List of FAQs organised by topic // take a peek at the FAQ's under the "Toolbar and Command Editing" heading.
...there is also an entire Buttons & Toolbars sub-forum as well.
For your meta data pane question, right click on your toolbar and select Customize. Then on the default 'Operations' toolbar, under the 'Properties' menu button that Leo mentioned - just right click on the 'Edit Metadata' button and 'Copy' it. Then just go to your toolbar, right click on it and do a 'Paste'. If you don't like the 'floating' metapane, and want the vertically docked panel - you just add a button that runs the command: set metapane=toggle,vert