I think the default is "Control-Alt-D". This is customizable in gnome in Preferences | Personal | Keyboard Shortcuts. There's also a gnome panel button/icon c

I think the default is "Control-Alt-D". This is customizable in gnome in Preferences | Personal | Keyboard Shortcuts. There's also a gnome panel button/icon called "show desktop" that can be toggled on and off. Alternatively, you can have multiple virtual desktops, and if you need to switch mental contexts to handle the cases like you described, you can switch to a different, empty one. Instant new context, and the old context isn't disturbed at all. This is actually a good example of something where you don't know the kinds of things Linux offers and it's difficult to know where to start to translate your Windows-desktop-fu to Linux-desktop-fu.