App Launchers for Windows, Mac and Linux

Those of us who began our computing journey with the typed command line interface have always had a penchant for keyboard shortcuts and, many years later, the ability to navigate your system using just the keyboard has always marked out the hardcore Windows users from an easily befuddled point-and-click-only punter. With today’s sophisticated WIMP interfaces and multi-touch displays you’d be forgiven for thinking that the keyboard’s days were numbered. But you’d be wrong.

The app launcher is a pretty unique bit of software that leverages your speedy typing abilities to quickly and simply launch apps and perform other useful desktop related tasks. Typically these utilities are launched using a hotkey sequence that pops up a floating command prompt in the middle of the screen. You then just type what you want the launcher to do – so for instance, typing ‘Word’ and hitting return would launch Microsoft Word. Most app launchers can do a hell of a lot more than that of course.

The good news is that there are superb launchers available in all three computing platforms. Even if you’re a devoted mouse and pointer user, you ought to give these apps a go. They take a little bit of getting used to, but there’s no doubt at all that they’re an extremely fast way of triggering events on your computer, whether that’s launching an app or performing some other task. So here’s the three best app launchers available for Windows, OSX and Linux:

The Windows App Launcher – Launchy

Launchy – Free

Launchy is actually cross-platform, but we’re concerning ourselves only with the Windows version here. Like all app launchers, it enables you to launch apps, open folders or go to bookmarks with simple typed commands. It does this by indexing your Start menu and storing the results in a speedy look-up table.

Like most app launchers, Launchy can be skinned and extended. The customisation community is firmly behind Launchy and there are plenty of excellent skins out there, enabling you to fine-tune its interface to match the look of your desktop. In addition there are a number of plugins available for command line access to things like Windows Messenger, Tasks, a calculator and to-dos.

The OSX App Launcher – Alfred

Alfred – Free (Powerpack – $20)

Not so long ago, the only App Launcher a Mac user would touch was Quicksilver. But that awesome app descended into development hell, stopped being supported and basically fell out of favour. In its place came Alfred, which is the best app launcher on any platform. In its basic form it’s free, but you can extend its capabilities by paying about $20 for a PowerPack which adds things like file system navigation, iTunes mini player, results actions, clipboard history and colour themeing.

Alfred can search and launch applications, preferences, folders, archives, images, bookmarks, contacts, text files, documents and Applescripts. It can do clever web searches (‘Google weather in Sydney’) and custom web searches (‘reddit lol cats’). You can use it as a calculator (’45/1.2′), a dictionary (‘define geek’) or an awesome clipboard manager. I’ve only scratched the surface of what Alfred’s capable of here, but the important thing to know about it is that’s very easy to get going with and you can extend its capabilities as you grow better at using it.

The Linux App Launcher – Synapse

Synapse – Free

Not wishing to characterise your average Linux user as being more capable than a Windows or OSX user, but let’s face it – you kind of have to be – a lot of Linux stuff happens in the terminal even in the current era of Ubuntu Unity. Gnome-Do used to be the best app launcher on Linux, but it seems to be a dead project these days and Synapse is a far smarter looking application anyway.

I’d put Synapse on a par with Launchy in terms of features and extendability. You call it up with a hotkey (Ctrl + Space by default) and you can then search and run applications, files, folders or bookmarks that match your query. At the moment it’ll index and search for apps, commands and dictionary words and enable you to control Banshee and Rhytmbox media players. It can be extended by using plugins and customised using skins.