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Launchy review

Launchy

Launchy is one of those rare applications that should be part of every installation of Windows. That's how great it is.

The idea of Launchy is simple, by pressing Alt+Space it provides a simple text field that you can use to enter the name of an application you want to run. As soon as you start typing part of the name of the application, Launchy makes a best-guess from it's catalog (A list of shortcuts scanned from the Start Menu, Desktop etc). When you see the application you want, press enter and it will run it. Simple, elegant, and a brilliant time saver.

Launchy is both free and open source. You can find it at the official website http://launchy.net/

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Comments

summoner2100 (not verified)

Nice, You can also use Skylight on windows for the same options. http://www.candylabs.com/skylight/

 

Mac has Quicksilver which works great.

Earok
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Cheers mate, will have a look at Skylight and Quicksilver (on my work Mac) later.

Anonymous (not verified)

How is that different from whats offered in Vista + Win7 ?

Earok
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O_o there's a Vista/7 equivalent? How do I get to it?

joshuasmyth (not verified)

Theres a textbox in the startmenu.

joshuasmyth (not verified)

Also I had a play around with voice recognision in Vista a while ago - It's fun shouting NOTEPAD!!! at the computer.

Earok
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Ah. I think the difference is customizability about where it searches (ie, Launchy can index shortcuts from anywhere on the hard disk). Apparently it searches Firefox bookmarks and does calculations, though I haven't played with that yet. Also there are some nice third party addons, like the one that controls iTunes, twitter etc. I should play with the third party addons and do a separate review.

For me, it has a better feel. It's nice having the window appear in the middle of the screen, rather then the start menu jumping up and obscuring everything.

joshuasmyth (not verified)

Actually I've been wanting an easy command line interface app for a while - I'll download this and give it a go.

Matthew Gatland (not verified)

If you use Linux, try Gnome Do - it's the same sort of thing (with some interesting twists.)

I will try Launchy. Even though Windows Vista\7 search does the same job, it doesn't feel quite right as Erik said.

arran4
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Joined: 05/05/2009

KDE as well, as something inbetween that and the run command in Windows. (Although I find Run in WIndows almost unusable, and strangely inconsistant between machines.. Ie I can type in 'Desktop' on some XP machines and it works, and on others I can't...)

Earok
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Also I have noticed (At least on my Vista install) there's a second or two delay while the start menu "Searches" for the shortcut I am looking for, but Launchy is lightning quick.

Launchy also has a Linux build ;) but I am guessing the app launchers available for Gnome/KDE are just as efficient.