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Introduction
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| Program Launchers try to provide a more efficient way of running programs than by using the Windows Start Menu or having your desktop littered with icons. The approach adopted varies from product to product and ranges from dockable windows to tray icons through to keyword typing. None of the solutions is perfect; each has its strengths and weaknesses. The suggestions will be divided in five subcategories: keyword search, keyword command, panels, menus and docks. |
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Discussion
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With Launchy you can not only launch applications but also--using the same keyword philosophy--launch your preferred media player with a specific MP3 file; invoke your preferred desktop search tool while entering a search term of your choice; have your preferred browser open on a specific bookmark or page from the history. The possibilities are virtually endless. Version 2 of Launchy is less stable than v1, and many users prefer to retain the final version 1 iteration! But alongside Launchy, the other contenders fall down on configurability or indexing performance.
Coming to the panels class, there are a lot of good choices, including FSL Launcher, Fast Launcher and 8Start. But 8Start comes out on top in many key areas like footprint and functionalities. In the menus class, readers suggestions have led me to change my mind and suggest as the best solution Free Launch Bar: this is an extremely stable piece of software that will give you exactly what you want from it. A good contender is JetStart, but the free version is limited to 5 pre-set general categories. Finally, the docks class. I have to admit I'm not an user of these type of launchers, so my tests are limited. But I can say that a good choice is RocketDock. It is well supported, has a small memory footprint and can do whatever you'd expect from a dock. Another excellent choice is Magic Formation (thank you Anonymous reader!). MagicFormation is really incredible, comes from nowhere and has already notched up a lifehacker recommendation. Congratulations! Both are winners. |
The only viable alternative is 
In the keyword command class, the clear winner is |
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Bump - Didn't realise you could still add new comments!
The key issue here is usability. In my opinion, dock launchers such as RocketDock, ObjectDock are pretty gimmicky, their popularity comes from mimicking the Mac OS X Dock: style over substance IMHO.
I was giving up hope that I would never take to a 3rd party app launcher, or that they offered me nothing that the regular Window's quick launch bar, start menu and desktop didn't. Then I found sTabLauncher, and I love it!
The real limitation I find with apps like RocketDock, is that when running a full screen window, you either haven't to have them on top and thus obscuring some of the screen, or hidden away, in which case what do they really offer over standard desktop icons or quick launch bar? There is also the limitation of space, you can only fit so many icons into each dock.
sTabLauncher allows you to have an opaque, completely customizable named collection of colour coded tabs, which obstruct only against the outer boarder of a window. You can have, for example, Internet, Music, Office, Security tabs which pop up (or down) when you rest the mouse cursor (or click on) the area. In effect, it's like having many "pop up docks" for launching different types of apps, or folders.
Maybe it's just how my mind works, but whilst I sometimes forget the specific name of a program I'm wanting to access, I'm usually able to remember what it does, and then visually locating it's icon within a reasonably small collection of icons is quite easy.. but everyones' minds work differently I guess!
A lot of the find as you type launch programs seem to be pretty buggy. Launchy versions 1 & 2 both seemed to crash and never work again after about two minutes.
Of the lot of them, Find and Run Robot seems to work best on my system, even if it is a bit complex. Plugins available for it also offer some pretty neat options, like typing in tz to bring up the current time in all the world's time zones.
"sTabLauncher is the neatest and most useful desktop launcher I've found." +1
You totally missed perhaps the best of them all ... Executor...
I've not missed it, I've used it for three months before deciding not to include it. The reason is low indexing speed and poor indexi accuracy. I think it is worth to mention it in the Related Products and Links section, but as I've said in a message I prefer to let you readers add items in that section.
Will you look at sTabLauncher please? I find it more useful, and flexible than the panel/dock type launchers in this article.
http://stablauncher.com/
I Know sTabLauncher and I've used it quite a lot when it come out. The Docks class - in my opinion - suite best, but anyway sTabLauncher cannot beat the power of the other contender like RocketDock. But it surely deserve a mention, so I invite you to add it in the links section.
I'm sorry but I strongly disagree. It's hard to define "power" in the context of app launchers, probably the most powerful programs are the keystroke launchers, BUT only to those you are comfortable operating that way.
The key issue here is usability. In my opinion, dock launchers such as RocketDock, ObjectDock are pretty gimmicky, their popularity comes from mimicking the Mac OS X Dock: style over substance IMHO.
I was giving up hope that I would never take to a 3rd party app launcher, or that they offered me nothing that the regular Window's quick launch bar, start menu and desktop didn't. Then I found sTabLauncher, and I love it!
The real limitation I find with apps like RocketDock, is that when running a full screen window, you either haven't to have them on top and thus obscuring some of the screen, or hidden away, in which case what do they really offer over standard desktop icons or quick launch bar? There is also the limitation of space, you can only fit so many icons into each dock.
sTabLauncher allows you to have an opaque, completely customizable named collection of colour coded tabs, which obstruct only against the outer boarder of a window. You can have, for example, Internet, Music, Office, Security tabs which pop up (or down) when you rest the mouse cursor (or click on) the area. In effect, it's like having many "pop up docks" for launching different types of apps, or folders.
