Launchers

Launchers are essentially buttons which reside in your panel and start an application or execute a command when clicked. A launcher can use any icon and has a customized tooltip to display a message when the cursor is passed over the Launcher.

You can change a launcher properties, such as the icon it uses and its name, by right-clicking on a launcher and selecting Properties from the pop-up menu. This brings up the Launcher properties dialog shown in Figura 7. The same dialog is used when you create a new launcher (see la sezione Adding objects to the panel). Also, internally GNOME makes no distinction between menu items and launchers: these are just different presentations of the same thing. You can place any menu item on the panel, and it will show as a launcher. Therefore, all the information below applies equally to launchers and menu items.

Figura 7. Create Launcher/Launcher Properties Dialog

This dialog has two tabs: Basic and Advanced. In the Basic tab, you can set:

The Basic tab also shows the icon to be used for the launcher; if no icon is specified, a default icon will be used. To change the icon, just click on it to launch the icon browser.

Finally, if the application can only run inside a terminal — that is, if it doesn't create any windows on its own — you should also check Run in terminal button. If unsure, leave it unchecked.

Advanced tab is shown below. It is intended for advanced users; most of the time, you do not need to change any of the settings here.

Figura 8. Launcher Advanced Properties Dialog

In this tab, you can set:

All the changes you made in Launcher Properties dialog will take effect when you press Apply or OK. Pressing OK closes this dialog; pressing Apply will allow you to continue editing.