Keyboard Launchers
A few of you know that I’ve toyed around with programming keyboard
launchers before. That work never saw the light of day (largely because I couldn’t get the GUI quite right). The reason I started the project was because the current crop of keyboard launchers were deficient in one way or another. I still think they are, but the competition has gotten a lot tougher recently:
- Launchy has acquired a plugin architecture, enabling it to do more than just launch applications. Its author also recently did a GUI rewrite in Qt, hopefully addressing many of the user interface problems Launchy used to harbor.
- Quicksilver has been open-sourced. This means it is no longer in danger of becoming a paid commercial product, and ports to other platforms (Windows, Linux) may be forthcoming.
-
Enso has become free. It used to cost $35 (for Launcher + Words).
The folks at Humanized have also cooked up Enso Beta Products. One such
product is Enso Developer Prototype, which finally allows end-users to
add their own commands to Enso’s repertoire.
Enso uses a VERB-NOUN interface, while Quicksilver employs a SUBJECT-VERB-OBJECT interface. Both designs have shortcomings, but I still think it’s possible to achieve the benefits of each while keeping the interface both simple and fast. Hmm. This is something I want to revisit later.
