The Best App Of all time (… and the most fun too.)
Launchy is a keystroke launcher. Its an app for those of you people who are lookin for ways to work on your computer the easy way. It brings the functionality of the windows start menu to the keyboard. Using Launchy, one can launch any of the programs or file/folders currently on the computer. It is a completely free windows and linux utility designed to help you forget about your start menu, the icons on your desktop, and even your file manager. But that’s not all. Launchy can index any folder /location to open the file with mere keystrokes.Launchy indexes the programs in your start menu and can launch your documents, project files, folders, and bookmarks with just a few keystrokes!
Maker : Josh Karlin
Hotkey
It’s default Hotkey is : Alt + Space . Once you install launchy on your computer you can summon it by using this key. You can change these settings in the options dialog box. My preffered hotkey is < Shift + z > . But its your choice. It depends very much on the shape and positioning of the keys on your keyboard. Stick to what you are comfortable with as it is important not to complicate things too muchThe
Other Settings
You can change the number of simultaneously visible suggessions of the dropdown menu : i recommend 10. Also change the max. number of alternate suggessions to the upper limit 500. That way you can ensure that you don’t miss out on any file that you are looking for.
Then , in the user interface list in the general tab,ensure that you check these options.
1 Hide launchy when it loses focus
2 Always centre launchy
then you must uncheck
1 condense launchy seggessions list (its bad because u want as many options as possible)
2 Always diaplay launchy (It’ll just get in your way)
Plus there are some trivial settings such as the opaqueness, fade-in and fade-out time.
Portable Mode
Check the portable mode option if you want to run it from your usb disk / pendrive. This is just awesome! iIt means that you can carry your fully configured launchy with you to any windows running computer.
Goto the program files folder in your windows drive ( usually C:). Copy the entire folder ‘ Launchy’.then paste iot in the root folder in your Usb device. Then you are good to go. If ypou place any shortcuts or applications in this directory ~drive name/Launchy/utilities it will automatically be indexed and you can now open that file using launchy.
Tips n Tricks
Here are some tips from thir official site.
- Search Google
- Type in google, then tab, then your search query and press enter
- Check the Weather
- Type in Weather, then tab, then your zip code or city,state and press enter
- Search other sites
- Other sites you can search include wikipedia, msn, yahoo, amazon, netflix, imdb, and more.
- Browse your computer
- Type in c:, then tab, then a folder or file, hit tab, and continue
- The Launchy Calculator
- Did you know that Launchy has a built in calculator? Type in some algebra and see what happens!
- Index your Bookmarks & Folders
- Directory: C:\Documents and Settings\user\Favorites
- File Type: .url
- Index your Music
- Directory: My Documents
- File Types: .mp3 .aac .ogg
- Index your Pictures
- Directory: My Documents
- File Types: .jpg .gif .bmp
- Index your Documents
- Directory: My Documents
- File Types: .doc .pdf .xls .ppt
- Index custom Commands
- Directory: Your Custom Folder
- File Types: .exe .bat .lnk
- And more..
- Please see the readme file for more tips and tricks with Launchy!
skins and plugins
You can goto the launchy skin forum or the launchy plugins developers forum. from here you can download loads of add-ons. They are simple to add – the instructions will be provided on-site.
In Linux
There exists a launchy version of linux too. But in the brief period that i spent using it i did not get along with the linux version as compared to the windows version. For linux i recommend Gnome-do , But that’s a story for another day.
Now that you know what you’ve been missing out on for so long , why wait ? Go get Your launchy today!
