Technically Working - LaunchBar Settings with Damash
[0:00] All right, so today what I want to demonstrate is I'm going to take you through my adventures in LaunchBar's settings.
I'm going to go a little fast because most stuff is kind of self-explanatory, but I will stop and explain either what some maybe ambiguous options are actually for, or explain why I'm changing certain things the way that I am changing them. So without further ado, let's get into it. So I hit Command Space to bring up LaunchBar. I have already changed some settings but right now my launch bar is in the most default state I have ever operated in for an extended period of time since I first started using it. And it's been painful, I gotta say, because I don't have a lot of things configured as I normally would in preparation for doing this audio.
[0:46] So I hit command space, that's the one thing I have changed is my shortcut is command space because I don't use spotlight at all. Very briefly, if you go into if you're on a previous prior to Ventura operating system, you want to go to system preferences, keyboard shortcuts, and then go down in the first table to spotlight and I just unchecked the box for spotlight, you can change the shortcut for spotlight or leave it as is and set your your launch bar shortcut to be something different. If you're a spotlight user, if you're like me, you're going to uncheck spotlight altogether. And then when you open LaunchBar for the first time and you are going through the setup process, which I didn't record, you're asked what you want your shortcut to be. And so long as SpotlightShortcut is not the same as what you attempt to set yours to, or you have disabled the SpotlightShortcut, you can use Command Space. So now I'm gonna hit Command-Command to get into the preferences, because that's really what this is all about.
[1:44] So I'm gonna start in this toolbar at the beginning with General. Out of toolbar, general options. All right, so let's go through the general options real quick. Automatically showing high indexing progress. Uncheck checkbox. Automatically showing high indexing progress. I always uncheck this. What I expected would show is just like some sort of, you know, status message of that is, you know, updating the index, which is, which are the things that LaunchBar searches for and keeps up to date very much like the spotlight index. In fact, it uses the spotlight index for some things. I unchecked that because I don't need to see it and I probably wouldn't see it. And if voiceover spoke it, it would be annoying. Speak selected item, unchecked checkbox. Speak selected item, not exactly sure what that one does, but because I'm using voiceover, it seems to me that I don't need any extra speech stuff going on. So again, I always have that one unchecked. Play instant send sound effect, unchecked checkbox. Play instant send sound effect, I'm actually gonna turn that on, and that is when you're using instant send. See another bit of audio, sending files with LaunchBar or text selection to LaunchBar for what Instant Send actually does. Retype delay. 8% slider. There's a Retype delay, I never touched that at all. 0.5, 1.1.5, 2.0, 2.5, 3.0, seconds. And all those are just the different, you know, kind of default quick settings for your repeat. Open location. Switch to open location when.characters entered.
[3:09] Always pop a button. All right, so open location. This is a very handy way to quickly, using LaunchBar, bring up a field where you can type in a URL here return and have it open in your default browser. I have this set anytime I proceed leading dot only is what I do. So if I want to open up a URL let's say I want to go to payon.live if I hit dot that automatically puts me in an edit field in launch bar where I could type payon.live and then you know rest of the way there. Prefer secure, so that's going to automatically fall back to HTTPS as opposed to HTTP.
[3:51] Automatically prefix the hostname with www. I uncheck that because some of the domains that I use to get there, I know for a fact, www does nothing because I'm the one who set them up and you know, I don't use that. DefaultTopLevel.com, I'll leave that as is. You can always edit that as you're typing it in and And I'll have a demonstration of what this looks like in a later video. So you get a little bit more familiar with this. Postal addresses. Mailing label personal prefix. Content selected edit text. You can change what the personal label prefix is. Sometimes you send out a letter and you're printing an address onto an envelope or something and it says attention or if you're a spammer, don't be a spammer. It may say to customer, dear customer, dear resident. I don't really touch this I don't do a lot of printing envelopes. All right, so that is the end of our general section. I'm going to quickly jump back to the toolbar. And we're going to go to appearance.
[4:51] So now I'm out of the toolbar and I'm going to navigate through the appearance options and make a few changes and explain what I think needs explaining here. Theme, I don't really care so much about.
