234 lines
11 KiB
HTML
234 lines
11 KiB
HTML
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<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2//EN">
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<HTML>
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<HEAD>
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<TITLE> tkgoodstuff Preferences Manager</TITLE>
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<META NAME="GENERATOR" CONTENT="Mozilla/3.01Gold (X11; I; Linux 2.0.29 i586) [Netscape]">
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</HEAD>
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<BODY TEXT="#000000" BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" LINK="#0000FF" VLINK="#800080" ALINK="#FF0000">
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<H1>Configuring TkGoodStuff with the Preferences Manager</H1>
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<P>The preferences manager lets you view and set all preferences and configuration
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parameters for tkgoodstuff. You enter it from the tkgoodstuff menu (which,
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by default, is available by clicking on the clock and also within a menu
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on the Menu client button).</P>
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<P>In addition to selecting and arranging the elements of your panels,
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you can adjust fonts, colors, icons, "tiled" backgounds, the
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default screen-edge or orientation, and a zillion other things, including
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the setup for each client (e.g., the Menu client's menu, the Biff client's
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mailboxes, etc.).</P>
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<P>Changes do not take effect until they are saved and tkgoodstuff is restarted.
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All configuration information is saved to the configuration file (by default,
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".tkgrc" in the user's home directory---which you can edit
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by hand if things go so wrong that the preferences manager won't
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work). </P>
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<P><A NAME="variables"></A></P>
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<H2>Setting Preferences </H2>
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<P>It should be fairly obvious how to set various preferences: you find
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them through the notebook pages and menus in the preference manager and
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set them, e.g., by clicking on an indicator or by entering text.</P>
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<P>You might want to set a preference based on an environment variable.
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You can do this by using "$env" as follows. To set a certain
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preference to a value based on the user's home directory, you can enter
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this: </P>
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<PRE>$env(HOME)/whatever
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</PRE>
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<P><A NAME="client"></A></P>
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<H2>Including and Configuring a Client </H2>
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<P>To include a client (for example, Clock), you enter the preferences
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manager and use mouse button 3 at the desired point in the configuration
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(which is presented as a hierarchical list) to choose "Insert",
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at which point you enter the name of the client.</P>
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<P>You configure a client in the preferences manager (double click on its
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entry in the configuration).</P>
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<P><A NAME="addbutton"></A></P>
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<H2>Adding a Button</H2>
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<P>You can easily add a button to display an icon and/or a bit of text,
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which runs a command when pressed. You need to decide:</P>
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<UL>
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<LI>If you want an icon on your button, then the icon filename. <B>The
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file can contain an image of any of several formats (see <A HREF="icons.html">Icons
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</A>for more).</B> </LI>
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<LI>If you want a bit of text on the button (either under the icon or by
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itself), then the text string (a "\n" in the string makes a line
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break for multi-line text). E.g., "Telnet to/nwork". </LI>
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<LI>The (unix) command to run. E.g.: </LI>
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<PRE> xdir "xless /var/adm/syslog"
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rxvt -T Syslog -sl 400 -e {"tail -400 -f /var/adm/syslog"}
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rxvt -T Syslog -sl 400 -e \"tail -400 -f /var/adm/syslog\" </PRE>
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<P>(The last two are equivalent.)</P>
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</UL>
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<P>You add the button in the Prefernces manager by choosing "Insert"
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with mouse button 3 at the desired place in your configuration, and entering
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the desired information. Double-click on the Button's entry in the configuration
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to configure it. </P>
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<P>Notes: </P>
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<UL>
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<LI>The expression "@selection@" in a unix or tcl command will
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be replaced by the current X selection. </LI>
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<LI>By default, a unix command button stays down and inoperative after
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you press it until the launched unix command terminates. This is so you
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can see that you're already running that command. You can configure the
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button to pop back up after launching the command, ready to launch the
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command again. </LI>
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<LI>When you press an already-depressed unix command button, <B>if</B>
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you are running tkgoodstuff as an fvwm module, by default you move to the
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next window that is named by the name of the unix command of the button.
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But you can configure the button to look for an alternative window name
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(for instance, the program tkman names its window "TkMan", netscape
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"Netscape" and so on). </LI>
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</UL>
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<P><A NAME="addpanelbutton"></A></P>
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<H2>PanelButtons</H2>
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<P>A PanelButton is like a standard tkgoodstuff button, except that what
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it does is to produce an additional tkgoodstuff panel adjacent to the panel
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containing the PanelButton (this allows you to group a of buttons together
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and have them appear when you press a single button in your main panel).
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To add such a button use the "Insert" mouse-3 menu item, and
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double-click to configure. </P>
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<P>See below on how to create Panels. <A NAME="putpanel"></A></P>
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<H2>PutPanel</H2>
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<P>Instead of having a Panel produced by a PanelButton, you might want
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an additional Panel to be placed on the screen at startup. To do this,
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(as always) use the "Insert" mouse-3 menu item, and double-click
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to configure. </P>
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<P>See below for how to create Panels. <A NAME="addlabelbox"></A></P>
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<H2>Adding a Label Box </H2>
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<P>To add a box containing a bit of text (which differs from a button in
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look, in color, and in that it doesn't run any command), use the good old
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"Insert" trick. <A NAME="swallow"></A></P>
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<H2>Swallowing an Application </H2>
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<P>If you want to include a utility that tkgoodstuff doesn't provide, you
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can incorporate it in your tkgoodstuff panel as a "Swallow" item.
