Out-of-control Panel

[mhoffman <mhoffman1 pdq net>]

Greetings, all.  I'm running Gnome on Red Hat Linux 7, and my main panel
is behaving...strangely.

First, the little boxes on the right side that allow you to select other
Gnome "terminals" (or whatever they're called) disappeared
spontaneously.   The frame that holds the little buttons remained, but
the buttons themselves disappeared.  This isn't a huge problem, however,
because I don't use that option --yet.

A more annoying development followed.  When I minimize a window, the
window doesn't appear as an option in the panel.  I can only select it
by going to the pager on the right.  Does anyone know what is going on,
or have any suggestions?

Thanks in advance!

Matthew Hoffman