[5:04] Show result when searching immediately. I've never not had it set to that because that is the default. So I don't know what anything else would do. anything else would do, I just leave it alone because it behaves as I expect it to, which is when I type something, you instantly show me what you think I'm looking for. Show abbreviation, check box. At least that's my understanding of it. Show abbreviation, I'm gonna uncheck this. Again, I'll show this in a later video how to actually do this, but you can set an abbreviation so that when, say for example, when you type MAS, that always brings up the App Store, right? Just to make your life easier. You can customize what some of those things are so it gets you filtered much quicker. I don't need it to show me those on LaunchBar when I'm browsing, however, because again, VoiceOver doesn't speak them and I can't see them. Show all subtitles, uncheck chat box. Show all subtitles, that is a new setting, I'm not really sure what that does. Automatically hide LaunchBar, check chat box. Automatically hide LaunchBar, this you absolutely want checked unless you have a reason not to. What this does is when you invoke LaunchBar with Command Space in my case, and you perform an action or navigate to a space, do whatever you're gonna do with LaunchBar. It will go away out of your focus and drop you where you are and not just be there. So also helps when you're recording screencasts that you don't have this little window kind of hovering somewhere off to the side either. So that I always have checked. Open same display, front most window, check checkbox.
[6:27] That doesn't so much matter for me, but if you use multiple displays, you may wanna think this process through as to where you want LaunchBar to show up. For me, I'm always just on one display or no display if I'm on a Mac Mini, because I just stick in a little fake thing that tricks the Mac Mini.
[6:46] Seven visible rows while searching by abbreviation. These are settings that I never touch, All right, so that is the end of the appearance so let's go back.
[7:01] And we're gonna go to shortcuts All right, so let's go through shortcuts keyboard shortcut, Search in launch bar Minus set to command space, Searching spotlight you can set up a custom shortcut that will trigger Spotlight if you use it. I have this unchecked because as I said earlier I don't use Spotlight. Snippets, I haven't really used the snippets feature in LaunchBar myself personally because I have been for almost as long as I've been a LaunchBar user, been a Texas Bander user,probably longer with Texas Bander. So I never even explored the snippets here in LaunchBar. Emoji, I used to use the emoji search and launch bar. It's pretty cool, but I now use rocket. So I don't need their search, one less thing for it to index and keep track of and one less shortcut for me to stumble over.
[7:55] Calculator, this is super handy. And I use the, that says clear. It's not letting me change it for some reason, but I usually have that set to equals. And if I just tap the equals key, it actually does work. I'm not sure why it's saying clear, But the calculator shortcut, set that and you're able to tap, for me I tap equals, I bring up launch bar, tap equals and it automatically puts me in a quick little calculation field where I can do some very quick basic math, usually it's multiplying, dividing, figuring out what, you know 32% of something is so I know how much of a discount they're trying to make me think I'm getting.
[8:33] All right now we get some modifier taps, all of this I'm going to breeze through fairly quickly because they're like all alternative keys that you can use for things and I don't use any of them. Feel free to explore at your own leisure. Searching launch bar. Off. Pop-up button. Instant send. Off. Pop-up button. Snibbous. Off. Pop-up button. Browsing. Alternative arrow keys. Alright, so we went through all of those and what those basically are is you can use some alternative keys to invoke launch bar as well. Instant send. Off. Pop-up button. Snibbous. Off. Browsing. As I said, I don't use any of those. I have, I turned all of them to off. Some of them are on, so you may want to check that. Alternative keys. Alternative arrow keys. I don't use those. Those are where you can use like JK and L for arrow keys. I think K is I don't remember how they lay out and that's why I don't use them because I wouldn't remember how they're laid out. Instant info browsing. Now this is a pretty cool feature.
