Indexing Rules

LaunchBar provides a multitude of indexing rules, allowing you to access a wide range of different resources such as applications, documents, contacts, bookmarks, your iTunes Library and much more.

Categories

The Categories indexing rule automatically groups similar index items. All items of the same kind are collected into categories, allowing you to sub-search these categories for a specific item of that kind.

Applications

The Applications indexing rule scans for applications installed on your computer.

Options

Actions

The Actions indexing rule provides access to a number of built-in actions as well as custom actions in form of AppleScripts and Unix Executables.

Built-in Actions

LaunchBar comes with a comprehensive set of built-in actions, such as Sleep, Shut Down, Save Text, Show Date, Volume control (Mute, Mute Off, Maximum Volume, etc.), iTunes playback control (Play, Pause, Next Song, Previous Song, etc.), Entourage control (Address Book View, Calendar View, etc.), and more. See the Index pane of the Actions indexing rule for a complete list of all available actions.

The built-in “Save Text” action

The built-in “Save Text” action

See the Index pane of the Actions indexing rule for a complete list of all available actions.

Custom Actions

If you wish to add your own custom actions, you can create AppleScripts, shell scripts or Unix Executables and put them in the ~/Library/Application Support/LaunchBar/Actions folder. This folder is automatically indexed by LaunchBar.

In addition you can turn on indexing for your ~/Library/Scripts, ~/Library/iTunes/Scripts and /Library/Scripts folders in the Options pane of the Actions indexing rule.

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Workflows

The Workflows indexing rule includes all Automator workflows that have been saved as an OS X Service. You can then use these items just like other Actions, either by invoking them directly, pressing Space to enter a text argument or using them as a Send to target.

Learn more about Workflows…

Services

The Services indexing rule includes all items contained in the OS X Services menu. You can then use these items just like other Actions, either by invoking them directly, pressing Space to enter a text argument or using them as a Send to target.

Snippets

The Snippets indexing rule provides access to a set of often–used pieces of small text. Instead of typing the same text again and again, you just select a snippet in LaunchBar and hit Return.

Learn more about Snippets…

Dock

Includes all items contained in the Dock. You can specify whether to include docked applications or to include items from the Dock’s documents area only.

Preference Panes

Includes all preference panes available in System Preferences, allowing you to open a particular preference pane directly from LaunchBar.

Mounted Volumes

Includes all mounted volumes such as hard disks, mounted disk images, removable media like CD, DVD, digital camera or iPod, and all connected servers.

Network Locations

Includes all network locations defined in the Network pane of System Preferences. Allows you to quickly switch between locations using the keyboard.

User Accounts

Provides access to all user accounts and the Login Window. Allows you to quickly perform Fast User Switching using the keyboard.

Contacts

The Contacts indexing rule includes all contact cards, contact groups and contact details like full name (including title and nickname), email addresses, phone numbers, postal addresses, company, department and job title information, notes and more.

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Calendars

Includes all calendars from your Calendar.app allowing you to select a particular calendar and press the space bar to create a new event.

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iTunes Library

Scans your iTunes Library for music items such as songs, playlists, artists, composers and genres. Automatically creates smart “Best Of Lists” containing the top rated songs of each artist, composer or genre.

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iPhoto Library

Scans your iPhoto Library for photo albums and photos. Scanning for photos is turned off by default.

Web Bookmarks and History

Web Addresses (URLs) are retrieved by reading your web browser’s bookmarks and history, or by scanning the contents of an arbitrary HTML file.

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1Password Bookmarks

Reads your Go & Fill Bookmarks defined in 1Password.

Cyberduck Bookmarks

Reads your Cyberduck Bookmarks and allows you to quickly establish bookmarked FTP connections.

Tower Repositories

This indexing rule includes all git-repositories that are managed by Tower. This allows you to quickly switch to a particular repository in Tower.

Development Resources

This indexing rule scans for development resources such as frameworks, header files and documentation from the ADC Reference Library.

There are options for scanning the “Cocoa Reference” (including all Cocoa API reference files) and the “Cocoa Guides” (including conceptual information, programming guides and tutorials). LaunchBar displays these ADC Reference Library items with distinct file icons to make them better distinguishable from regular HTML files.

Search Scope

The “Search Scope” option specifies where to search for frameworks and header files. The “Essential Frameworks” option represents a fixed list of commonly used frameworks. It includes AddressBook, AppKit, ApplicationServices, Foundation, CoreData, CoreFoundation, CoreGraphics, CoreServices, LaunchServices, PreferencePanes, ScreenSaver, Metadata and WebKit frameworks.

iCloud Documents

This indexing rule indexes all your documents that are currently stored in iCloud.

Files and Folders

Files and folders are retrieved by scanning the contents of a folder. The configuration can contain multiple Files and Folders indexing rules, one for each folder whose contents shall be scanned.

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Search Templates

Search templates allow you to perform web searches and to invoke commands from the Services menu directly from LaunchBar.

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Custom Lists

Custom Lists can be used to add single files or folders to the index (instead of indexing the entire contents of a folder).