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Utilities Menu

The "Station > Utilities" menu contains actions you can perform within Station.

Global Launch Keys: A window to manage global launch keys.

Populate Folder Icons: Automatically populate folder icons in every panel all at once.

Auto Sorting: Auto sorting allows you to sort a specific panel or all the panels at once.

Snapshots: A window to manage Station backups.

Access Points: Provides Station with points of access in order to launch bookmark files.

Show Broken Links: Shows panels that have broken links and allows quick access those panels.

Refresh All Items: Refreshes all the icons in the panels. This is useful if the icons in the Finder have changed (you added a custom icon to a file) and you want that reflected in Station. There is no user interface with this action, but a beep will be played to indicate it has finished. This utility will also perform data diagnostics.

Delete All Items…: Deletes all items from the current panel set. You use this utility to start over with the current panel set. A backup snapshot will be created before deleting the items.

Global Launch Keys

With global launch keys you can assign shortcut keys to any item or Station folder. To assign a launch key, select the menu item "Properties..." for the item. You will see the following popup.
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Fill in the "Launch key" field with the key combination you desire. If you assign a launch key to a Station folder, it will launch all the items in the folder with one key stroke.

Launch keys are assigned to the active panel set. When you switch panel sets, the current launch keys will be deactivated and the launch keys for the new panel set will be activated.

To help manage launch keys, select the menu item "Station > Utilities > Global Key Summary..." and the following window will appear.
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The Global Key Summary window allows you to see what keys you have assigned in the current panel set. You can use this window save your launch key set to a text file so that you can create a cheatsheet. It also allows you to quickly delete launch keys.

To make it easier to manage launch keys, you may want to create copies of all the items you want to assign launch keys into a single Station folder.

Auto Sorting

Auto sorting allows you to sort a specific panel or all the panels at once. When you select the menu item "Station > Sorting…", the following dialog will be presented.
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This is a modal dialog which means you cannot use Station while it is open. When you sort a dock set, Station will automatically create a snap shot of the original order.

Note - when you sort a panel, all separator items will be removed.

Sorting Direction:

The "Ascending" and "Descending" radio buttons allow you to control the alphabetical sort order of the items in a panel.

Sort by Type:

The “Sort by Type” feature allows you to first sort by the listed type order and then alphabetically within each type. The "Ascending" and "Descending" buttons apply to the alphabetical sorting within each type. You can change the order of the type items by just dragging them to new spots in the list.

Insert separators:

When you are sorting by type, selecting this option automatically inserts separators between the item types.

Sort All Panels:

When the "Sort all panels" checkbox is checked, all the panels in the current dock set will be sorted. When this option is not selected, only the highest open panel will be sorted which is named in the "Target Panel" field.

Snapshots

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Backups and snapshots allow you to recover a previous Station layout. Available backups and snapshots will be listed on the lefthand side of the window. You can filter the available backups according to the following choices—All, Snapshots, or Backups. All the backups will be displayed with a timestamp as to when they were created and will be sorted with the latest backup at the top of the list.

Backups:


Station will periodically check to see if changes where made to the layout of Station and then make a backup. This happens automatically in the background and no user intervention is required. You cannot manually create a backup, but you can delete an existing backup. Station will maintain up to 200 backups and then delete the oldest backups after that to maintain the 200 backup limit.

Backups will be displayed in the list in black and with the name "Backup."

Snapshots:

Snapshots are backups which you create and name. You would use a snapshot in the situation where you will make a large number of changes to the launch folders and you want to preserve the original layout just in case you make a big mistake. Station will only create and delete snapshots when you click on the "Create" and "Delete" buttons.

Snapshots will be displayed in the list in purple and with the display name given when created.

Deletion:

You can delete any or all of the backups and snapshots listed. Once you delete a snapshot or backup, you cannot undo the deletion.

To delete a backup, click on the "Enable deletion" checkbox and then select a backup you want to delete and click the "Delete" button. You may select multiple items in the list and then delete them.

Restoration:

To restore a backup, select a backup or snapshot and click on the "Restore" button. Station will first create a backup of the current layout and then restore the selected backup.

Access Points

When you create an alias in the Finder, you are creating a "bookmark" file. When you drag-and-drop the bookmark file into Station, you are giving permission to Station to access the bookmark file. Unfortunately in a secure sandboxed environment, having access to the bookmark file does not grant access to open the item pointed to by the bookmark file. In order to open the file, Station needs access to the directory that contains the target file.

To solve this problem you must give Station access to the directory that contains the target item directly or encompasses it in one of its subfolders. To set up the parent directories for the bookmark files, you add them to Station by selecting the menu item "Station > Utilities > Access Points." The following dialog will be displayed.
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You may drag-and-drop volumes and folders into the main table to add access points for opening bookmark targets. If you add a volume to this list, that will cover the entire volume for opening bookmarks. You may choose a more restricted scope by adding a user directory or another directory instead.

The "-" button allows you to delete the selected access point.

Show Broken Links

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When you see this icon in a Station panel, it means that particular file is unreachable. This may be due to several reasons like it was deleted, is on an unmounted volume, or the volume is encrypted. If you click on the icon, Station will attempt to resolve the situation. For example, if the file resides on an encrypted sparse bundle, a system dialog will appear asking for the password. If Station can't resolve the link, it will just beep.

The "Broken Links" window shown below helps you to identify panels that contain broken links to aid you in resolving the broken links.
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This window shows all the panels in the current panel set that have broken links. The items in this window are Station paths to the panels containing broken links. Click on a path to open the panel containing the broken links. You can then decide what to do with the broken links in the panel.

The "Refresh" button scans the panel hierarchy and updates the list.
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