[9:25] Now it just told you what it how to invoke it. I'll tell you what it does. So you hit command space. Let's say you navigate over to a file and you want to kind of browse that text file real quick or something just to see if that's the right file because maybe you didn't name it very well. I am guilty of this oftentimes. Or if you press and hold the right arrow key it'll drill down a little bit more into a thing and it works in several different places. I don't use it a ton but it is handy when I do need it and I don't um I notice when it's not on. I can't really pin down situations when I actually use it. Other than the example I gave. Now this gives you option command Q if you check this to quit launch bar so that you don't accidentally quit it. But it also pops up a are you sure you want to quit launch bar if you hit command Q so I don't want to press an extra key because I forget. Plus also never quit launch bar so. Alright so that Here's the end of our shortcut screen. Let's go to the next. All right, now we're on the actions pane of the preferences for Launch Bar. There are two sections here, actions, default actions, and then options. So first we're gonna go through the default actions, and then I'll come back and quickly run through the options.
[10:48] Instant open folders, open, right? Now what this effectively means is like if you navigate to a folder in LaunchBar and you tap return, what do you want the behavior to be? Menu, browse in LaunchBar You have browse in LaunchBar browse in LaunchBar, check mark, check mark, open open. I choose open. So if I tap return, I will open that folder in the finder versus just continuing to open it in LaunchBar. If I want to navigate and browse the folder in LaunchBar, just tap the right arrow on it and it continues, you know, to allow me to navigate within LaunchBar directly. When I tap return, drops me inside of that folder in finder, which is great.
[11:28] AppleScript just determines how you handle AppleScript. This is what the next couple sections are going to be like. So if you highlight it, if you focus on Apple Script in LaunchBar and you hit return, what do you want it to do? In my case, I want you to run that Apple Script. Your other options are open with Apple Script Editor, run, and that's it. Right, well for me I want it to run if I'm looking for Apple Script in LaunchBar. Same with Automated Workflows, run, or you have an option to open them. Search Templates. So there are search templates and this will be another piece of content for me to create later on not only using search templates but creating your own search templates. But your options here are what do you want search templates to do? So me, I'll give you an example of a search template. I have a search template for your own pay.com to search for podcasts that I probably said something on or to search a podcast for what number is this episode. By default, there's Google, YouTube, et cetera. I do use the YouTube search a little bit more than I like to admit.
[12:33] Probably not as much as most people would think, but a lot more than I personally like to admit. But anyway, I can bring up a search template, tap the space bar, and then I can type in my search and launch bar, hit return, and then have it open that search result in my default browser. That's the behavior that I want. Search templates, enter text, pop up. So enter text is the option that I have mindset to. Menu, check mark. We'll check and see what the other options are. or open search page. So my assumption, because I haven't used that, is that if I have it set to open search page, instead of me being able to type my search into Launch Bar directly, hit return, and then have it open to search results on the appropriate page. It would just take me to say YouTube search.
[13:18] Contacts, open contacts. So what do I want to happen when I search out a contact and I tap return? In this case, it opens contacts. your other options are show information in large type and do some other things. I don't really use that all that often. I am buddies.
[13:32] Open with messages. Pop-up button. AIMBuddies open in messages. That's, I believe, the default setting. I don't really navigate to message people that way through LaunchBar, so I don't ever change this. Phone numbers. Display in large type. Pop-up button. Phone numbers display in large type. Again, I believe that is the default setting. Once again, I typically, if I search for contacts in LaunchBar, I will find them, find a piece of information, and use this command C to copy that bit of information off of it. So I never really hit return on contacts at all. But that is the end of our default actions. Default actions, options tab, two of two. Let's go to options. Hide all the applications when opening an item. Uncheck checkbox. Hide all the application when opening an item. I've never had this box checked. My assumption is that it would just hide all of the apps on the screen when I say, if I use this to open up Safari, for example, would hide mail and Slack and all of that stuff. Don't know that for certain, cause I've never checked it. I probably wouldn't know if it did it anyway, because I couldn't see it. And when I hit command tab, boom, there's mail back. So, hey, it doesn't make a difference. Show files and folders in current finder window. Uncheck checkbox. Show files and folders in current finder window. This, if you check this, if you have an existing finder window open, it will just open that result, you know, going back to the example of browsing the file system and hitting return to open a folder using launch bar, it would open it in the window you already have open. I don't have that checked because sometimes I'm looking for a folder so I can move things between them. So I want both of those windows open.
