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The new Libraries feature in Windows 7 makes it easier to manage your files and folders. Today we take a comprehensive look at everything you can do with Windows 7 Libraries.

The Libraries feature in Windows 7 provides a central place to manage files that are located in multiple locations throughout your computer. Instead of clicking through a bunch of directories to find the files you need, including them in a library makes for quicker access.

Access Libraries

To access the libraries in Windows 7, type libraries into the search box in the Start Menu and hit Enter.

The default libraries in Windows 7 will open up in Explorer which are Documents, Music, Pictures, and Videos.

Anytime you’re in Windows Explorer, you’ll be able to access libraries from the Navigation Pane.

Using Libraries

In these examples we’ll take a look at the Documents Library, but the procedures will work for any library you want to add locations to. If you’ve been working in Windows 7 for a while and storing documents to the My Documents folder, when you open the Documents Library, you’ll see those documents. Some applications install folders in the My Documents folder by default and you’ll see those as well.

What if you have documents stored in a folder other than My Documents? You need to add it to the Documents Library. There are a couple of ways you can go about it. Right-click on a folder and select Include in library from the context menu, then choose the Documents Library. Keep in mind that when you add a folder to a library, that folder is still in it’s original location.

Or when you have the folder containing your documents open, select Include in library and choose the library to put them in from the dropdown.

Here we take a look at the Documents library that contains files that are located in different places throughout the hard drive, including some on another partition.

You can also remove items from libraries as well. When you’re in a library click on the locations link.

The Documents Library Locations window opens up and from here you can add or remove locations.

Create New Libraries

The default libraries are all well and good, but if you really want to take advantage of this feature, you’ll want to create your own. While in the libraries directory click on the New library button and give it a name.

In this example we made a new library called Work Projects. The first time you open it you’ll be prompted to include a folder.

Browse to the location with the files you want to add then click Include folder.

Now the files included in that folder will show up in the new library.

After you’ve created some libraries they’ll be added to the list to select from.

Add Network Locations

While libraries are a handy new feature, it’s not perfect. Not all folders can be added to libraries as Microsoft has stuck some rules on them. You can pretty much add anything from a local drive, including other volumes or partitions. External USB drives formatted as NTFS or Fat32 can be added as well. Things get kind of weird when you’re trying to add network and non-indexed locations.

Thankfully there’s a handy free utility you can use that makes adding network locations a lot easier. Win7 Library Tool is small and straight forward to use. Just click on the Create a new library button.

Then add the network location you want included in the library. Notice this tool will also allow you to easily change the library icon which is a neat additional feature.

In this example we’ve added a home network share that contains music files to a library named MP3 library.

Conclusion

This should help get you started using Libraries in Windows 7, which at first might take some getting used to. Once you understand how they work and start creating your own, you’ll find they’re actually pretty useful. Once you get going, you’ll find the Win7 Library Tool makes adding network locations a snap. How about you? Do you use libraries in Windows 7? Leave a comment and let us know what you like or don’t like about the feature.

Readers offer their best tips for finding lost cellphones when they’re on vibrate, adding a “Copy File Path to Clipboard” option in OS X’s Finder, and filtering public waves by language in Google Wave.

Don’t like the gallery layout? Click here to view everything on one page.

About the Tips Box: Every day we receive boatloads of great reader tips in our inbox, but for various reasons—maybe they’re a bit too niche, maybe we couldn’t find a good way to present it, or maybe we just couldn’t fit it in—the tip didn’t make the front page. From the Tips Box is where we round up some of our favorites for your buffet-style consumption. Got a tip of your own to share? Add it in the comments or email it to tips at lifehacker.com.

Get a “Copy Path to Clipboard” option in OS X

zimmerman1181 gives us an easy way to make a “Copy File Path” plugin with Automator:

I just found the following step by step on a macosxhints forum to add a “copy path to clipboard” functionality to right click using Automator to create a plugin.

If that’s all you need, this seems like a really easy solve:

Finder
Drag Get Selected Finder Items to the workflow (to position 1)

Automator
Drag Run Shell Script to the workflow (to position 2)
Change pass input to “as arguments”
Change echo “$f” to echo “‘$f’”

System
Drag Copy to Clipboard to the workflow (to position3)

Save as plug-in
Enter a name like Copy File Path
Save.

Now when you right click on a file (or a bunch of files), you should be able to select Automator and then the plugin you just created “Copy File Path”

Note that these directions only apply to pre-Snow Leopard versions of Automator. In Snow Leopard, this would go into the newly revamped Services menu. To make this plugin in Snow Leopard, when you start up Automator, choose “Service” instead of workflow. At the top of your workflow, make sure you select “Files and Folders” in the first drop-down and “Finder” in the second—this will make the service usable in Finder on those items by going to Finder > Services > Copy File Path in the menu bar.

Keeping Cell Phones Findable on Vibrate

Photo by Jeramey Jannene.

Matt shows us how to keep your cell phone on vibrate without losing it:

I prefer to keep my cell phone on vibrate all the time. Its just easier for me. But it poses a problem because I tend to lose my phone a lot, so calling it to find it is pretty much pointless. What I’ve done is set all my default tones to no ring (calls, txts, etc), and turned vibrate on for all. Then I set a custom ringer on my skype number, so if I need to call it to find it I can, and it still makes a full noise, without annoying me the rest of the day.

Filter Waves by Language in Google Wave

Bruno explains how he makes searching easier in Google Wave:

This morning I was looking for public Waves and got tired of looking to so many waves in so many languages. So I decided to try a filter:

with:public lang:en

And there it was. A way to filter waves by the language. Other languages can be used like:

- Spanish: lang:es
– Japanese: lang:jp
– Portuguese: lang:pt

I tried this, and it didn’t work perfectly (there were still a couple waves that looked like they were in Spanish), but it did seem to be filtering a lot of stuff, which is nice considering there are a lot of waves in different languages.

