QTbar (Quick Toolbar) tutorial
How to get most of Quick Toolbar?
Welcome to the apivision.com QTbar (Quick Toolbar) tutorial. This tutorial is aimed to explain you, how to configure apivision.com QTbar (Quick Toolbar) after you've downloaded it. Thanks to this tutorial you'll know how to take advantage of apivision.com QTbar's most exciting features.
This tutorial has mostly been based on the perfectly-done "apivision.com QTbar (Quick Toolbar) Tutorial" in Korean by Caeyong Kim from SoftWant.com. He's given me the permission to use the images and some parts of the text (although I don't speak Korean ;-) from his tutorial. Many thanks, Caeyong Kim!
OK, let's get on with it. What happens...
...after the download...
... and installation is that you see a floating apivision.com QTbar (Quick Toolbar) on your screen:
Now, you should dock it to one of the edges of your desktop. You may dock apivision.com QTbar (Quick Toolbar) to any of the edges of the screen (right, left, up or down) just like on the image below:
To dock apivision.com QTbar (Quick Toolbar) to any of the edges of the desktop, simply use the caption of the apivision.com QTbar (Quick Toolbar) (1) or on one of the small purple captions on the left or right side of the application (2) and press on one of these places with your left-mouse-button and move the application to any of the sides of your desktop. I keep my apivision.com QTbar (Quick Toolbar) on the bottom of the desktop, but that's just the way I like it ;-)
Now let's analyze each of the buttons of apivision.com QTbar (Quick Toolbar), first we'll sart with...
...the "APIVISION" button...
...where you can access the apivision.com QTbar's main menu. You can also access the very same menu by clicking with your right-mouse-button on the Taskbar Icon of the apivision.com QTbar (Quick Toolbar).
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Now, click on the "Configuration" option from the menu and you'll see first page of the apivision.com QTbar (Quick Toolbar) configuration called "Main options".
1. QTbar always on top - if checked, apivision.com QTbar (Quick Toolbar) will always appear in front of all the other windows (i.e. you cannot "cover it" with any application window).
Auto-hide - if checked, our freeware desktop bar for Windows will not be visible permanently on the desktop but will hide itself automatically behind the edge of the screen.
2. Launch QTbar - if checked, apivision.com QTbar (Quick Toolbar) will automatically launch and appear on your desktop when the Windows starts.
3. Windows Tray - if checked, it will show the apivision.com QTbar (Quick Toolbar) icon in the Taskbar (see above)
When you move to the...
...Disk buttons...
...option in the configuration, you'll be able to choose the layout of the disk buttons on your apivision.com QTbar (Quick Toolbar). The left image shows you the configuration and the right one illustrates how the disk buttons look on the tool bar on your desktop:
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In the Disk buttons section you can also choose the size of the font of the disk buttons on the bar (left image) and if the buttons should be divided into button and sub-folder menu (right image).
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The last part of the Disk buttons section are the advanced options where you can decide what the sub-folder menus of the disk buttons should display.
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My advice: Leave the options checked as they are set by default. The last two options are for very advanced users with really fast computers (I personally don't use these options although I seem to be an advanced user...). |
The next section in the configuration of your apivision.com QTbar (Quick Toolbar) freeware application is the one called...
...Shortcuts to programs...
... and thanks to this option, many users have already "cleaned" their desktops and put all the shortcuts to their applications there. Now they can watch their beautiful wallpapers ;-)
You may add shortcuts to programs, documents and files... to whatever you want. Remember however that QTbar is creating only shortcuts to the files (i.e. the file must be somewhere on the disk in order for the shortcut to work - just like in the Start Menu)
Note: To quickly add the shortcuts to QTbar simply drag them from desktop or Windows Explorer and drop them either on this list or on the shortcuts' section of QTbar.
For example: image on the left - the shortcuts' section on your apivision.com QTbar (Quick Toolbar) after installation, image on the right - the shortcuts' section after you've added the shortcut to your first program:
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Now let's get on to the fourth section of the configuration of our favorite freeware application, the...
...Your links...
...section, where you can add links to your most-often-visited websites, or simply jot down the links that you want to visit in the future.
It works like this:
You click on the add button (1) and then type the name (2) of the Internet site (e.g. "Apivision.com - experts in e-commerce") and link (3) to this very Internet site (e.g. "http://apivision.com").
The image below shows how Your links button on your Quick Toolbar looks like.
1. Links that you've just added to the "Your Links" section of your freeware desktop tool bar.
2. Clicking on this option gives you the possibility to add an Internet link quicker.
Note: If you click on any Internet link (1) in this section,
you'll open it in the new window of your default Internet browser.
Now let's move on to the...
...QTemail addresses...
...section of the configuration where you can put E-mail addresses to you best friends and access them later with a single-mouse-click.
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You can import (1) or add one-by-one (2) E-mail addresses to this list (3).
The import (1) feature of QTemail is really powerful, because it lets you import E-mail addresses from the address-book of your E-mail program and put them in QTbar. This way you'll be able to write E-mails to your friends directly from your Windows desktop! |
However firstly I'll explain how the add (2) feature works and then we'll get on to the import (1).
To add a single E-mail of a friend, press the add button in the QTemail section and you will be prompted to give name or nickname (1) of your friend and their E-mail address (2).
To import E-mail addresses to apivision.com QTbar (Quick Toolbar) you have to firstly export them from your existing E-mail client.