[15:00] This can lead to unintended consequences, be aware of that. If you use LaunchBar a lot to open up folders in the Finder, this way you're gonna end up with a bunch of Finder windows open. So just be aware of that. Make your choice. Open your windows and turn on your window or tab. Uncheck checkbox.
[15:13] I don't like messing with this at all. This will determine whether or not it opens up a link or you know using the open in feature that I just mentioned not the open in feature the URL entry feature that I mentioned earlier. Whether or not you wanted to open in the current tab or window that you have open in Safari. I don't like anything messing with my windows or tabs in Safari because I will lose things. So I don't have that checked. Prefixing addresses with real names. Check the chat box. Prefix addresses with real names. My perspective of what this does is when I grab an email address or look at an email address, it's going to have Michael Babcock and then the email address versus just the email address. And some people in my contacts have super weird email addresses. So I don't know what their email is. I have to see their name to associate them. So I have that checked. Preferred file browser. Automatic. Pop-up button. Preferred file browser. This says automatic. Your options are going to be... Finder, which is the file browser that I use by default. Pathfinder, which I don't have installed. And that's it. So, if you're a Pathfinder user application, I have never used at all, not saying anything's wrong with it, just never tried it out. Finder works pretty reasonably for me most times. I don't use it, but if you are a Pathfinder user, you can set this.
[16:32] To always default to using Pathfinder so that when you open up a folder, open up a folder, it opens it in whatever Pathfinder's interface looks like. Preferred terminal application. Preferred terminal application. I have been a macOS or OS 10 terminal user. I tried iTerm briefly, didn't stick for me, so I just stick to the terminal. So that is my default terminal application. I don't think it gives me any other options. Or it does give me iTerm even though it's not installed. So if I attempted... To switch to that they will probably yell at me and say i terms not installed.
[17:09] Open files of unknown type with finder now you can choose a different application here i kind of leave that as default because if i i very rarely just tap return on a file in finder i mean in launch bar i'm usually sending those files to to the application associated with them so i don't Don't touch this mostly because it doesn't affect my usage. Create calendar events with LaunchBar popup. Create calendar events with LaunchBar. That is the default. I don't know how that works. Because I use Fantastical. So if I want to create a calendar event, starting that process in LaunchBar, it's going to go to Fantastical. Create email with Automatic Mail popup. Create emails with Automatic. It's set to Automatic and it also has Mail kind of offering parentheses. You could change this if you're using a different mail app. Mime Stream shows up here if you are using Mime Stream. I'm pretty sure any of the other email third party apps for the Mac also would be available here. I tend to use Mac Mail most of the time. Play songs, play from album, pop up. Play songs if you wanna play it from the album or whatever. I don't really start my music journey in Apple Music from Launchbar at all. So I don't change this from the default. Play from album, pop up. And most of what you're seeing here is the default settings. I just don't change a lot of them because I haven't. The only thing that I changed was my shortcut.
[18:31] And a section that we're about to get to, calculator button, well not calculator, but we'll go there next because it's the next in the row. But when we get to the clipboard section, I've already kind of customized my clipboard history because that is a thing I have to have performing correctly. Now let's go through the calculator options. Check box clear. And it still says clear, but equals is bringing up my keyboard. So I don't know why that's telling you a story, telling me a story too. When typing digits, check checkbox. Switch to calculator when typing digits. I'm going to uncheck that because sometimes I type digits for different reasons. Switch to calculator when typing equals, uncheck checkbox.
