start buttons?

[glen_gibson maxnet co nz]

This is probably a dumb question, but....

I've always wondered how to code something similar to the taskbar like
what you'd get with KDE or Gnome where you have a main button you click on
which pops upward with menu options?

Dare I say it "like the start button in Windows"

Anyone able to show me a coding example?  Would it just be something like
a button that's smart enough to know where to put a popup menu in relation
to where it is itself?

Glen