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If you're using Microsoft Outlook Express, go to menu File > Export > Address Book and then choose: "text file (Comma Separated Values)" and choose two fields to export: name and E-mail. After the export, your new text file should look like the one in the image. |
Now press the import button in the QTemail section and follow the instructions in the Import wizard.
First step: press the "Browse" button and choose the file that you've just exported from Outlook Express.
Press the "Next" button and in the second step you'll be informed about the Import results.
If you're satisfied with the results, press "Finish".
Congratulations! You've just imported your E-mails to QTbar's QTemail section!
Now you can access all these E-mail addresses with a single-mouse-click using
the QTemail button on your apivision.com QTbar (Quick Toolbar).
Now, the next section in the configuration of your favorite freeware application is the...
...Buttons on QTbar...
...section where you can decide, which buttons you want to see on QTbar and which not by checking and un-checking the boxes next to the button descriptions.
Note: This section is for experienced QTbar users. I mean, first you have to really get to know and test all the buttons of QTbar and recognize their usability for you and only then you should remove the buttons you won't be using.
The last section in the configuration of our freeware desktop tool bar is the...
...Open Folder...
| ...section where you can decide how you want your apivision.com QTbar (Quick Toolbar) to open folders, using Windows Explorer or default folder view. The two images below show you the difference (which basically is that in Windows Explorer you also see a folder tree on the left side of the window). |  |
Good! We're done with the configuration of your tiny desktop tool bar, but we're not yet thorough with our tutorial. Now I'll show you the remaining buttons that also appear on apivision.com QTbar (Quick Toolbar) and explain you what they are for. Let's start with the...
...Favorites button...
| ...that (after clicking on it) shows you a menu with link to all your favorite internet pages that you've saved with the Internet Explorer. Clicking on any of the links in this menu will open the website in a new window of your default Internet browser. |  |
The next button we'll focus on will be the...
...Default Windows Folders...
...button that once clicked on, shows you a listing of the typical Windows folders that every user is accessing quite often.
Thanks to this button, you'll be able to open not only these folders, but also their subfolders and files.
A very useful feature that you'll not encounter in any other application is the...
...QTfolders...
...button, where you can store shortcuts to any folder or subfolder on your computer.
When you click on the QTfolders button, you'll see a menu with your QTfolders and an item called: "Show All QTfolders" (1).
Show All QTfolders is where you manage all your QTfolders. To add a folder, click on the "+" (plus) button or drag a folder from Windows Explorer and drop it on the white space of this list. Then just give this folder a name (1) and browse for its exact path (2) (look at the image and the example with "Outlook" QTfolder).
Note: when you drag files or folders from your Windows Explorer and drop them on any of the QTfolders on this list, you'll be able to copy/move/compress these files to this QTfolder.
Here you can see what happened after you've added the "Outlook" folder to QTfolders. Thanks to the QTfolders button, you gained a direct single-mouse-click access to the subfolder of "C:\Program Files\Outlook Express".
The last buttons I'll talk about are my two favorite buttons of apivision.com QTbar (Quick Toolbar), the...
...GO! and Search the Internet...
| ...that give me a quick access to any Internet website I want and open them in a new Window of my default Internet browser. |  |
When you click on the GO! button you'll open a dialog just like the one you see on image on the left and your cursor will appear in
the box no.1. You just have to type in the link of the website you want to visit (e.g. http://brandspot.biz) and press ENTER key on your keyboard.
Clicking on the search the Internet button will open the same dialog box, but your cursor will appear in the box no.2. Just write what you want to find in the Internet and press ENTER key on your keyboard.
The box no.3 is for opening files and folders on your computer, start typing: "c:\p..." and you'll see what happens...
Note: All of the boxes are using the in-line Auto-complete technology known from Internet Explorer to help you type everything faster and easier.
So we're getting close to the end of our apivision.com QTbar (Quick Toolbar) tutorial. I'd like to finish with one of the most exciting features of my desktop tool bar freeware application, the Drag-and-Drop to the disk buttons to...
...Copy, Move, Compress and Decompress (ZIP)...
...files and folders. Not many people are aware of this feature, but indeed it's what I like most of my desktop tool bar application.
It works like this:
You select files and/or folders and click on them with the left-mouse-button, hold the button and move the files (drag) towards your apivision.com QTbar (Quick Toolbar)...
...and once you've arrived with your mouse cursor on the desired disk, you let go the left-mouse-button (drop) and...
...you'll see a copy / move / decompress dialog box, where you'll be able to choose if you wan to copy, move or compress the dropped files, choose destination folder or even create a new folder and press OK to accept the operation.
Try it for yourself! I'm Dragging and dropping all the time!
Tip: if you drop a single ZIP file (e.g. "packedfile.zip") on Disk buttons, you will be shown a "decompress" option instead of "compress" in this dialog box.
That's it! We haven't covered all the features of this small freeware tool bar for your Windows desktop - apivision.com QTbar (Quick Toolbar), but we've covered most of it. Hope you enjoy using the application as much as we (apivision.com) have enjoyed creating it for you!
Again, I'd like to thank Caeyong Kim from SoftWant.com for his great tutorial in Korean and for letting me use his materials to create this very tutorial of apivision.com QTbar (Quick Toolbar).
Warmest regards,
Michael Sliwinski,
apivision.com - developer of apivision.com QTbar.