It’s simple to add a launcher icon to the KDE Panel. To do so, simply drag the application’s icon from Konqueror to the Panel. Alternatively, you can right-click on the Panel, select Add from the pop-up menu, and choose a program from the menu that appears. To remove a launcher from the Panel, right-click the launcher and select Remove from the pop-up menu.

If your panel contains many launchers, it may become crowded and confusing. To remedy this, you can create a child panel, like that shown in Figure 6-6. To do so, right-click the Panel and select Add → Extension → Child Panel. You can move the child panel to a different edge of the screen by dragging it. Launchers can be added to a child panel by dragging and dropping, just as you add them to the Panel. To remove a child panel and its contents, right-click the hide button at the end of the child panel and select Remove from the pop-up menu.

Figure 6-6. A child panel

To launch the KDE Control Panel, click the KDE Control Panel desktop icon. The Control Panel, as shown in Figure 6-7, appears.

Figure 6-7. The KDE Control Panel

To launch a Control Panel applet, click its icon. The Control Panel applets and their uses include:

Applets that perform system administration functions generally require that you be logged in as root; otherwise, they won’t operate properly. Most of these functions are also performed by other Red Hat Linux facilities. Therefore, only the Desktop applet is described here. See the sources listed at the end of the chapter for further information about the KDE Control Panel applets.

You can launch the KDE Control Center by clicking the Desktop applet in the KDE Control Panel or by clicking the KDE Panel icon that resembles a terminal with a superimposed circuit board. Figure 6-8 shows the KDE Control Center.

Figure 6-8. The KDE Control Center

The Control Center user interface features two panes. The left pane presents a hierarchically structured set of configuration categories, and the right pane displays information pertaining to the current choice.

Using Control Center, you can:

Simply select the configuration category by clicking in the left pane. You can then revise the configuration parameters by specifying the desired values in the right pane. The contents of the right pane vary depending on the current selection in the left pane.

For the benefit of those who enjoy eye candy, KDE supports themes. Visit http://kde.themes.org to learn more about and obtain themes for KDE.

When you find a theme you like, download it and save it to the /tmp directory.^[5] If the file has an extension other than ktheme, you must unpack it. To do so, navigate to the file using Konqueror and click it. Click as necessary to open folders and navigate to the ktheme file. Then, drag the ktheme file to the desktop.

Finally, launch the KDE Control Center and choose Look & Feel → Theme Manager from its menu. When the Theme Selector appears in the right pane, click Add, and navigate to the file you dragged to the desktop, then click OK. If the theme is compatible, you’ll now see it listed in the Installer box. To try it, click once on the theme name and click Apply.

You can configure KDE’s main menu by using the KDE menu editor. To launch the menu editor, select System → Menu Editor from the KDE main menu. The menu editor window (Figure 6-9) has two panes. The left pane of the menu editor hierarchically displays the menu tree, and the right pane shows information pertaining to the currently selected menu item. You can drag and drop to reposition menu items and submenus. You can use the New Item or New Submenu icons to create new menu entries.

Figure 6-9. The menu editor