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Opening Locations
Opening a panorama can be done in several different ways, depending on where it is stored. A panorama on the internet can be opened by clicking a bookmark to it, dropping a bookmark from Safari, or by simply pasting its address into the location bar. A file on disk can simply be dropped into the viewer window or onto the application icon. This section details each of these methods.
To open a bookmark from the Bookmarks drawer, simply click it to start loading the address the bookmark links to.
If the bookmark is inside a folder, first expand the folder by clicking the disclosure triangle to the left of its name (or just click the folder name itself) and the bookmarks contained will become visible.
(You can learn more about managing existing bookmarks and creating new ones in the Bookmarks section.)
If you have a link to a URL, for example, from an email or mailing list digest, you can cut & paste it into the "location bar" at the top of the viewer window, then press return to have it loaded.
CubicNavigator always displays the current location in this area, though sometimes an address can be too long to fit. To see the full address, hover the mouse over the field for a second and a tooltip will appear showing the full URL.
CubicNavigator can accept a bookmark dragged straight from Safari and dropped into the viewer window. To do this, drag the small web page icon at the left of Safari's location bar, into the viewer area of CubicNavigator's window and, when the cursor shows a green dot with a "+" in it, let it go.
For .webloc files (Safari's web location bookmarks) that have been dragged out of Safari onto the Finder Desktop, you can drop these files either into the viewer window, or onto the CubicNavigator application icon in the Dock.
If you already have a collection of QuickTime VR or other panoramas on disk, you can simply drop a file into the CubicNavigator viewer window or onto its application icon in the Dock.
When opening a location, CubicNavigator scans it for VR content and if it finds some and you are in the OpenGL-based VR view, it will interpret it and display the VR filling the window (or the screen if you select fullscreen mode).
However, if the location turns out to be a normal web page, CubicNavigator will switch to the "Web Page View" which will render the location in a similar way to a normal web browser such as Safari.
For example, the location http://www.apple.com/quicktime/gallery/cubicvr/ is Apple's index page to their cubic QuickTime VR gallery.
This web page doesn't contain any QuickTime VR movies, just links to them in the picture thumbnails. So, when this location is entered in CubicNavigator, it will be shown in the web page view.
By contrast, the location http://www.apple.com/quicktime/gallery/cubicvr/paris.html is one of the examples in the gallery and contains an embedded QuickTime VR movie. When this location is entered in CubicNavigator, the VR content is extracted and an OpenGL panorama is created.
You can switch between views by clicking the "View As Page" / "View As VR" button on the toolbar.
When viewing a page containing QuickTime VR content is viewed in the web page view, QuickTime VR movies or Java applets are shown by the QuickTime plugin or Java just as a normal web browser would show them.
Sometimes you may prefer to view new pages first in the web page view, then, when they have finished downloading, switch to the VR view for a more immersive experience. (Having a fluid panorama completely fill the screen on a 20" or larger monitor is quite an experience!)
CubicNavigator's page loading logic can be set in the Preferences. (See the Preferences chapter for more information.)
Now that know how to open a panorama, you can proceed to the next chapter: Viewing & Moving Around Panoramas.
Watch Movie of Tutorial Being Performed [1:50]