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If you discover that you don't use a particular panel very often, just click on its title and it is collapsed to a single line of text. A small + or - at the left side of the panel title indicates whether the panels is collapsed or expanded.

Different panels expanded or collapsed

Many Eleven (11) property panels have been migrated from Symphony. Some : Alignment, Area, Cell Appearance, Graphic, Line, Number Format, Page, Paragraph, Position and Size, Text and Wrap.
Seven (7) panels come from the old Impress tool panel. Others show frequently used : Available for Use, Custom Animation, Layouts, Recently Used, Slide Transition, Table Design, Used in This Presentation.
Four (4) are non-modal (ie non locking) dialogs: Functions, Gallery, Navigator, Syles and Formatting.
One (1) is new: Insert.

Panels from Symphony, the old Impress task pane, OpenOffice dialogs (from left to right).

The width of the sidebar can be adjusted. The controls adapt their size accordingly. If you need more space than then it can be undocked — and possibly moved to a second display — or it can be reduced to a thin column of iconstab bar. A single click on one of them the icons and the sidebar is back.

Different widths of the sidebar: maximum width, default width, too narrow to display content, collapsed to tab bar (from left to right).

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Of course, not all of OpenOffice's functionality can be represented by a couple of controls in the sidebar. If you need an advanced function then just click on the "more options" button in the title bar of a panel title bar to open a dialog with many more options and properties.panel title bar, dialog

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Click on 'more options' to get, well, more options.

More information can be found in the OpenOffice wiki.

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