Bar None User Guide

About Bar None...

Based largely on s:Kimo-Jo, Bar None is a tiny application launcher designed to take up as little space as possible on your desktop, while still providing a vast amount of functionality. Bar None has improved significantly on s:Kimo-Jo with a more user-friendly interface, and the ability to easily extend its functionality through the use of both ActiveX and scripted command addons (which are discussed later).

Using Bar None

When first launched, Bar None will appear underneath the mouse pointer as a small cornflower blue rectangle. Now that's small...

This is the gripper. You can move Bar None anywhere you like by simply holding the left mouse button down and dragging the gripper as you would a normal window. If you drag Bar None to a screen edge it will 'dock' by moving very slightly off-screen, it does this to make it easier to access the buttons.

Usually, Bar None automatically expands whenever the mouse pointer is moved over the gripper. However, if this is the first time it's been run there won't be any items to show, so let's add some now...

Adding Items

There are two ways to add items - you can add launcher items which, when clicked, run an application, or you can add custom command items which perform specific actions when clicked. To add a launcher item simply drag a file, folder or shortcut over the gripper and release the mouse button. You should now see Bar None expand and the item you dragged over it appears at the bottom of the bar. You can also drag multiple items over the gripper if you want.

To add command items, right click the gripper and move over the Add item. This will pop up a sub menu containing all the custom commands currently loaded into Bar None. You can write your own custom commands using either Visual Basic, or a scripting language (currently VBScript and Javascript are both supported). Select the command you want and you'll see it added to the end of the bar. You can also add separator items from this menu as well.

Arranging Items

Obviously you'll never get all the items you want in the right order the first time. You can move any item up or down within the bar, or remove it completely from the bar by right-clicking it and selecting the appropriate option from the menu that pops up. As both the bar and the configuration file are updated immediately whenever an item is added, moved or removed, there's no need to recycle.

That's About It...

As far as basic operation goes, that's pretty much all there is to it. Simply add it to your startup group, drag it to a screen edge, add your favourite launchers and commands to it and away you go!

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Bar None Support

Unlike its predecessor s:Kimo-Jo, Bar None is a fully supported product. If you've got any queries, comments or suggestions for improvements, why not pop over to the Support Forum? You may find that your query has already been answered - if not, there's bound to be someone on-line to help out.

Creating Your Own Commands

Although the formal SDK is not quite ready yet, we welcome people who're looking to develop command addons for Bar None. As already mentioned, if you have Visual Basic (or another COM-compatible language) you can develop AddOns using this. Don't worry if you don't however, as you can also develop AddOns using either VBScript or Javascript. The command script addon API couldn't be simpler (there's only one method that an AddOn must implement) and we've included a sample VBScript addon along with Bar None to get you started.

If you can't wait for the SDK to get started on your AddOns, pop over to the Development Forum and we'll help you get going!

Powered by Melon

Bar None is one of many applications powered by our revolutionary Windows toolkit.

Melon includes a suite of libraries from which you can choose any number depending on your application's requirements. These libraries include easy-to-use support for Drag-and-drop events, custom menus, clipboard management, configuration file management, RSS feed parsing, HTTP request management and so on - all of which implemented using direct Windows API calls.

You can find out more about melon here.