If truth be told, in the last three years I've been more of a Mac user than a Windows user. When I found about the Mac app called QuickSilver I was fascinated and I considered it one of the reasons why someone should get a Mac.
Although most of the time I use Quicksilver for opening apps and files, it has a lot of commands that save me a lot of time like resizing photos, sending files by mail or looking up contacts.
In the Windows world Launchy was no match for Quicksilver. Then I found out about Enso, which is really cool and changed the rules of the game but it’s not very powerful, Dash Command which is OK but not very intuitive (and not free) and DoMercury which tries to imitate the look and feel of QuickSilver but doesn’t really succeed.
In the Windows world Launchy was no match for Quicksilver. Then I found out about Enso, which is really cool and changed the rules of the game but it’s not very powerful, Dash Command which is OK but not very intuitive (and not free) and DoMercury which tries to imitate the look and feel of QuickSilver but doesn’t really succeed.
My 4.5 year old project PCchat had commands that none of the windows “launchers” had, like uninstall or remove from startup.
I wonder why nobody thought to include these actions that we all use every day, especially uninstalling things. Why is “launching” more important than uninstalling? Or for that matter, installing?
Considering this, I incorporated commands like kill, uninstall or install application in EasyShell.
Considering this, I incorporated commands like kill, uninstall or install application in EasyShell.
I added some Enso goodness (acting on selected text), a pinch of Dash Command (like holding CTRL for more info) and a QuickSilver-like auto-complete mechanism but better.
The end result is a user friendly shell with a lot of power under the hood, a simple application that empowers non-technical people to do complicated stuff .
I guess you can hardly call EasyShell just another “application launcher” (although probably more than 50% of the time you may use it to launch apps. This remains to be seen.)
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Damn, domercury really looks like quicksilver - they stole my idea (yeah, I once wanted to make an exact copy of it). I'll look into domercury and dashcommand, because you forgot to mention them to me.
ReplyDeletePCchat/Easyshell is already 5.5 years old ? deim.. anyways, I thought it was longer than that.. didn't you say it was a project you've made for Loredana or something like that ? Or am I starting to daydream ?
P.S. as a response to your question regarding why nobody includes those actions in their launchers: they probably think that uninstalling, killing processes and stuff like that is not for the average end-users (most of them just listen to music, play games, install apps and never uninstall them, and then reinstall their OS - that's the basic routing of an average end-user in my opinion).
A.P.S. Have you tried AutoMate for Windows ? it's the ultimate thing.. I use it all the time for OS automation with my own scripts.. it's like an easier version of Mac's Automator, but you don't have to learn a programming language and you still get the same power from it!