LaunchBar Commander Beta with "Tab Nodes"

[mouser]

June 13, 2009

For those who were hoping when they saw this topic for some new cool look, i'm sorry to dissapoint -- this new beta feature does not add any new look to the program.

However it does add an interesting new ability to LBC.

You can now create "tab" submenu nodes, which are meant to hold a collection of child submenus, which can be switched between.  By placing such a tab submenu on your dock you can easily click to switch the configuration of your docking bar icons on the fly to different sets of buttons to suit your needs.

For example, you might have one submenu with all your graphics tools, and one with all your programming tools.  Putting these submenus under a "MyWorkflow" tab node, you can now easily switch between these two groups of buttons on your main dock.

[mouser]

I think i can hear the crickets..

[lanux128]

just tried it, works great.

[dluby]

Yeah, I like it (I think). However, once you have activated a sub menu, how can you close it so it goes back to normal?  I'll play some more with it.

Keep those new features rolling and don't mind those crickets.

[mouser]

you cant actually close it to nothingness -- you have to set it for one of the children submenus.  But you can create an empty child submenu.

[KenR]

I think i can hear the crickets..

-mouser (June 14, 2009, 03:06 AM)

Well, don't take it personally Jesse. I love all your software. Since I am using DOpus though, I just use it to generate my launch bars rather than running an additional program to do it.

Ken

[lanux128]

just adding a small screenshot. i was thinking that on the other end of the bar, there could be arrows that act like the next/previous buttons.

[mouser]

i see you are doing something i didnt think of, which is to not use images in your Tab Node, so that it switches between the Text description of each of your submenu modes.  Nice idea.
Maybe ill make an option for this so users can easily try that idea.

[dluby]

Here's a suggestion...

I believe LBC has undiscovered capabilities that a lot of might use if we could see them demonstrated.

Mouser - could you put together a configuration file that we could load to our own PCs for typical windows installs.

So for Windows XP users you might show off the capabilities of LBC using the standard programs that get loaded by Windows (assuming they all get installed to C:\Windows or is it C:\WinXP?).  You could show off menus to Programs, Control Panel, My Documents, Start Menu, showing folder contents and all types of nodes & menu types.

A similar configuration file could then be created for Vista...

What do you think or are the possible differences in installs too much?

[dluby]

HELP!

My PC crashed (nothing to do with LBC) and when I rebooted, LBC was asking me to configure it.

My MCF file was gone, but a backup was there from around the time I installed beta version 1.102.01.

When I try to load the bak file I get an error: error loading nodes from file - cmc error.

Any ideas on how to fix.  Do I need to go back to the non beta version?

Thanks

Damian

[mouser]

LBC is very good at not losing .mcf files and contents,
but it can happen that LBC forgets which mcf file was last loaded if it crashes-- which scares people.

see if you can find your .mcf file before worrying about any backup files..

what operating system are you using? LBC sometimes stores by default in its application folder, sometimes in your docs and settings folder, depending on the OS.
let's talk over email and ill see if i cant help you find it ([email protected])