{"id":1227,"date":"2008-01-10T10:49:27","date_gmt":"2008-01-10T16:49:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/granades.com\/2008\/01\/10\/running-windows-programs-from-the-keyboard\/"},"modified":"2008-01-10T10:10:46","modified_gmt":"2008-01-10T16:10:46","slug":"running-windows-programs-from-the-keyboard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/granades.com\/?p=1227","title":{"rendered":"Running Windows Programs From the Keyboard"},"content":{"rendered":"

At heart I’m a keyboard junkie. From Interactive Fiction to command shells with emacs keybindings to the old Wordstar navigation key commands, I’m best when I’m on the keyboard and not shuttling back and forth to the mouse. In Firefox I use search strings that I can type into the URL bar. One quick ctrl-L, followed by “dict “, looks up that word in an online dictionary. That’s why I’ve looked longingly at Quicksilver<\/a>, a Mac program for opening files and folders via keyboard. The Windows start menu takes a while to navigate, especially when I have to switch from keyboard to mouse to open a program. For whatever reason, I never thought to look for Quicksilver-like programs for Windows. I made do with Google Desktop: type ctrl twice to bring up the search box and start typing the application name, and often you’ll get the executable or the link in the start menu. It’s not perfect, though, since the results list is chockablock with plenty of other files.<\/p>\n

It turns out there are several Quicksilver-like Windows apps. Launchy<\/a> is an open-source program with the expected sketchy documentation, and Enso Launcher<\/a> is a $20 shareware application launcher and window navigation tool. Neither of these do everything Quicksilver can do, but they do let you launch programs quickly from the keyboard.<\/p>\n

I just got a new work laptop that has Vista on it. I was grumbling about the new Vista start menu, which got rid of the cascading menu that fills the screen in favor of a slowly-scrolling fixed-size list, and was about to switch it back to the XP\/2000 version, when I saw something: a search box at the bottom.<\/p>\n

A search box at the bottom that automatically had the focus<\/i> when I opened the start menu, and that puts programs and folders in the start menu at the top of the result list.<\/p>\n

That’s right, I now have a keyboard-based launcher. Hit the windows button, type in the first part of a program’s name, and hit enter. It’s not as pretty as Enso Launcher, but it’s built in and takes no more system memory. It’s not Quicksilver, but it’ll do nicely, and it’s a killer feature I hadn’t seen much discussion of.<\/p>\n

[tags]windows, keyboard launchers, enso launcher, launchy, quicksilver, vista, start menu, the good is the enemy of the downloading new shareware apps[\/tags]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At heart I’m a keyboard junkie. From Interactive Fiction to command shells with emacs keybindings to the old Wordstar navigation key commands, I’m best when I’m on the keyboard and not shuttling back and forth to the mouse. In Firefox I use search strings that I can type into the URL bar. One quick ctrl-L, … Continue reading Running Windows Programs From the Keyboard<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1227","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t