Drawers

A drawer is an extension of a panel. You can open and close a drawer in the same way that you can show and hide a panel. A drawer can contain all panel objects, including launchers, menus, other panel objects, and other drawers. When you open a drawer, you can use the objects in the same way that you use objects on a panel.

The following figure shows an open drawer that contains two panel objects.

The arrow on the drawer icon indicates that the icon represents a drawer or menu.

You can add, move, and remove objects from drawers in the same way that you add, move, and remove objects from panels.

To Open and Close a Drawer

To open a drawer, click on the drawer object in a panel. You can close a drawer in the following ways:

• Click on the drawer.

• Click on the drawer hide button.

To Add a Drawer to a Panel

You can add a drawer to a panel in the following ways:

• From the panel popup menu

  Right-click on any vacant space on the panel, then choose Add to Panel -> Drawer.

• From any menu

  You can add a menu as a drawer object to a panel.

  To add a menu as a drawer to a panel, open the menu from the panel. Right-click on any launcher in the menu, then choose Entire menu -> Add this as drawer to panel.

To Add an Object to a Drawer

You add an object to a drawer in the same way that you add objects to panels. For more information, see To Add an Object to a Panel.

To Modify Drawer Properties

To modify preferences for all panels and drawers, use the Panel preference tool. For example, you can select various options related to the appearance and behavior of objects on panels and drawers. You can also select options that relate to drawers only. For example, you can select an option to close your drawers when you click on a launcher in the drawer.

You can also modify other properties for each individual drawer. You can change features for each drawer, such as the visual appearance of the drawer and whether the drawer has hide buttons.

To modify properties for a drawer perform the following steps:

1. Right-click on the drawer, then choose Properties to display the Panel Properties dialog. The dialog displays the General tabbed section.

2. Select the properties for the drawer in the dialog. The following table describes the elements on the General tabbed section:

   Dialog Element	Description
   Name	Type a name for the panel. When you use shortcut keys to switch between your panels and the desktop, this panel name is displayed.
   Size	Select the size of the panel.
   Icon	Choose an icon to represent the drawer. Click on the Icon button to display an icon selector dialog. Choose an icon from the dialog. Alternatively, click Browse to choose an icon from another directory. When you choose an icon, click OK.
   Show hide buttons	Select this option to display hide buttons on your panel.
   Arrows on hide button	Select this option to display arrows on the hide buttons, if the hide button is enabled.

3. You can use the Background tabbed section to set the background for the drawer. For information on how to complete the Background tabbed section, see the step on this topic in To Modify Panel Properties. You can also drag a color or image on to a drawer to set the color or image as the background of the drawer. For more information, see To Drag a Color or Image to the Background of a Panel.

4. Click Close to close the Panel Properties dialog.