The Bodhi Linux Quick Start Guide

You may currently have a Pager Gadget on your desktop, depending on the theme that you selected during the initial setup. Regardless, you do have Virtual Desktops.

Virtual Desktops are useful for organization, as they allow you to group applications. For example, you may want to group work tasks on one Virtual Desktop and recreational tasks on another.

The opaque graphic on the desktop is a representation of all desktops in use, and each will have a smaller graphic depicting the applications running on each.

There are a few ways to switch between them:
1. Click on the graphic of the Virtual Desktop that you wish to switch to.
2. Ctrl + Alt + the left or right arrow, depending on whether you want to switch to a Virtual Desktop located to the left or right.
3. Alt + the function key corresponding to the number of the Virtual Desktop that you want to switch to.

Left clicking anywhere on an empty space of the desktop will activate the Main Menu, from which you can access functions such as launching applications, adjusting settings and shutting down the system. Right-clicking an empty space on the desktop will bring up the Favorites Menu if you have added items to it.

Gadgets are items that display system information, such as battery level and time. Gadgets also allow you to adjust components of your system, such as adjusting the volume.

More than one instance of a Gadget can be running at the same time. Gadgets placed in different locations such as Shelves (see below) or directly on the desktop. They can be found under Main Menu → Settings → Gadgets.

Whether a particular Gadget is available is controlled by which Modules are loaded; Gadgets are an instance of a Module in use. Bodhi comes with a wide selection of Modules installed by default, but you can install more.

To select a theme, go to Main Menu → Settings → Themes. Bodhi's Artists have created many more themes and wallpapers which you can view and download in our Art section (see: Resources).

Although Themes change the appearance of your desktop, they do not handle the extra Gadgets and layouts provided by Profiles. After you have chosen the profile during installation you may decide you want more (or less) Gadgets and features. It's not too late! Just go under Main Menu → Settings → Settings Panel → Settings tab and click Profiles. Here you will be able to pick from all the Bodhi Profiles that were offered during install.

E17 provides Shelves as an alternative to anchoring your Gadgets and launchers on the Desktop. Any Gadget that has its Module loaded can be added to a Shelf and you may have multiple Shelves located anywhere around the border of your Desktop.

To manage shelf attributes such as their size, location and the number that you have is done in Main Menu → Settings → Shelves. To manage the content of a Shelf, right click it and select Contents.

Shading is a useful way to get a window out of your way but without minimizing it or dragging it to another location. Shading is a similar concept to rolling up the shades of a window in a building to reveal what's behind the shade, or rolling the shade down so that it's visible.

To shade a window, double click it.

In this screenshot you can see two windows in the two states of shading.

Keyboard shortcuts are fully configurable under Main Menu → Settings → Settings Panel → Input tab → Key Bindings. Some of the default keyboard shortcuts include:

Alt + left click to move a window that is partially off the display.

Ctrl + Alt + X to close a window.

Ctrl + Alt + left or right arrow to switch to the Virtual Desktop in the direction indicated by the arrow key.

Ctrl + Alt + M to open the Main Menu.

Shift + F10 to maximize a window vertically.

Alt + Shift + F10 to maximize a window horizontally.

Alt + Tab to change windows.

For a comprehensive guide to using and customing E17, see our “The Bodhi Guide to Enlightenment”. As of Bodhi Linux 1.2.0, the guide is locally installed as an HTML document: /usr/share/bodhi/e17guide

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