The LaunchBar

The MediaCenter LaunchBar is the primary control for launching its components and 3rd party applications in MediaCenter. It contains icons which function as short-cuts for the core MediaCenter components (Download, Organizer, Enhancer, NetCard and Photo Services) and for any 3rd party applications that you add. You can flexibly configure the LaunchBar in a variety of ways to compliment the way you work. You can:

• Add or remove applications to MediaCenter

• Open supported files using drag and drop functionality

• View or hide the LaunchBar

• Change the size of LaunchBar icons

Adding/Removing LaunchBar applications

You can easily customize the LaunchBar by adding or removing 3rd party applications. The advantage of doing this is to have just the tools you want at your fingertips without leaving MediaCenter. When you add applications, you are actually just adding an application short cut to the LaunchBar. When you remove an application from the LaunchBar, the application is not removed from your system. It is just removed from MediaCenter as a short cut.

Open supported files using drag and drop functionality

The Launch Bar icons represent MediaCenter short cuts to components or 3rd party application executables installed on your system. As such, you can drag and drop any supported file directly onto a LaunchBar icon and MediaCenter will display the contents of the dragged file. The following examples illustrate how the LaunchBar icons handle drag and drop functionality:

• If you drag a supported file (say, a JPEG file) over a LaunchBar icon for a MediaCenter component (say, Enhancer), that file will open as a picture document in MediaCenter's Enhancer.

• If you drag an unsupported file (say, a PCX file) over a LaunchBar icon for a 3rd party application (Photoshop, for example) that does not use DocObject container technology, but is compatible with that file, the file will open in the application outside of MediaCenter.

• If you drag a file over a LaunchBar icon that is not supported by the application that icon represents, the file will not be accepted.

Viewing/Hiding the LaunchBar

You can choose to view or hide the LaunchBar whenever you are working in MediaCenter. The ability to view or hide the LaunchBar is toggled from the main LaunchBar toggle at the bottom of the MediaCenter window or from from the View menu as described below:

• If the LaunchBar is currently hidden, choose View LaunchBar to make it display.

• If the LaunchBar is currently displayed, choose View LaunchBar to hide it.

Changing the size of LaunchBar icons

LaunchBar icons are displayed in the "large" size by default. However, you can easily make the icons smaller by right clicking anywhere in the LaunchBar and choosing Small Icon from the context menu. (You can also change the size of the LaunchBar icons form within the LaunchBar menu.) This may be helpful if you have added a lot of applications to MediaCenter and you wish to be able to see all of the icons at one time.