Expanding StrokeIt’s Uses with AutoHotKey

Tyler sends in a tip on how to use StrokeIt in tandem with AutoHotKey (Warning: heavy AHK scripting ahead):

I’ve seen you guys mention AutoHotKey and StrokeIt before, and I thought I’d pass along a tip that involves using them both in tandem. The other day I accidentally created a “conflict” between the two programs where a mouse gesture from StrokeIt triggered a hotkey that was picked up by AutoHotKey, which then executed a bit of script. It wasn’t at all what I wanted at the time, but it got me thinking.

Although there are mouse gesture scripts available for AHK itself, I find StrokeIt’s gesture configuration less of a hassle to deal with, which is why I started running it alongside AHK in the first place. I didn’t use that many mouse gestures to begin with – mostly just forward/back in the web browser and to minimize or close windows, but once I discovered that you could configure StrokeIt gestures to send key combinations that AHK recognizes, I began setting up – and using – a lot more gestures.

For example, I originally had the down-and-to-the-left (/ Down) gesture in StrokeIt configured to hit Windows Key + M to minimize the active window. To improve upon this, I changed the keypress to Ctrl + Alt + Numpad1 (I thought it would be better to use obscure key combos in order to minimize conflicts with applications’ built-in keyboard shortcuts). Then in AutoHotKey, I setup a hotkey to catch that keypress.

^!Numpad1::
WinGetActiveTitle, tempTitle
WinMinimize, %tempTitle%
return

This bit of code captures the title of the window into a variable before minimizing it, so that you can use it with other hotkeys which are themselves triggered by gestures. I next assigned the (\ Up) gesture to send Ctrl + Alt + Numpad0. The AHK script sees this and activates the last window you minimized, regardless of how many other windows you’ve opened or closed since then.

^!Numpad0::
WinActivate, %tempTitle%
return

StrokeIt does allow you to customize gestures on a per-application basis, but with this method you can also have gestures trigger different actions depending on where they are performed on the screen. Let’s say you have the generic (Left) gesture trigger yet another obscure hotkey, in this case Windows Key + Backspace. We can have AHK detect where the mouse is at the end of the gesture and act accordingly.

#Backspace::
; get mouse position
MouseGetPos, xvar, yvar

; next, figure out where the vertical middle of the screen is
if (yvar<A_ScreenHeight/2)
{
; do this if gesture ended in upper half of screen
Send, ^+{Tab}
; presses ctrl+shift+tab, which focuses the next tab to the left in Firefox
}
else
{
; do this if gesture ended in bottom half of screen
Send, !{Left}
; presses alt+left, which acts like the back button in Firefox
}
return

So if you do a (Left) mouse gesture it will focus the next tab to the left if the mouse is above the vertical middle of the screen, or go back one page if performed below it. You could take this a step further and divide the screen into quadrants, creating 4 different actions for each gesture, per application or globally.

Anyways, I feel like I’ve barely scratched the surface with what I’ve done so far and I’d be interested in seeing what you and your readers could come up with.

Filed under: Software, Odds and ends, Internet Tools, Deals

I’m a sucker for anything that allows me to get secure remote access to my home machine, so when I saw that FarFinder, the remote access tool from FlyingMac, was on sale for US$20, I jumped on the chance to buy it. It’ll be on sale until October 22nd, so if you want to get the application for US$15 less than the normal price, you’ll want to head over to the FlyingMac site right now. The family license is US$20 off during the sale, and is available for US$45.

The last time someone at TUAW wrote about FarFinder was back in 2008, when blogger Mat Lu referred to it as “your Finder on the web.” That’s a perfect way to describe FarFinder, since it makes your Mac’s files and folders (plus any network-attached or external drives that are mounted) available to you from most web browsers and your iPhone (see screenshot at right).

FlyingMac offers a 20-day free trial of the application. One thing I really like about FarFinder is that once you’ve purchased it, there are no extra subscription fees. That means that US$20 price will give you service forever…or at least until there’s a major upgrade you need to purchase.

Continue reading FarFinder remote access tool: on sale and iPhone savvy

TUAWFarFinder remote access tool: on sale and iPhone savvy originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 09 Oct 2009 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Hacks, Odds and ends, TUAW Tips

Quick Look is such an awesome feature of Mac OS X 10.5 and 10.6, making it really fun and easy to view files and folders from anywhere on your Mac. But what happens when you have a folder with multiple items and want to get a better idea of what’s inside? Well, you could always just open the folder in Finder, but there’s a cool modification you can make to get an even quicker view.

You can get this working on your Mac in a few simple steps:

1. Quit/Relaunch Finder using the Force Quit menu
2. Open Terminal
3. Paste (or type) the following command: defaults write com.apple.Finder QLEnableXRayFolders 1
4. Relaunch Finder

The contents of the folder will now be shown when you use Quick Look. In true Apple elegance, the files will even fade and cycle through the contents.

[via Mac OS X Hints]

TUAWTUAW Tips: Get a better view with Quick Look originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 02 Oct 2009 07:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Windows only: Free application Explore&Burn adds an entry to your right-click context menu that allows you to quickly burn files and folders to CD or DVD.

This right-click utility is dead simple: Click any file, folder, or disk image (e.g., ISO, IMG), select the Burn to disc context menu option, and go through the very quick burning wizard. The application supports most types of burnable media (including Dual Layer discs) and skips the bloat that accompanies a lot of burning software, opting instead for a completely pared down interface and footprint.

Explore&Burn is freeware, Windows only.