Using DragStrip for Windows

What is a strip?
Saving your strips
Closing a strip
Selecting a strip
Deleting items from a strip
Rearranging items on a strip
Resizing a strip
Using strips
- Applications
- Documents
- Folders
- Disks
- URLs

What is a Strip?

What exactly is a strip? Strips are composed of buttons, a status bar, page tabs, and a title bar. The buttons on a strip display shortcuts for items you wish to make launchable from strips. (A shortcut is an icon you can use as a representation for a document, program folder, or disk, which "points" to that item.) Buttons can also hold URLs, or pointers to locations on the World Wide Web. The title bar allows you see the name of your strips and move it around your desktop. The status bar gives information about the names of strip items. Page tabs let you switch between different pages of buttons.

When you start up DragStrip for the first time, it will open a new untitled strip ready for use. After the first time you start up DragStrip, a new untitled strip will only appear if you close all of your other strips and launch DragStrip.

You can create a shortcut by dragging items from an explorer window to a square on your DragStrip. When you open a shortcut, or click on a DragStrip button, the original item will open. Let's go through a simple process of making a new strip and creating our first strip.

To create a new strip:

Launch the DragStrip application by double-clicking on the icon from the DragStrip€ Folder. The DragStrip€ Folder is located on your hard drive. You can also launch DragStrip by using the Start menu and choosing Programs->DragStrip 3.6->DragStrip.
DragStrip will automatically open a new strip for you. If you want to create another strip when you already have a strip open, you can click the menu button (the downward facing triangle) then choose File->New from the menu.
Next, place an item on a strip by dragging it from the desktop or an explorer window onto one of the blank squares on your strip. You can drag any item from your desktop (applications, documents, folders, hard drives, etc.) onto a blank square and have it appear there. Essentially, when you drag these items, you are not physically moving the item to the strip, you are creating a shortcut to that item. Remember, a shortcut is a file that "points" to an item; when you open a shortcut (i.e., click on a DragStrip button) the original item will open. For a more detailed description of what types of items can be placed on your active strip, see below.

To install items on a strip without drag and drop:

First right-click on a blank square of your new strip.
Choose Add->File Button... from the menu
A new file item is created and the Properties dialog for that button is opened. You can then enter the path to the new item, or you can click the '...' button next to the path field and select the file or folder that you want to add.
Click OK to save the new item you just added.

Now your strip has an item and you're ready to go!

Saving Your Strips

By now it's probably a good idea to save your first strip. You can save your strips by going to the menu button and choosing File->Save or File->Save As...

Click the menu button (downward facing triangle) or right click anywhere on the strip.
Highlight the File menu and choose Save or Save As.
Pick the location where you want to save the strip. It is a good idea to save your strips in the DragStrip folder. Having a DragStrip area on your hard drive will make it easier to manage strips.
After picking the location, type in the name of your new strip and choose Save.

Closing a Strip

Because DragStrip is an application, a strip is simply an open document. In many word processing programs, you can have multiple documents open at the same time and switch between them; in this way, you can also have many open strips. Remember, if you close a strip and then restart DragStrip, that strip will not appear on the screen until you open it. Only previously saved strips that you leave open will automatically appear on the screen when you restart DragStrip, but your other strips will still be available, just like any other document. If you want to close an open strip, you can do this in two different ways:

Choose Close under the File menu. or
Click on the close box in the upper right hand corner of the title bar of a strip.

Selecting a Strip

Switching between multiple strips can be accomplished by clicking anywhere on a strip. If you have the title bar showing on the strip, it will generally become darker (depending on how the colors are configured in the Windows Displays control panel).

Additionally, the File menu displays the active strip name after the Close command. This is particularly useful if you have your strips displayed without title bars.

Deleting Items From a Strip

Right clicking an item on the strip, then choosing Edit->Delete from the contextual menu will delete the item from the strip, but not from your hard drive. Remember, items on strips are shortcuts to the real items. Therefore you are not deleting the original file, only the reference to the file on that strip.

You can also shift-click one or more items, and then choose Delete from the Edit menu, or press the Delete key to delete the selected strip items or press Control-D.

Rearranging Items On a Strip

Now let's rearrange items on the strip that you have just created. You can move an existing item on a strip by clicking on the item and dragging it onto a blank button on the strip itself, or you can drag to it to a blank button on another open strip. If you drag over a page tab, the strip will switch to that page, then you can drop the item on a different page.

You can also copy an item by shift-clicking on it, selecting the Copy command, clicking the pointer on the button or strip you wish to move the item to, and choosing Paste. Cut and Paste works in this manner as well. Copying items from one strip to another can also be very useful in cleaning up strips, or placing frequently used applications, files, or folders on many different strips or different pages on the same strip.

You should make room for the new items you are copying or cutting (see below) before you paste them. If you don't have room for all the items on the strip you are moving them to, DragStrip will only paste the items (consecutively) that it has room for on the strip. If you find that all the items you wanted to paste onto the new strip aren't there, resize the strip and paste them again.

Resizing a Strip

You can resize a strip by dragging on the grow box in the bottom right hand corner of the strip or by dragging on any of the edges of the window. Strips can resize horizontally or vertically by rows or columns. Also, a strip grows button by button; you can make a strip smaller than will allow all of the icons on a strip to be visible. In this case, you can resize the window to see the hidden items.

To resize a strip:

Select the strip you want to resize by clicking on its title bar.
While clicking and holding the grow box located in the lower right hand corner of the strip, pull out the strip to the size you want it to be, or...
Drag any edge of the window to grow or shrink the window.

Using Strips

Now we are ready to move on to a more detailed explanation of the many features and uses of DragStrip. Hold on, this is going to be a fun and fast ride!

What can DragStrip do? This section shows you all of DragStrip's functions. You can place various types of items on a strip, including applications, documents, folders, volumes, and URLs. Depending upon the item placed on the strip, many different functions are available to you.

Applications

Click once on an application item to launch that application.

Holding down the Alt key on your keyboard and clicking once on the item opens the enclosing folder of the selected item in a browser window.

If you drag one or more documents from the Desktop (or from a strip) and drop it onto an application item on a strip, the application will launch, attempting to open the documents you selected. For example, if you have a word processor shortcut on one strip, and your memo template file is on another strip, just drag your memo template shortcut to the word processor button. The application will then launch the application and open your document.

Documents

Clicking once on a document on a strip will launch that document in its associated application.

Dragging one or more document items onto an application item opens the document(s) in the selected application.

Holding down the Alt key on your keyboard and clicking once on the item opens the enclosing folder of the selected item in a browser window.

Folders

Clicking once on a folder on a strip will open that folder in a browser window.

Dragging items onto a folder will copy those items into a folder.

You can click on a folder icon and hold the mouse button down to produce a list of items enclosed in that folder in a hierarchical popup menu. Choosing one of the menu items will activate that item (i.e., launch a selected application, open a selected document or folder).

As with documents and applications, you can hold down the Alt key on your keyboard and click once on the item to reveal the selected item in its explorer window.

Disks

Volumes (such as your hard drive) work much the same as folders. You also can have shortcuts to folders and volumes on other machines on your network.

Storing URLs On a Strip

You can drag URLs to a strip and it will store them. You can either drag a link from Internet Explorer, or the icon from the address bar to an empty button and it will add it to the strip. Clicking on a URL icon will open that site in your web browser.

Believe or not, there are still more ways to enhance your DragStrip experience. In dealing with strips, there are preferences for the entire DragStrip program and Properties for active strips. Defining strip styles allow you to determine how new strips will appear. Setting properties will help you tailor an active strip. First, let's discuss strip properties; then, we'll customize a pages and buttons.