Once you have installed PowerBar, you must restart to begin to realize the advantages it provides. Upon restart, you should (after a few brief moments) see a toolbar hovering near the top of your screen. It is full of what are initially empty buttons. It is your next task to determine what you want to put on those buttons and proceed accordingly.
You have the option to include the following items as buttons on the toolbar:
Special Commands - These are PowerBar's renditions of various Finder functions from the Finder's menu bar. These commands simply perform the same activity as though they were selected via the menus rather than via button clicks. The AliasBOSS Special Command goes beyond that and provides enhanced alias management. To install these commands, select âSpecial Commandsâ from the PowerBar menu. Select which commands youâd like to include by clicking on them. A large âââ will appear next to the item. When you dismiss the dialog by clicking the âAccept Command(s)â button, any items marked thusly will appear as buttons on the toolbar. If an item is âgrayed outâ in the list, it means that it has already been included as a button on the toolbar. Only QuicKey⢠buttons and PlaceHolder buttons may be included more than once (hence these will never be âgrayed outâ).
NOTE: To install Special Commands, you MUST have as many empty buttons VISIBLE ON THE TOOLBAR as there are commands to be installed. If there are no visible empty buttons, then the selected Special Commands will not be installed.
Applications, Documents & Folders - Like any good program launcher, PowerBar lets you include buttons representing your favorite and most frequently used applications and documents. Better yet, you can include any file on the toolbar! Then, the mere act of clicking that button opens the file, whether it is a document, application, control panel or folder (including hard disks). To include any file on the toolbar, simply drag it to an empty button or click an empty button and select the item via an open file dialog.
Status Pads - These little goodies present information regarding the current status of your Mac. There are pads for showing the date/time, printer, status of AppleTalk, PowerBook information, memory and disk consumption, and more! To use, check the appropriate item in the Status Pads Preferences dialog (via the PowerBar Control Panel).
PowerModules - Developers have an opportunity to extend the functionality of PowerBar even further by utilizing these PowerBar extensions. There are a few samples included in this distribution which give one a very basic idea what is possible. To include one of the sample PowerModules, just drag it to an empty button on the toolbar. If you hold the COMMAND key down while clicking on a PowerModule button, youâll get the âAboutâ box for that PowerModule.
