Call external program
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Calling an external program or opening a file

An important function of i2Brain is its ability to act as a central collection of links to all sorts of information, be they web sites, text documents, spread-sheets, music files, photographs, email addresses, telephone numbers or any other sort of file your computer can handle.

Thus you can avoid the limitations of "trees" of information such as "Favourites" in your web browser or the tree structure of your hard-disk by creating a multi-dimensional network of items of information.

Use:

The aspect must be defined to "call an external program", i.e. the check-box (circled in green) must be activated:

An element which has a text for the URL aspect appears with an icon bottom right: . Moving the mouse onto the icon shows you the link, and clicking it opens the link in the appropriate program. 

Here's the tool-tip when the mouse is over the icon:

In addition, the item's context menu will also contain the items which you entered:

Don't forget to define the aspect (in this case "URL") to call external programs by using the new or change aspect dialog. Entering "www.i2Brain.com" in the item "Activity 5" under "URL" means that this text appears in the tool-tip and the context menu. Clicking the icon or that menu item causes the operating system to open that file.

Prefices

You can add a prefix to such a link so that your operating system knows what to do with it. A well known example is "mailto:":

 Clicking the yellow envelope should cause your operating system to open a new mail in your favourite mail program.
If you use Skype™ or another VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) telephone system, use the "callto:" prefix to initiate a call:

When you define an aspect which will always use a particular prefix, define it in the dialog: 

This saves you typing "callto:" into every item:

i2Brain is a "switch board" for Skype™

Skype has to know that it should respond to a "callto:" call. Set the options in Skype's menu: "Tools | Options | Advanced":

Your address book - graphically

You can use an aspect "Type" to allow a filter to show you your friends separately from your colleagues, your favourite holiday resorts separately from your airlines. Use logos, photos or drawings to wake up your right-brain.

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