LXPanel is a lightweight X11 desktop panel. To build this program you need some development packages: libtool 2.2 or newer, intltool, libgtk 2.18 or newer, libfm-gtk 1.2 or newer, libwnck. Optional development packages may be required to build some modules: libmenu-cache, libalsasound ('volumealsa' plugin isn't built if missing), libindicator 0.3.0 ('indicator' plugin isn't built if missing), wireless-tools (required to build 'netstat' plugin), libxml-2.0 (required to build 'weather' plugin). To install this program, three other packages are needed: menu-cache, libfm-gtk, lxmenu-data. Please install them before installing lxpanel. There are 2 programs contained in the package. 1. lxpanel: the panel 2. lxpanelctl: the controller of lxpanel, can be used to control lxpanel in other programs. The best place to use lxpanelctl is by far the numerous key bindings provided by window managers. When the key combination is pressed, call lxpanelctl to popup system menu, or to open run dialog in lxpanel. Run lxpanelctl without any argument to see what command it currently recognizes. About Netstat and Netstatus plugins: 1. netstatus was ported from netstatus panel applet of GNOME Project. This plugin has good support on Linux/BSD/other UNIX, and it is released under GNU GPL. (the same as LxDE) 2. netstat is a new plugin written by LxDE developers as the lightweight replacement of netstatus plugin. It aims to be more usable and resource efficient. At the current stage, netstat runs only on Linux. About theming & lxpanel: 1. In future, hardcoding should not be used for icon lookup. Instead, use Gtk's built-in functions to handle icon lookup. If necessary, provide a fallback (hardcoded) icon. 2. Current icon names that can be themed specifically for lxpanel include: *"lxpanel-background" *"clock" *"capslock-on" *"capslock-off" *"numlock-on" *"numlock-off" *"scrllock-on" *"scrllock-off" *"wincmd" *"ns-lock" *possibly more, as yet unfound. 3. You can also set theme for any plugin specifically using it's widget name which is equal to plugin type. 4. There is a specific RC file which can be loaded by LXPanel, it can be placed as ~/.config/lxpanel/$PROFILE/gtkrc, where $PROFILE is the profile used on the LXPanel start. There are also a substantial amount of others, but they use the icon naming specification. About keyboard options translations in xkb plugin: The 'xkb' plugin can use translations from language packs that are present in many distributions. To use it you should have language pack which includes "xkeyboard-config" translations.