aside from inside a console or on the desktop the right mouse button doesn't do much. I am used to right clicking on an app (ppp for example) and being asked if I want to copy it to the desktop or the stattus bar (bottom right corner of screen) this is the equivalent of making a short cut. How do I do that With Antix?

I am used to how mepis works and understand there is a learning curve for Antix. Thanks in advance

antiX uses icewm and fluxbox window managers so it does not work in the same way as full desktop environments such as gnome, kde or xfce.
To add a shortcut to the icewm toolbar at the bottom, you'll need to edit the toolbar file.
In antiXcontrol centre->Edit icewm_>Toolbar.
Just follow the same syntax.

Alternatively, you could use rox-panel and that does allow drag and drop of an app into the panel.