Re: newbie question- how do you create a new panel?

you need to press shift+option then click on the curve editor tab
this will turn it into a mini window that you can put on another monitor

for a viewer window you go to the viewer menu and choose 'spawn viewer desktop' and you get the same thing

for any node press command or control and T, and it will turn that nodes parameters into a normal window
great for making the curves view of a lookup node into a larger window then the parameters box