submenus and useful commands, listed below. Depending on your configuration, you may not see all of them. Also, some of them may be shown as submenus, and others included as part of the main menu, separated by horizontal lines from other parts.
Favorites. This menu, which is originally empty, is the place where you can put your favorite applications for quicker access. You can edit this menu using the Menu Editor, which can be accessed from the Main Menu by choosing Settings->Menu Editor. You can also add any item from any other menu (in particular, from the Programs menu) to Favorites by clicking on the item with the right mouse button and selecting Add this to personal menu.
Applets. This menu contains all the applets installed on your system.
KDE menus. This shows the menus of the K Desktop Environment (KDE) if you have it installed on your system
Another Level menus, Debian menus. These menus show the default application menus for Red Hat Linux (Another Level) and Debian GNU/Linux. They only make sense for the users of corresponding distributions.
Panel Menu. This menu can be used to change panel properties (both for this panel and global, i.e. for all panels), add an object to the panel, remove the whole panel or create a new panel.
Desktop menu— includes Logout, which ends your GNOME session (first asking for confirmation — see the section called Logging Out) and Lock Screen.
To change configuration of the main menu, righ-click on it and select Properties from the pop-up menu. This will show Menu Properties dialog. In this dialog, for each of the submenus of the Main menu listed above (Programs, Favorites, …) you can choose whether you want it to be shown as part of the main menu, as a submenu, or not shown at all.
You can also edit the contents of the Favorites menu (or, if oyu are the system administartor, also of the Programs menu) using the GNOME Menu Editor. To start it, right-click on the main menu button and select Edit Menus. LAternatively, you can start GNOME Menu Editor by selecting Programs->Settings->Menu Editor from the Main Menu itself.
If you prefer, you can use keyboard instead of the mouse to navigate the main menu. To activate the main menu, press Menu key on your keyboard (if you are using standard PC keyboard, this key usually is located to the left of the space bar and labelled with a picture of a menu). After this, you can use Up and Down arrows to move inside the menu, Right arrow to go to a submenu, and Enter to select an item. To hide the menu again, just press Esc.
This button is used to log out of GNOME; it provides the same functionality as the Logout command of the main menu. Pressing this button will show the Logout dialog, which will ask you whether or not you really want to log out. It also provides you with different methods of quitting GNOME.
You have three choices on how to quit GNOME. You may Logout which will simply end you GNOME session; Halt, which will shut down the whole system; or Reboot, which will reboot the whole system.
If you do not want to log out you may press the No button and you will be returned to your GNOME session.
Note for advanced users: The choices Halt and Rebootwill only be shown if you have the permission to execute the command /usr/bin/shutdown.
Figure 4. The Logout Dialog
Within the Logout Dialog there is one option you may choose before you leave GNOME.
If you would like to save your current setup, you may select the Save current setup checkbox. This will save those programs you have open, and the configuration of your Panel.
NOTE: If you are running a window manager that is GNOME compliant, the logout feature will quit the window manager as well as GNOME. If you are running a non-compliant window manager you will have to end that window manager yourself.
Finally, you can disable the logout dialog so that pressing the logout button will end your GNOME session without asking any questions. To do so, start GNOME control center (Main Menu->Settings->Startup programs) and uncheck the button Prompt on logout.