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Use the preferences manager to do this. </P>
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<P>WARNING: this can be tricky. Some hints: </P>
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<UL>
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<LI>Before starting, be sure you know the windowname of the window that
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you want to swallow. By default we look for the name of the application,
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but many applications produce windows with different names. If you don't
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specify the correct name, tkgoodstuff will wait forever for the window
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to show up. </LI>
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<LI>It sometimes helps to specify in the application command line a geometry
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for the application that is larger than the window you want to produce.
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</LI>
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<LI>If the application has a set size, you can find out what it is with
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fvwm's Identify module (if you use fvwm). </LI>
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<LI>In your application command line, you can specify the tkg background
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color (for your application to use) as <B>\$background</B> (same for foreground
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and some other resources). Also, use <B>\$width</B> to specify the Swallow
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window width (same for height). </LI>
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<LI>If you are running tkgoodstuff as an fvwm module, you can swallow other
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fvwm modules (like FvwmPager) simply by using the module name in place
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of a unix command. </LI>
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</UL>
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<P><A NAME="fill"></A></P>
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<H2>Filling Space </H2>
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<P>If you are using screen-edge mode (for a bar covering one edge of the
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screen), then by default all the buttons, clients, etc., are stacked together
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in the middle of the bar. But you can indicate where the buttons, clients,
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etc., are to be broken apart by the item "Fill" (which you insert
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into your configuration like anything else). For example, suppose you have
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screen-edge mode set to "bottom", you have four buttons in your
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bar, and you include "Fill" items between the first and second,
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and between the third and fourth Button items. Then, your bar will contain
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the first button at the far left, the second and third buttons together
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in the middle, and the fourth button at the far right. (The WindowList
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client behaves like a "Fill" region; in particular, in the absence
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of Fill commands, it uses all available space.) <A NAME="stacks"></A></P>
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<H2>Stacks</H2>
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<P>The Screen Geometry screen-edge and orientaton preferences govern the
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main orientation of your panel; it may be either horizontal or vertical.
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If you simply add elements (Clients, Buttons, etc.), these elements will
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be stacked all in a row left-to-right (if horizontal) or top-to-bottom
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(if vertical). This probably is what you want in an always-on-top desktop
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button bar. However you may want to stack two or three small buttons together,
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or to generate a fancier panel, with several rows or with several bundles
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of related buttons and label-boxes of different sizes, as in this <A HREF="http://www-personal.umich.edu/~markcrim/tkgoodstuff/stacks.jpg">screenshot
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</A>(available only on the tkgoodstuff web page; to see it otherwise, just
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run "tkgoodstuff -f stacks" in the sample-rc directory). </P>
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<P>A Stack is itself an item, which is placed in your panel just like a
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Button. The difference is that a Stack can have items placed within it.
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These items are stacked together in the orientation you choose (you can
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also configure other features of a Stack). To explain the stacking commands
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it is easiest just to explain how the fancy example was created. We start
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horizontally (the Orientation preference is set to horizontal). We will
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put together two things horizontally, both of them vertical Stacks. These
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are the only items that are in the main stack itself. The first vertical
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Stack starts with the Clock client and a labelbox ("Utilities").
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Then we want three buttons side-by-side, so we start a new horizontal Stack.
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In this Stack we insert three Buttons. This puts us back in the construction
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of our first (vertical) Stack, which so far contains the Clock, the "Utilities"
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label, and the Stack we have just finished. The last thing in this vertical
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Stack will be another horizontal Stack, this one with a colored border
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four pixels wide. Two Buttons are inserted in this bordered Stack. Now
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we're done with the first main vertical Stack. </P>
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<P>This puts us back in the orignal (horizontal) orientation, outside of
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all Stacks. So the next item we define will go to the right of the big
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vertical Stack we have just defined. This item will be an even bigger vertical
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Stack, which contains a label box, a horizontal Stack (which contains the
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Net Client, the Load Client, and a vertical Stack of three Buttons) and
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a (gold-bordered) vertical Stack, which contains a label box and a horizontal
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Stack (which contains three Buttons and a vertical Stack containing three
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Buttons). </P>
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<P>I hope that makes the working of the stacking apparatus clear. If not,
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play around with it and you will figure it out. <A NAME="panels"></A></P>
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<H2>Panels</H2>
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<P>You create a Panel by "Inserting" it anywhere in your configuration.
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It doesn't matter where you insert it, since it is not an item that is
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placed inside the main panel, but rather is placed by a PutPanel item or
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a PanelButton. Various features of the Panel can be configured. </P>
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</BODY>
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</HTML>
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