![]() ![]() As a quick example see my post from yesterday. Many things that would require you to write a workflow in Alfred are already built in in LB. With LB you have less need for customization. I tried Launchbar before, but it didn’t seem as easily customizable as Alfred. It is now my new favorite, extremely fast, and visually beautiful way to launch Applications on the Mac.What other software and tools work well with KM? I am really happy that this works the way it does. Command+Spacebar, type the first few letters of the Application you want to open and hit Return. When I type in enough letters to get to the Application I want to open I simply hit Return. This allows me to find just the Application I want to open. The nice thing about the new Search field in Launchpad is that I have the ability to immediately start typing which narrows down what is visibly available to select inside Launchpad. So now when I hit Command+Spacebar this brings me directly to Launchpad. Then, I added the shortcut Command+Spacebar to open Launchpad. I decided to change this.įirst, I went into the Keyboard preference pane in the System Preferences and changed the keyboard shortcut for Spotlight to Option+Spacebar. By default there is unfortunately no keyboard shortcut to open Launchpad. Launchpad can be accessed many ways such as using Hot Corners, clicking the Launchpad icon in the Dock, finding it in the Applications folder, Spotlight, etc. By default and mentioned earlier, Spotlight uses Command+Spacebar as the shortcut. Among the options are the ability to change what keyboard shortcuts you want to use to open Spotlight as well as Launchpad. In OS X Mountain Lion you can change keyboard shortcuts in your System Preferences under the Keyboard preference pane and you can do this for just about any keyboard shortcut system wide. This is where I found the magic to fast, beautifully visual Application launching. With OS X Mountain Lion Apple added some new improvements to Launchpad including an all new Search field. Once again it is mainly a mouse/trackpad driven process which will slow you down. It is visually beautiful but much slower than any keyboard shortcuts or Application launchers mentioned earlier. Launchpad is an iOS inspired Application launcher that is a simple, visual way for Mac users to launch an Application without having to go into the Finder. LaunchpadĪnother option Apple recently introduced is Launchpad which debuted with Mac OS X Lion. Another problem is that I like to hide the Dock when I am not using it which introduces another obstacle in my way of opening an Application quickly. It is also mouse/trackpad driven so that tends to be slower than keyboard shortcuts. You might be thinking, “Why not just use the Dock?” Well, the Dock is a great place for the most used Applications, but most people do not leave ALL of their Applications in the Dock. What if all I want is to open up an Application? Wouldn’t it be faster to just search through the Applications only? This is what I found myself using Spotlight for ninety-five percent of the time anyway. The last thing is that it searches everything from files to folders, music, pictures, videos, etc. I also find that the Spotlight interface is too small and not too impressive looking. The problem for me is that it is not as fast as some of the other options mentioned earlier. That is fast and of course a nice way of finding items stored anywhere on your Computer or Network. This immediately launches Spotlight and I am able to quickly start typing to select the item I am looking for. ![]() Like most Mac users I am used to opening Spotlight using the simple Command+Spacebar shortcut. Keyboard shortcuts are usually the fastest way of accessing different things on the Mac. The crucial part of course was getting those Applications up and running as fast as possible, but the visual appeal is what kept me coming back for more. However, the main need for me was simple. Launchbar even though powerful was always too visually unappealing and too small of a user interface for my own taste. Alfred is visually appealing as well but didn’t seem quite as powerful as Quicksilver. I loved the speed and visual appeal of Quicksilver but that has gone through various developer starts and stops over the years. ![]() They all seemed to serve similar purposes with some more powerful than others. I have gone between Spotlight, Alfred, Launchbar, and long ago used my favorite of the group Quicksilver. Software used in Tutorial: OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.1)įor years I have been using various Application Launchers to open up Applications on the Mac.
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