[19:06] Check. That's actually what I've been doing is switch to calculator when typing equals. So you just hit the equals key now. That's why it says clear. Switch to calculator when pasting a numeric expression, check checkbox. Switch to calculator when pasting a numeric expression. This I don't ever change because I don't really do that. So it doesn't have a bearing on my usage. Smart brackets, check checkbox. Smart brackets, not sure what that is, but I don't like smart brackets. I don't like anything trying to be smart with punctuation. Instant Calculate, check checkbox. Instant Calculate, so when you type it in, it automatically gives you the answer. So if I type five times five, it is gonna automatically show me 25. Trigonometry Mode, degree, pop-up button. Trigonometry Mode, I'm not that smart. We'll leave that alone. Degree, pop-up button. So that's the end of the calculator settings. In toolbar, eight items, Calculator, selected button. Now we're to the clipboard and I'll spend a little time here with the clipboard because this clipboard manager in LaunchBar has been amazing. Once I started using it, probably eight or nine years ago, I have never looked back. I've always had to have it and trust me, LaunchBar, my computer will feel broken if I don't have LaunchBar installed in general. But if I don't have my clipboard history configured the right way, and this is the only thing that I have actually gone in and spent time to configure.
[20:19] With this latest install is the clipboard history because if I don't have that working right it is sort of like my keyboard is broken. So first you have to enable clipboard history I don't remember if it's enabled by default but you know check that box if you want to use it. Now if you don't want to use it and don't want it ever showing up getting in your way doing anything like that uncheck it. I have my capacity set to 40 items. There are some options you you can have it go back a number of days. I tend to cap it as some items. I used to have it at a hundred.
[20:52] But I got a very, very unwieldy because I would end up with stuff and not even know what it was for. So 40 seems to be reasonable. I don't really ever hit 40 cause I tend to clear it out, you know, once I'm done with stuff and I know I don't need it. But 40 seems to be a good base for me personally because it ensures that I don't lose anything that I've been copying today while working or probably dropped anything from yesterday either. Clear history button. Clear history and hitting that would just clear out my history. I don't want to do that. So this action option here, mine is set to paste. This determines what happens when you're in the clipboard history view and you hit return on a clipboard item. For me, I just want it to paste, but I will take you through what the other options are. All right, so you have copy, which would then place it on your actual. That gets a little meta, huh? Okay, so let's say you have clipboard history. You've copied four things. You copied an email address from an email. You copied a tracking number from a website. You copied a file and finder.
[21:56] And then you did VO shift C to copy your last spoken thing that was said while you were in Chrome. Okay, so now you have four things in your clipboard history. Well, the most recent thing as far as macOS is concerned, what is actually on your macOS clipboard would be the text that you V-O-Shift-C to copy that last spoken text out of Chrome,right? But let's say you want to paste the file somewhere in Finder. Well, in your clipboard history, what do you want to happen when you press return? If you press return and you have it set to copy, then it's going to move that file to your Mac OS clipboard history, which means pressing Command and v anywhere will paste that file into it. So that's how that works. Copy and paste. Copy and paste, it will copy it, putting it on your Mac OS Clipboard and then automatically paste it for you. That seems a little redundant and I don't quite understand why you would want to configure that way, but if it makes sense to you, choose that option.
[22:54] Checkmark, paste. I have mine simply set to paste, which means two things. Number one, I highlight the thing in my Clipboard history that I want to paste, and I hit return, paste it right where I happen to be at all before I open Launchmark. So if I'm going to paste a text rearranging your clipboard history which I also find very annoying. So that is the other reason that I have mindset to paste only. And those are the options that you have there. I have mindset to paste as I said because one it allows me to be specific about what I want to paste and it doesn't rearrange my clipboard history up under me because sometimes I copy things in very specific order so so I can very specifically go back and paste them in a specific order.
[23:36] This checkbox will paste anything that is text, as plain text, stripping off any formatting, etc. I don't have that checked because sometimes I want to keep the formatting, I'm just moving stuff around in a document. Ignore applications now. I'm going to spend a little time configuring this very quickly. First you want to check that option because there are some applications that you want to ignore because you don't want their, the contents that you've copied from them to be stored in your clipboard history. Edit button. In dialog table. I'm gonna edit. Keychain access selected, ignore applications. All right, so keychain access is already in here by default. Again, you have to check the option. I'm not sure why that's not the default, but okay. Add button. And I'm gonna add an application. Keychain access, add button.