Maybe it's just how my mind works, but whilst I sometimes forget the specific name of a program I'm wanting to access, I'm usually able to remember what it does, and then visually locating it's icon within a reasonably small collection of icons is quite easy.. but everyones' minds work differently I guess!
Another great prog is Executor
http://home25.inet.tele.dk/mb/executor/index.html
sTabLauncher is the neatest and most useful desktop launcher I've found. As you might have guessed it uses tabs to locate and launch programs, which works superbly. It's tabs take up a tiny portion of the screen, but they will pop up showing only the program icons for each labeled section when the mouse cursor is hovered over them. This makes it preferable in that not only is it extremely unobtrusive, but it allows you to store many more program launch icons than with other docks (where you can quite easily run out of space or get overcrowded), and it does this with greater accessibility and visual clarity than start menu/panel launcher type apps. Try it, unless you a staunch keyword app user, you will want to ditch your existing dock, panel etc launcher setup!
http://stablauncher.com/
With NET 2.0? No thanks.
I think Fences is fantastic, it allows you to organise and categorise apps on your desktop; rather than through using these silly dock thingys
Please, add any suggestion to the Related Products and Links section.
Thankx!
*koff* thinked = thought
Shame on me
nonsense! brilliantly done.
editoed
My favorite launcher is Appetizer ( http://app.etizer.org ). It's fast, lightweight, looks great and I can carry it around on my USB key :)
found some dock applications
Appetizer
http://app.etizer.org/
Sliderdock
http://sliderdock.wikidot.com/start
and some multiple product launcher
Lacuna Launcher
http://appsapps.info/lacunalauncher.php
Utility Launcher
http://www.jfbpage.com/
I stumbled upon Fences [:)] and I too love it; its now my default desktop, primarily because one double-click and my screen is free to display photos or anything else.
It can be used as a launch app: setup one instance, however you want, except for quick start items (or items you'd like to be quick start). For those, start a second instance containing only the items you want to be quick, one-touch, launch. Then on the 2nd quick link fences' properties page, check 'Don't include this fence in double-button hide and view'.
This fence is now on your desktop all the time, ready to launch away. Need your other programs? Double click, and instantly, all your other fences show-up. Stop using a program? Click the icon, drag away, and delete (or put into another fenced area).
Yep! Good program. Thanks to whomever!
BearPup
Is there a text launcher which works in any window, like in notepad, web browser etc? You wrote some text anywhere, like "ffox", and firefox is launched ...
PowerPro can do that and it's free.
Autohotkey could do this for you. Just put the following in a script and run it:
:*:ffox::
Run C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\Firefox.exe
return
I don't know anything like that. xStarter - which is shareware - should be able to do that, but it is not a program launcher.
Hey I would also have to say that Stardocks ObjectDock is better then rocket dock. It seems to work better, smoother, and has more flexability. While they are both very similar I was trying both and found that rocketdock seems to hesitate a bit when you mouse over it as object dock does not, plus there is a bit more customisation with object dock, perhaps not in the skins, but the effects and in the options menu.
New dock on the block
http://xwdock.aqua-soft.org/
XWindows Dock
Its free, seems to work pretty well though I haven't had much time with it, missing so far is drag and drop onto the dock.
Object Dock Plus has tabbed docks (very useful), and can incorporate both your system tray and Start menu into the dock. Other than that and creating as many docks as you want and a few more customizations, its not that different from Object Dock free version.
I find Rocket Dock to be more responsive, but I like to use Object Dock.
actually, I found that RocketDock was more responsive than ObjectDock, and that the website to get more docks or icons for RocketDock was far more easier to navigate and faster to load than ObjectDock's site, which was very important to me, ObjectDock also advertises a paid version of ObjectDock which makes it seem unclean, and the only advantage I saw ObjectDock having over RocketDock is that there seemed to be more settings to tweak in ObjectDock than RocketDock
I made very good experiences with Stardocks ObjectDock in Vista Home 32Bit. It runs for months now absolutely stable. Features and visuals are great as well.
http://www.stardock.com/products/objectdock/
Hi,
I haven't found "Keylaunch" from Konrad Papala in the list :
http://www.konradp.com/products/keylaunch/
A small freeware I like a lot (but I'll give a try to some others I've found here, just because I'm curious !)
Keep up the good work Fabrizio and Gizmo !
Jeff
ps : I tried Executor, and it takes 50% of my CPU for a loooooong time (far too long as it should only for indexing my Start menu...I had to kill it. I think I'll keep "my" updated Keylaunch !)
I know Keylaunch, and for what it claim to do is a good software, but if you search around the web there are tons of little software to launch programs: it seems the last developer sport :-)
I try to insert in the review only software for the category that have special features (like command for executor).
It is very strange what you said about the cpu eating, I'll try to set executor to index all the hard disk to evaulate his performance better.
Bye and Thank you
Hi Fabrizio !
Yes, you're right, it seems to be the "last developer's sport" !
