This guide will walk you through customizing the gnome-panel so it doesn't take up so much real-estate on your screen but is still readily accessible.

A lot of panel customization can be performed by simply right-clicking on the panel and choosing "Add to panel...", "Remove from panel", or simply "Properties". More advanced configuration has to happen in the gconf-editor. We'll get to that.

First off, if you use a custom task manager such as Avant Window Navigator (see http://www.ventanazul.com/webzine/tu...vigator-ubuntu for an example and installation walkthrough) then you can delete the bottom panel altogether. Once Avant Window Navigator is installed you can delete the bottom panel altogether - right-click on it and choose "Delete panel".

Next, you can right-click on any unwanted items in the top panel and choose "Remove from panel". You can also save space by removing the standard menus and then adding the Main Menu applet. (To add the applet, right-click on the panel and choose "Add to panel..."). The Main Menu applet puts an icon in the place of the menus that gives you access to all the menus but takes up a fraction of the screen real-estate.

Once you've removed all the unwanted panel items, right-click on the panel and choose "Properties". (Note: you'll have to right-click on an empty part of the panel, not one of the icons or status area)

Set the Orientation to the side of the screen you'd like to act as the primary anchor. This will be the side that the system tray / status area icons will spread out over, so if you want the tray to grow vertically you anchor left or right, if you want the tray to grow horizontally you anchor top or bottom. (By anchor I mean you set the Orientation setting thusly).

Next up, the size. That's up to you and relatively unimportant when it comes to the more advanced settings.

Un-tick / de-select the "Expand" option. This will shrink your panel and center it on whichever screen edge is set in the Orientation setting.

Select autohide if you'd like. If you find the hiding/showing takes too long and/or if you'd like the bar to be COMPLETELY hidden when it auto-hides we can set that up later in the advanced configuration.

Show 'hide' buttons & Arrows on 'hide' buttons: I like to select both of these. The first will put buttons on the top and bottom of a vertically-oriented panel and on the left and right of a horizontally-oriented panel. When you click the button it scoots the panel out of view so the only space it takes up on your screen is a tiny little button in the corner.

The only problem with the Show 'hide' buttons option is that if you have Expand de-selected, your panel is centered in the screen and then has to travel all the way to the edge. This makes it a little inconvenient if all you want to do it pull up the panel, click on a menu item, and then hide the panel again.

So now we move on to the advanced configuration.

Hit ALT+F2 to bring up your trusty Run dialog.

Run
Code:
gconf-editor
This will bring up a window that's similar to the Windows Registry (but better for two reasons: it's easier to navigate/figure out, and you don't have to run Windows to use it).

In the gconf-editor window, navigate to apps -> panel -> toplevels -> top_panel_screen0 (or whatever panel you want to configure).

If you selected Auto-hide and you want to make the bar completely hidden, change the value for "auto_hide_size" to "0".

If you want to speed up the hiding and showing of the panel during auto-hide or when the 'hide' buttons are pressed, de-select the entry titled "enable_animations" and reduce the "hide_delay" and "unhide_delay" values.

If you want to anchor the panel to a corner instead of having it centered, de-select "x_centered" and "y_centered" and then change the "x", "x_right", "y", and "y_bottom" values according to the corner you want to anchor the panel to:

To anchor the panel to the top left, set the following values:

Code:
x       : 1
x_right : -1
y       : 1
y_bottom: -1
To anchor the panel to the top right, set the following values:

Code:
x       : 0
x_right : 0
y       : 1
y_bottom: -1
To anchor the panel to the bottom left, set the following values:

Code:
x       : 1
x_right : -1
y       : 0
y_bottom: 0

To anchor the panel to the bottom right, set the following values:

Code:
x       : 0
x_right : 0
y       : 0
y_bottom: 0