The Haiku/BeOS Tip Server » Tracker & Deskbar

Avoiding awkward file placements on Desktop

humdinger — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 17:48:52 +0000

If you use the desktop applet LaunchBox, or keep some other tool open at some fixed position on the screen, you may have experienced this: Newly created or re-ordered files on the Desktop can happen to appear below such a panel. Since these panels are just normal windows, there’s nothing you can do but at worst having to move the panel a bit, right?

Wrong. Here’s the trick:

Since Replicants protect their space on the Desktop from icons being placed there, you can use e.g. the Workspaces desktop applet to fence off your LaunchBox panel. Move your panel to the side temporarily, adjust the Workspaces window to roughly fit the panel size and grab the Replicant handle to drag the Workspaces panel to the desired LaunchPad position.

Move LaunchBox back on top of the replicated Workspaces panel and you’re all set.

Move the Deskbar

shacker — Tue, 09 Sep 1997 09:36:29 +0000

Some people have had trouble figuring out how to move the DeskBar to other locations on the screen. The reason for the confusion is that it doesn’t move or give any user feedback until your mouse has reached all the way to the new destination.

Grab the row of “grippy dots” at the left or right of the replicant shelf (i.e. to the side of the clock) and move your mouse all the way to another corner or screen edge, then let go.

FileTypes overview

shacker — Tue, 09 Sep 1997 09:36:29 +0000

BeOS’ file-type handling is based on MIME types — the Internet standard for identifying file formats by their extensions. But you can also dial in file types on the individual or directory level. In other words, every HTML file on your system doesn’t have to be associated with a single application, as it does on Windows.

As on the Mac, files will by default inherit the filetype of the application that created them. If that app can’t be found, as is often the case with files you download from the Net, a filetype will be guessed by the file extension (if there is one). In other words, you get the best of both worlds: Mac-like intelligence about knowing who created what, and Windows-like convenience of having files from alien systems automatically associated as long as they have an extension (like .txt or .html).

To change the filetype of a single file, right-click it and choose Addons | Filetype. When the dialog pops up, drag a file that already has the association you want on top of the dialog. Alternatively, if you know what you’re doing, you can edit the MIME type manually.

When you close the panel, you’ll be asked if you want to save the new association. Say yes and you’re all set.

Use the GoTo menu

shacker — Tue, 09 Sep 1997 09:36:29 +0000

When you’re saving a document, be sure and use the GoTo menu at the top of the save dialog box. You can put your most-used folders (such as Desktop, MP3, home, or Downloads, etc) in the GoTo folder. Just navigate to the folder, and then click GoTo and Add Current Folder. See also Remove Items from the GoTo Folder.

Kill and restart the Tracker

shacker — Tue, 09 Sep 1997 09:36:29 +0000

If you ever need to kill the Tracker (for example, you might have changed the Tracker settings file and want them to take effect without having to reboot), there are several possible methods. All of these work… pick your poison:

Bring up Team Monitor with Ctrl+Alt+Del, select Tracker in the list, and click the Kill button.
Use the Vulcan Death Grip: Right-Ctrl+Alt+Shift+Click on Tracker’s entry in the Deskbar.
The super-secret shortcut (Tracker must have focus for this to work):

Cmd+Option+Shift+Ctrl+Q (so with a PC keyboard you have to press Alt+ Right-Ctrl + Shift + Left Ctrl + Q, but of course it’s much easier to use the left WinKey rather than Right Ctrl).

Note that the old Ctrl+Alt+Shift+Z no longer works.

To restart the Tracker, open a Terminal and type:

/system/Tracker &

or bring up Team Monitor and click “Restart the Desktop”.

Self-destructing queries

shacker — Tue, 09 Sep 1997 09:36:29 +0000

As you know, queries are always automatically saved to /boot/home/queries. As of R4, queries will automatically delete themselves in seven days. If you’re constructing a query and want to make sure this doesn’t happen, click the latch in the query interface to access the additional options, and deselect the “Temporary” checkbox.

Add scripts to the Be menu

shacker — Tue, 09 Sep 1997 09:36:29 +0000

You already know that you can create any structure of files and folders you want under the Be menu (see Customize the Be menu). An easy way to add a little functionality to your system is to create little scripts that do housekeeping chores to the Be menu.

You might want to start by creating a new submenu for your scripts under/boot/home/config/be/. Then you can place text files here that function as scripts. Just be sure the first line is

#!/bin/sh

and that you chmod it executable by typing chmod 755 filename.

I’ve created /boot/home/config/be/__/ (that’s two underscores) to contain the items I use most often, such as NetPositive and BeIDE. Here are two scripts which I use quite often.

#!/bin/sh

NetPositive file:///boot/home/bookmarks.html

#!/bin/sh

rm -rf /boot/home/config/settings/NetPositive/NetCache/

Browse anything anywhere locally

shacker — Tue, 09 Sep 1997 09:36:29 +0000

This script allows me to look at anything I want under NetPositive from the command-line. I keep this in /boot/home/config/bin/N+here, and use it as a quick means to browse through directory trees.

NetPositive file:// `pwd` /$1 &

Then all I have to do is type:

N+here

to bring up a directory listing in NetPositive.

If this doesn’t work for you, try this instead: #!/bin/sh NetPositive file:$PWD/$1 &

(This last bit thanks to Eide-Goodman )

Precision file sorting

shacker — Tue, 09 Sep 1997 09:36:29 +0000

Like other OSs, BeOS will let you display a list of files in the Tracker according to certain criteria. For instance, to view all your files alphabetically, click the Name header at the top of the column (you need to be in List view to make this work).

But BeOS goes one better than that by allowing for a sort within a sort. Establish your first sort criteria, then hold down the Shift key and sort by a second criteria. You can, for instance, get a Modified Date sort to appear within your alpha sort.

Change the preferred application for a global filetype

shacker — Tue, 09 Sep 1997 09:36:29 +0000

[Editor's note: there are two similar but different FileTypes dialogs in BeOS. One (the FileTypes panel found in your Preferences folder) changes associations and settings for system-wide preferences, while the other (the FileType panel invoked when you right-click a file and choose FileType from the context menu) changes preferences for the current file only. The following example uses BeMail as an example, but the principle applies to any FileType on your system.]

Suppose you want to change the application that’s invoked when you double-click on a mail file. Normally, BeMail will be launched, but you want NiftyApp to be launched instead.

What you want to do is set the preferred application for a specific mimetype, in this case text/E-mail.

The steps to do this for PR2 are:

open /boot/beos/preferences/FileTypes (via double click, no drop of a mail file on it or via a context menu of a mail file!)
in the left-top ListView, you see known mime-types
scroll down to the “text” entry and click on E-mail
now change the Preferred Application: from BeMail to NiftyApp
click Select... and choose NiftyApp from your Apps folder (or whatever the folder is that this application happens to reside in)
in the alert window that pops up, choose Set anyway
close FileTypes to save your changes

Now double-click on a mail file and smile :-)