[24:22] So, one password, and I'm going to add one more. Audio hijack. All right. So I've added those applications. I'm going to hit that. So now I am having the clipboard history feature in LaunchBar completely ignore the following, applications. Keychain, the keychain app in Mac OS is there by default. I've added one password so when I copy anything out of one password it doesn't hold on to it in the clipboard history. And I've added audio hijack because when you copy a block I don't need that block hanging around in clipboard history because it's not going to be useful to me anywhere other thanaudio hijack and I don't queue up a bunch of, maybe I should try that though, queue up a bunch of blocks and then go paste them all over the place.
[25:15] Preserve history across restart, check box. Preserve history across restart, this is very important. This box if you at all begin to rely on this feature because if you don't then when you restart your clipboard history will be gone. Also just as a side note if you have to force shut down your Mac like hold down the power button to make a shutdown and then turn it back on you're also going to lose your clipboard history. But if you check this box at least when you do a nice shutdown where it goes through all of the proper shutdown procedures you won't lose that clipboard history. Clip merge is a cool feature this allows you to copy multiple things and put them together on your clipboard. A quick example of how this works is, it does require accessibility access by the way.
[25:57] But a quick example of how this works is let's say you're trying to copy a bunch of different files and finder, but they're not all lined up right there together, right? So you need to,you know, copy this file here, navigate around a bit, copy that file. Well, you can have all of those separate files in your clipboard history stacked on top of each other or using clip merge,you copy the first file when you locate the next file you want to copy, hit command C quickly. We'll hold down command and tap C twice and that will add that second file to the clipboard item with the first file. So when you get ready to paste, you can paste all five files you weretrying to move at once. Very nice feature. Alright and then now we get into the keyboard shortcuts. You can set these as appropriate. I'll just make sure I explain what each one is for.
[26:47] Show clipboard history. Now I have mindset to control command backslash because that's just how I have it. Select from history. Paste and remove from history. I have that set as control option. Wait, what is that? Control-A-Command-V, edit-X. That's not what it should be.
[27:12] Okay, so I have changed that to what I normally have it set to it explains why I wasn't working either. I have changed mine to command-option-shift-v and that will paste to whatever is on the clipboard history and also remove it. So, I do that enough because I only needed that thing temporarily so I don't need to hang it around a history. So that's the end of our clipboard section.
[27:40] Updates, those are pretty obvious. You select how many times, how often you want it to check for updates. If you want it to check automatically, etc. or blah, blah. Advanced. I don't think I've ever been in the advanced section. Let's see what we're going to discover today. All right, so there is drag and drop onto folder. And while I don't actually use the mouse to drag, I will tell you the effect that this has for me as a voiceover user. Over user and that is using the drop on feature so I can highlight a file in finder, hit command space, navigate to a different folder where I would like to move that file and hit command D. The following options here are going to determine what does launch bar actually do when I perform that action or if you are a mouse user and you grab a file from somewhere and drag it onto launch bar a folder that is displayed in launch bar what actions are going to be taken. Now I have my set to ask for file operation because sometimes I want to move a thing but sometimes I just need to copy a thing.
[28:43] So it's not always the same. So ask me and I'll pick copy or move. Or you have move or copy the folder. Now this is an option that really has never had any effect on me but essentially when you copy a file path because there's an action and launch bar to copy a file path, do you want to abbreviate your home folder with tilde slash or do you want to actually type out the entire slash user slash your home directory, you know, your account username slash, etc, etc, blah, blah, blah. Check. I'm actually going to check that.
[29:23] Convert file name extension to lowercase when renaming a file. Uncheck. Checkbox. Convert file name extension to lowercase. I've never checked that option. I don't really change file extensions when I do them. I'm very intentional about it. Depending which file name is different from localized name. Uncheck. Checkbox. That has something to do with localization. I don't... My English isn't that great, so I really don't deal with a lot of file names or any file names in different languages, so I don't know how that function behaves. However, it's there, and if it understands it, check it if it makes sense for you or leave it unchecked as I do. Show.icon. Check. Checkbox. Now, here's the thing that has been kind of driving me crazy because I've been waiting to change this setting until I recorded this. Doc icon, we're going to review this. Doc icon. Yes, launchbar has a doc icon at the moment. It's driving me mad. Show doc icon. You can uncheck this.
