The bars across the top and bottom of the desktop are called ''panels''. The top panel (shown below) contains the desktop menus and other items such as the date and time and various status indicators.
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<table border="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%">
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<tr>
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<td width="20%">[[Configuring the Ubuntu GNOME Desktop Background and Themes|Previous]]<td align="center">[[Ubuntu Linux Essentials|Table of Contents]]<td width="20%" align="right">[[Configuring Ubuntu Linux Printers|Next]]</td>
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<tr>
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<td width="20%">Configuring the Ubuntu GNOME Desktop Background and Themes<td align="center"><td width="20%" align="right">Configuring Ubuntu Linux Printers
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</td>
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</table>
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<hr>
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[[Image:gnome_top_panel.jpg]]
     Exception encountered, of type "Error"
[71a2998f] /index.php?diff=cur&oldid=1934&title=Customizing_the_Ubuntu_GNOME_Desktop_Panels Error from line 434 of /var/www/techotopia/includes/diff/DairikiDiff.php: Call to undefined function each()
Backtrace:
#0 /var/www/techotopia/includes/diff/DairikiDiff.php(544): DiffEngine->diag()
#1 /var/www/techotopia/includes/diff/DairikiDiff.php(344): DiffEngine->compareSeq()
#2 /var/www/techotopia/includes/diff/DairikiDiff.php(227): DiffEngine->diffLocal()
#3 /var/www/techotopia/includes/diff/DairikiDiff.php(721): DiffEngine->diff()
#4 /var/www/techotopia/includes/diff/DairikiDiff.php(859): Diff->__construct()
#5 /var/www/techotopia/includes/diff/DairikiDiff.php(980): MappedDiff->__construct()
#6 /var/www/techotopia/includes/diff/TableDiffFormatter.php(194): WordLevelDiff->__construct()
#7 /var/www/techotopia/includes/diff/DiffFormatter.php(140): TableDiffFormatter->changed()
#8 /var/www/techotopia/includes/diff/DiffFormatter.php(111): DiffFormatter->block()
#9 /var/www/techotopia/includes/diff/DifferenceEngine.php(881): DiffFormatter->format()
#10 /var/www/techotopia/includes/diff/DifferenceEngine.php(797): DifferenceEngine->generateTextDiffBody()
#11 /var/www/techotopia/includes/diff/DifferenceEngine.php(728): DifferenceEngine->generateContentDiffBody()
#12 /var/www/techotopia/includes/diff/DifferenceEngine.php(662): DifferenceEngine->getDiffBody()
#13 /var/www/techotopia/includes/diff/DifferenceEngine.php(632): DifferenceEngine->getDiff()
#14 /var/www/techotopia/includes/diff/DifferenceEngine.php(453): DifferenceEngine->showDiff()
#15 /var/www/techotopia/includes/page/Article.php(797): DifferenceEngine->showDiffPage()
#16 /var/www/techotopia/includes/page/Article.php(508): Article->showDiffPage()
#17 /var/www/techotopia/includes/actions/ViewAction.php(44): Article->view()
#18 /var/www/techotopia/includes/MediaWiki.php(490): ViewAction->show()
#19 /var/www/techotopia/includes/MediaWiki.php(287): MediaWiki->performAction()
#20 /var/www/techotopia/includes/MediaWiki.php(714): MediaWiki->performRequest()
#21 /var/www/techotopia/includes/MediaWiki.php(508): MediaWiki->main()
#22 /var/www/techotopia/index.php(41): MediaWiki->run()
#23 {main}