The applications that are provided with the GNOME Desktop share many common features, such as similar open and save dialogs and similar-looking icons. This is because they have all been developed using the GNOME development platform. An application developed using this platform is called a GNOME-compliant application. For example, Nautilus and the gedit text editor are GNOME-compliant applications.
Some of the features of GNOME-compliant applications are as follows:
Consistent look-and-feel
GNOME-compliant applications have a consistent look-and-feel. You can use the Appearance preference tool to change the look-and-feel of your GNOME-compliant applications.
Menubars, toolbars, and statusbars
Most GNOME-compliant applications have a menubar, a toolbar, and a statusbar. The menubars usually have a similar structure; for example, the Help menu always contains an About menu item.
A toolbar is a bar that appears under the menubar. A toolbar contains buttons for the most commonly-used commands. A statusbar is a bar at the bottom of a window that provides information about the current state of what you are viewing in the window. Applications might also contains other bars. For example, Nautilus contains a location bar.
Default shortcut keys
GNOME-compliant applications use the same shortcut keys to perform the same actions. See Section 1.2 ― Keyboard Skills for a list of common shortcut keys.
Drag-and-drop
When you drag-and-drop something into a GNOME-compliant application, it will recognize the format of the items that you dragged and will handle them in an appropriate manner. For example, when you drag a HTML file from a Nautilus window to a web browser, the file is displayed in HTML format in the browser. However, when you drag the HTML file to a text editor, the file is displayed in plain text format in the text editor.