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farqueue

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jun 18, 2006
456
32
Can i use front row to runmovies off my external hard drives? via USB or network hard drives?

cheers
 
i believe front row uses the specific movie, itunes, and iphotot folders mac os creates on it own. i think without modifying the program you wont be able to
 
There may be a more elegant way, but what you can do is create a link to the folders you want to use inside the folders. Like Music or Videos.

This way Front Row will see the link and bring up the videos in the lists.

To do this. Right click on the folders you want to see in Front Row. You will see "Make Alias". Do that. It will make a folder with a litter arrow in the bottom left corner. Take that and stick it in your videos folder (or wherever you want it).

Then pull up Front Row. It should now show the folder in the list.
 
Well, if you created a symlink or alias that pointed the appropriate folders at an external drive, then yes..

But you cannot use Frontrow to 'surf' to an external drive. And if the external was unavailable when Frontrow tried to use it, you might make it angry.
 
I store some movies on my Macbook's HDD (in the Movies folder) and others on an ext USB HDD. I just put an alias in my Movies folder called "External HDD" that links to the movies folder on the USB drive.

When I run Front Row without the USB connected, it doesn't even show the alias. However, when I DO have the USB connected, the alias appears and I can access those movies. I was pleasantly surprised.

Furthermore, I can plug the USB drive in after I've already started Front Row and it will appear.
 
The joys of UNIX symlinks eh...

I'm planning on sharing my videos and music from my main PC over wireless in a similar way. I run Linux on my main PC so will probably try Samba first for sharing the files - and a symlink in the same way. I'll post back with if it works or not.
 
yellow said:
But you cannot use Frontrow to 'surf' to an external drive. And if the external was unavailable when Frontrow tried to use it, you might make it angry.

Actually, you can. Just make an alias of your Volumes directory in the Movie directory. That simple. New disks appear there, and you can surf away!
 
I do the same, just drag alias' of the folders I want to appear in FrontRow into the Movies folder of my Home directory. I just keep them all on my Fantom Drives 500GB external.

One issue you'll want to watch out for though. Sometimes if you try to eject the external disk, it'll tell you it can't since it's in use. Just go into Activity Monitor and kill the Front Row process, you can then eject and disconnect the drive.
 
Thats what i wanted to know about, how can you 'quite' front row? so i dont have to go to the activity monitor everytime.. and while I am at it, how do i 'quite' the widgets thing after i pressed f12?
They both seem to stay running in the activity monitor eventhough i stopped using them..
 
I think going through Activity Monitor is the only way that is straightforward. Any other method would require using the terminal and automating it.

As for Dashboard, you can just turn that off using something like Tinkertool or Onyx. You can also turn off Expose if you don't use that.
 
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