What is So Great About Application Launchers, Anyway?

Often I suggest to friends, family and any Mac user who will listen that they use an application launcher to speed up their daily workflow. This suggestion is generally followed by quizzical looks, and the question, "A who to do what?". A fair enough question. I get it. It is hard to describe just how transformative their effect can be, so bear with me.

Application launchers are not exactly iTunes; they are not for everybody. Or are they? Everybody likes music, right? Doesn't everybody also launch applications on their computer?

The fact is, the only people who would not benefit from the added speed and efficiency of an application launcher are those who struggle with typing. The very idea of an application launcher is to get your hand off the mouse and onto the keyboard. And in case you haven't noticed, the people who use them, LOVE them.

But what is an application launcher (other than the obvious)? If you have used OSX's Dock or Spotlight features, then you may wonder why anyone would need anything else. After all, the Dock makes it easy to launch all of your favorite applications (iTunes, iPhoto, Mail, Safari, etc.), and Spotlight allows you to find and launch applications, files, folders and just about anything else on your Mac. So what is lacking here?

The answer is simple: speed. Often the cursor is on the opposite corner of the screen and both hands are on the keyboard, busy typing an email. So you stop typing, grab the mouse, jiggle it to see where you are, move to the appropriate location in the dock, and remember that the application you need is not actually in the dock, but instead hidden in the Applications folder.

Wouldn't it be nice if all of this could happen as fast as you thought it up? That would be nice. Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately) computers are not currently tapped directly into our brains. But have you noticed that the keyboard shortcuts you do know start to come automatically? This is what happens across your whole Mac when you use an app launcher.

Enter the application launcher. Simply use a customizable key combination to call it up (I prefer the control-spacebar key combination), type in a few characters, hit return and any application on your Mac starts bouncing happily in the dock preparing to serve you. Nice. Fast. And that's the basic idea; an application launcher is designed to launch any application on your Mac with the fewest keystrokes possible.

So what options are available for the Mac? This article will introduce four: A Better Finder Launcher, Butler, LaunchBar, and Quicksilver. Of these, A Better Finder Launcher and Quicksilver are freeware, Butler is donationware and LaunchBar is shareware. How do all of these applications differ? The quick answer is: personal preference. However, each application has a slew of helpful features that go far beyond simply launching your favorite applications.

The not-so-quick answer: A Better Finder Launcher wins the "I Do Exactly What I Promise Award". Unlike the other 3 applications, A Better Finder Launcher sticks to the basics of giving you a quick means of launching any application or file on your Mac. By default the F1 key calls up the A Better Finder Launcher window where you start typing the name of the application you're looking for, select it and hit the return key. The F1 key can be customized to just about any combination. And that's about it. It launches better than the Mac's built-in Finder.

Butler, LaunchBar and Quicksilver start out the same as A Better Finder Launcher, however once you call these launchers, they offer a plethora of different options. All three allow you to enter any part of a file or application name. For example, if I want to launch OmniGroup's OmniGraffle Pro, I can enter OGP and Quicksilver will find OmniGraffle for me. This is helpful not only for speeding up the process, but also for accuracy. Imagine the increased chance of typos if I had to type OmniGraffle instead of OGP.

There you have it. Or rather, there you have the basic idea of what an application launcher is, which ones are available for the Mac and a brief intro into how they work. Many more articles could be written about any of these launchers, especially Butler, LaunchBar and Quicksilver. Stay tuned for in depth articles on how to setup and get the most out of Quicksilver.

DIG DEEPER

Quick Launching (a round-up of launchers on Macworld)

A Better Finder Launcher
Butler
LaunchBar
Quicksilver

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