By the way, I turned to FARR : no more problem of indexing !
Regarding Executor, maybe the problem comes from my computer... a little cluttered by too many programs. I had the same trouble with Launchy ("Everything" is a problem too when running with my antivirus (NOD32) doing a weekly depth scan. But this is another program category, ok ;-) )
You're welcome !
Best ever program launcher, for me at least, and excluding PowerPro, is Magic Formation.
youtube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sco1xX_okI0
Home page: http://tokyodownstairs.blogspot.com/2008/03/magic-formation.html
Free, portable, multiple configurations support, nice visual display, mouse gestures support, hotkeys support etc...
Give it a try! :)
Thanx, it is great indeed!
try desktop sidebar,just remove any panels you don't want and just use it as a launcher,i like the system panel so i can keep an eye on cpu and ram.and it is free.
I'll check it. Whate are the differences with CircleDock?
The major difference is that MagicFormation is very STABLE.
CircleDock crashed on me so often that it was unusable (WinXPHomeSP3).
Second would be the size: 504KB (only 3 files) versus 16MB (many files, many icons).
Other ones would be:
- MF is very resource friendly: under 1MB of RAM usage when hidden and about 2,5-3MB when shown;
- MF is very fast and responsive; CD often had my cpu usage run at full 100%;
- MF does not require .Net;
- MF never interfered with other programs (I use it for more than 6 months now); CD often interfered with my movie players (like GOM, making image choppy) so it had to be stopped;
- MF can have multiple/per machine settings;
- mouse gestures are simple but work better in MF;
- MF has hotkeys support for fast navigation;
- MF does what it says it does, flawlessly.
I am not saying that CD is a bad app; I think it has A LOT of potential, but is nowhere near finished. On the other hand CD has more options but what's the point if the app is unstable...
In conclusion if you want productivity you go MagicFormation...
I want to use it on several comps using USB. Now, if i go to another comp, default setting is used. do you know how would i use it on several comps with one .ini?
If you want to have only one configuration file (independent of machine name) you have to go in Settings/Others, and check "Do not add the machine name to the name of inifile" checkbox; you will have only one config file then, named MagicFormation.ini .
joby_toss
How can I launch a second browser using .exe -new path? I tried and it is not working for me.
great new free product from stardock called fences
http://www.stardock.com/products/fences/
Nothing is free from stardock. It's public beta, full of bugs and expires in August. So it's not freeware and never will be.
In this case is really freeware. There will be a "PRO" commercial version, but the basic will remain free.
Just tried this one myself and am very impressed. Great organisation of the desktop and one to shout about in Gizmo's freebies. Thumbs up here and I am going to keep it. And as yet no bugs, works great on the new computer.
I certainly would not call it a Launcher, more a deask organiser. First class.
Tony
My favorite is Tazti. It uses voice recognition. It has been pretty much 100% accurate once I trained the program by reading scripts so that it learns my voice.
Don't forget Humanized Enso. Version 1 for stability, version 2 for those who don't mind rare bugs for improved features.
Yeah!
To summirize, the review I'm preparing will be divided in categories.
Keyword launch category will contain two sub-categories. Keyword search with Launchy, Executor and FARR witth FARR and Executor the winner, FARR for advanced users and Executor for all the rest (I'm using executor). I'm using keybreeze to decide about its inclusion. The second subcategory is keyword command wich will contain only Enso.
Another category is click and run, with FSL Launcher, Fast Launcher and 8Start, with 8Start as the winner.
The third category is menu launch with JetStart and Free Launch Bar, with JetStart as the winner.
Said that, every suggestion is apprciated!
Yes, Fabrizio, we hope to see more candidates coming up.
For menu launch, it is critical that we can set our own categories freely. So I disagree JetStart to be the winner.
JetStart limits users to 5 pre-set general categories, which are Tools, Internet, Office, Games and Other. That's it. If you want your own or need more, they ask you to go for pro and pay.
Free Launch Bar has unlimited categories, you can set your owns freely. Within a category, it has separators to divide into sub-categories. It's also compatible with Quick Launch. Whatever programs you add to Quick Launch, it automatically adds to Free Launch Bar. I can't see these useful features in JetStart.
Between these two, I am with FLB.
Ok, but - as we say here in Italy - I'm like San Tommaso, i.e. I want to touch first with my hand :-)
I'l reinstall again both and try to replicate the menus I have in my - very crowded - start menu.
Is 8start launcher any good?
http://www.8start.com/
I've been using 8start (on my Vista PC) for quite a few months now and it is absolutely beautiful. Looks like a cross between a virtual t.v. remote control and an iPhone. It's completely customizable, can be left on the desktop, hidden, popped up on top of other windows, is skinnable and even my 16 year old teenager had me put it on his computer. I'm still using version 1.7, but there's a newer version available. Drag-n-drop and copy-and-paste are not yet available but they may come in future versions. 8start has been absolutely stable and a joy to use. It takes a little while to learn, but it's definitely worth the investment. 8start is definitely one of the best pieces of software I've ever used.