Brian On Software

I’ve been using Launchy for almost a year now, and I’ve concluded that it is a must-have tool for any Windows users and developers. Launchy is an open source keystroke launcher for Windows. As described in the tool’s official website:

Launchy is a free windows utility designed to help you forget about your start menu, the icons on your desktop, and even your file manager. Launchy indexes the programs in your start menu and can launch your documents, project files, folders, and bookmarks with just a few keystrokes!

If the tool’s description wasn’t enough for you to stop reading this post and downloading it, maybe you should know that Launchy has been awarded the SourceForge.NET 2007 Community Choice Awards for Best New Project! And if that is still not enough to persuade you in downloading this tool, maybe if I tell you how I use Launchy, I might persuade you to change your mind.

First of all, using Launchy to launch applications is as simple as Googling something on the Web. By default, Launchy shows up when you press the ALT+SPACEBAR hotkey. Personally, I have changed the default hotkey, and instead I press WINDOWSKEY+SPACEBAR to popup Launchy. As soon as the hotkey is activated, you can start typing the name of the application you want to launch. For example, when I start typing “visual”, Launchy automatically looks up its indexed catalog for any application that has “visual” in its name.

Launchy is smart enough to show you the list of matching application in the order of the most executed applications. For instance, since I tend to use Visual Studio 2005 more often than Visual Studio 2008, Launchy will put Visual Studio 2005 as the first item in the list, and then it will put Visual Studio 2008 in the second place, followed by the Visual Studio 2005 Command Prompt, as shown above.

Launchy can launch more than executable applications. For example, you can also use it to launch a bookmarked web link by simply adding your bookmarks directory (for example, C:\Documents and Settings\YOUR_ACCOUNT\Favorites) in Launchy’s Catalog (right-click on Launchy, then click on Options) and typing the bookmarked link’s name to open it with your web browser. For example, I have added ‘C:\Documents and Settings\bdicroce\Favorites’ in Launchy’s indexed catalog, and I have set up the filter to scan files with *.lnk extensions. That being done, I can now simply type the name of a bookmarked link, such as a link to my blog (ahem), as shown in the following screenshot:

Here’s another feature: The same way Rambo is equipped to launch missiles from any angle, simultaneously throw a hand grenade with his left hand and plant a C4 with his right hand, you can use Launchy to do more than launching applications. In order to do so, Launchy relies on plugins to extend its features. For example, the default-provided Calcy plugin allows you to evaluate mathematical equations within Launchy itself, as shown in the following screenshot:

You can also use Launchy to see what’s the weather like in some city, view a map of a certain region, etc., as shown in the following screenshots. This functionality is possible thanks to the Weby plugin (provided by default), which are simple web commands followed by a tab and a parameter (such as the name of a city). See Launchy’s options for more information on the possible web commands.

So with Launchy, instead of wasting time in finding the application you want to launch from the Start Menu, you can simply execute it in no time. I love it!

For a complete list of available plugins for Launchy, visit Launchy’ official plugins page.

Finally, if you don’t like Launchy’s default skin, feel free to customize it or completely change it by visiting Launchy’s official skins page.

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