[30:16] And you get this message. This is the reason I waited until I recorded this so I could actually go through this message with you. Text, in order to run LaunchBar without the icon, the app must quit and launch again as a background application. However, background applications are not considered to have a user interface or to become active. Thus be aware of the following shortcomings. Bullet, you can no longer use LaunchBar to icon as a dragging destination for dragging files or text to LaunchBar. Bullet, background applications do not have their own menu bar. You will find the menu commands in the LaunchBar menu, though. Bullet, background applications do not appear in Apple's command tab switcher. Bullet, due to the missing menu bar, the high others command, option command H, will not work while LaunchBar is active. In MacOS, there must be at least one foreground application that provides a menu bar. But if a background application which has no own menu bar ties all other applications, no menu bar would be left. Therefore Mac OS simply refuses to perform the high loaders command when the background application is active. Bullet, background applications do not appear in the force quit window. Instead you have to use Activity Monitor in case you need to force quit launch bar. Cancel button. Restart now. Default button. Now, I will briefly explain what all of that gibberish was in case it was a little too fast. Essentially, when you don't have a dock icon for an application, there are many applications, most menu bar apps that are just menu bar apps are also similar to this case. They don't have a dock icon. When there's no dock icon, number one, you can't drag things to the dock icon because it's not there. Number two, it no longer shows up in the command tab switcher, which is what I want, right? It's been driving me crazy when I'm command tabbing around and launch bar shows up. But again, I had to hold off until I recorded this. This is supposed to be motivation for me to get this recorded. So that I could actually change this setting. A few other things of note, the force quit window launch bar will not show up there. You will have to go to activity monitor to force quit launch bar.
[31:38] Or if you know how to use the terminal, you can just go kill it that way also if necessary.
[31:45] And there's a couple other things about how it behaves. If you use high at all, you can't do it with app, or just in focus that doesn't have a menu bar, et cetera. So essentially though, you'll see how this operates. I'm going to restart. Now it has relaunched and opened again. I'm going to hit command comma to get back to preferences. And we're back in the advanced preferences. Okay. Now note, as I navigate through here, you can recheck that and put it back in the mode where it has a dock icon. If you discover for your use case that not having that dock icon has some sort of negative effect on you. Whether you like it in the command tab switcher, or you actually drag files and folders and things to the dock icon, or some other negative effect on your usage, feel free to check that. Me personally, I don't have it checked and I love not having it checked. Preferred input source. I don't change that, it's just a default system input. The preferred input source will be used in favor of the current active input source while launch bar is active. This list contains only those input sources that are enabled in systempreferences greater than key word rate or input sources and that are suitable for entering characters. And you get an explanation is basically what do you want to use for input whatever the default happens to be so whatever I'm using in the system that's what it's gonna use. And that is it those are the launch bar settings I am going to do some more content showing you some different things in launch bar but those are how my settings are configured in a brief explanation of.
[33:14] Them. Hopefully this has been helpful and also gives you an understanding of you know how you may want to configure LaunchBar to be optimal for you. Feel free to try out anything as your installation of LaunchBar. It doesn't have a defect on my LaunchBar. So if you like something that I suggested do you check or uncheck, do that. And if it turns out it doesn't work for you, well revert. You always have that option. Nothing here is set in stone. The preferences are always available to you. Even if you hide the dock icon, just bring up LaunchBar and invoke it however you choose to do so. And then hit command comma and there are your preferences. Cause this is a decent Mac app. So it uses, you know, expected Mac behaviors. Like command W will close the window. And now also large bars gone away. And I'm gonna command tab very quickly. Finder, drafts, one password, Google Chrome, set up, text mail, terminal, messages, Slack, tune, preview, Safari, audio hijack, mail. Not a lot of apps open. Mail, inbox. But now I can just hit command space though. Application. And type AH. Audio hijack application. And then I'm going to stop this recording. Thank you for checking us out.
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