-------------------------------------------------------------------
 LaunchPad v1.0 for AAPR
 by Hiromasa Kato (hiro@eng.iastate.edu)
-------------------------------------------------------------------

This is a simple Dock-like (well.. not quite but close) launcher. You can 
drop application files onto one of the LaunchPad panes, or you can
drop document files and their prefered app will be launched.
Also, you can drop a file to one of the apps that sit in LaunchPad panes,
in which case the dropped file will be opened by the app.

*** LaunchPad requires libprefs.so. ***

Screenshot is available at http://www.eng.iastate.edu/~hiro/BeOS.html#LaunchPad


INSTALLATION:

 - Be sure that you have libprefs.so in /boot/system/lib/. It's probably in

	ftp://ftp.be.com/pub/contrib/libraries/libprefs110_AA.tar.gz

 - Unpack the LaunchPad.tar.gz and launch LanchPad.

 - You might want to launch LaunchPad at startup, if so, in /boot/system/UserBootScript
   put something like

	if [ -f /boot/Hiro/LaunchPad/LaunchPad ]
	then
		/boot/Hiro/LaunchPad/LaunchPad &
	fi

   where you're going to have to change /boot/Hiro/LaunchPad portion to the directory
   you put LaunchPad in.


USAGE:

It's pretty simple, because it doesn't do much. :-)
Simply drag any app onto the panes. All the functionalities can be
accessed through the pop-up menu, which shows up when you hold the
primary mouse button for a while or immediately when you press
the secondary mouse button. The dropped files are launched
by double-clicking their icons, or through "Launch" menu from the
pop-up menu.

By default, i.e. when you first launch LaunchPad, there are
eight empty panes. You can insert/remove panes. You can't remove
a pane that already holds a file. You must first remove the file
from the pane, after which you can remove the pane.

If you drag a file over one of the panes, the pane will be highlit
(the pane's border will become blue). (Is my wording correct?
or is it 'highlighted'?) If the icon on the pane is highlit (i.e.
darkened), the file you're dragging will be launched by the app on the
pane. If the icon is not highlit but the pane is highlit, the dragged
file will take over the pane and the file previously contained in the
pane will be kicked out.

Some of the files that have a generic application/octet-stream
icon (one that looks like two silver plates) don't get their icon
recognized correctly. You can probably launch it if the file has
appropriate preferred apps registered. This is because I have
no idea as to how I can retrieve this type of icon. A few more
BeBook chapters and the inclusion of NodeInfo::GetTrackerIcon
might be good. :-)

If you drop a symbolic link, LaunchPad will trace the linked-to file
and grabs that file instead.

NodeMonitor is *NOT* yet implemented. So if you move a file after
dropping it onto LaunchPad, the behavior is undefined.

You can drop folders onto LaunchPad, even the Trash folder, but
nothing can be done with them. It'd be better if those folders
are opened when double clicked. But that comes later.

LaunchPad remembers its window location and the files it holds,
thanks to libprefs.so.


WHY I WROTE THIS?:

I do appreciate the new Tracker's ability to put files on desktop.
But quite often I found myself putting way too many sym links on
desktop and not organized well. So, for me, some sort of constraints
is badly needed to keep myself tidy. That's one reason I sometimes
miss Dock. LaunchPad is not feature-rich, nor does it looks that
good, but it does the job (at least for me :-)


CREDITS:

I'd like to thank Jon Watte for his libprefs library.

LaunchPad uses PaletteWindow source code written by
Steve Sprang, the author of PowerBar. Thanks Steve.


CONTACT:

Hiromasa Kato (hiro@eng.iastate.edu)
http://www.eng.iastate.edu/~hiro/BeOS.html


REVISION HISTORY:

v1.0	6/12/97	Initial revision.
