I was trying to move some things around on the top panel to make room and the 'Applications', 'Places', and 'Desktop' menus disappeared (I was doing this via Remote Desktop and there was a delay between what I was doing with the mouse and what showed on the screen so...).

Anyway I can't find a way to get those menus back on the top panel. Tried reinstalling 'gnome-panel' and 'gnome-panel-data' to no avail. I
assume those menus have something to do with '~/.gconf' and / or '~/.gnome' / '~/.gnome2' but I can't find any file that even have the string 'Places' in them.

How can I get em back up there without having to reinstall gnome?

Thanks in advance for any insights! :-D

Although I'm a KDE user, I would think that you're right in saying that your menu configuration problem has to do with files in your home directory.

I suggest you create a new user and log into gnome using the new username. If the menus are OK, you could simply delete any .gnome or similar directories in your own home directory. Do this by logging out, then hitting alt-ctrl-F1 to switch to a terminal. Log in using your username and password and then do:

where you'd replace .DIRECTORY-NAME with the name of wherever gnome keeps its configuration files (something like .gnome?). The dollar sign just represents the prompt, it's not something you have to type. Only do this if you've first checked that the menus of a new user are OK.

Sorry I can't be more helpful about the name of which directory(ies) to delete, but the ones you mentioned sound like likely candidates. If you're feeling adventurous you could log in as the user you created to check the menus and see what directories have been created by gnome by typing

in the new user's home directory.

Once you're done at the terminal, hit ctrl-D to log out, then alt-ctrl-F7 to switch back to the graphical log in. Hopefully your menus will be back when you log in again, and then you're just left with deleting that user.

Careful! Doing this would also mean that you loose all other custom settings you've made to your desktop!

Good luck.

If you have a pretty new version of gnome you should be able to right click the panel where they uised to be and choose add to panel and then select menu bar to add.

to add to the panel, so no, that won't work. They are available from the Gnome main menu but again, can't be added or moved from that menu to the top panel.

The 'gnome-menu' package looks promising, I'll try reinstalling it.

WHOOPS - Check that, you are correct:

1. Right click on top panel
2. Add to panel
3. Select 'Custom Menubar'

VIOLA! little footprint, Apps, Places and Desktop ALL appear as one unit. No wonder I couldn't find 'Places' with grep in the gconf and gnome subdirectories! Thanks folks!

:-D