Launchy is a free and open-source

application launcher An application launcher is a computer program that helps a user to locate and start other computer programs. An application launcher provides shortcuts to computer programs, and stores the shortcuts in one place so they are easier to find. In th ...

for

Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for ser ...

Mac OS X macOS (; previously OS X and originally Mac OS X) is a Unix operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2001. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac computers. Within the market of desktop and la ...

, FreeBSD and

Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, w ...

. It indexes shortcuts in the

start menu The Start menu is a graphical user interface element used in Microsoft Windows since Windows 95 and in other operating systems. It provides a central launching point for computer programs and performing other tasks in the Windows shell. It is name ...

, and files in specific folders, to allow quicker access to programs without opening the start menu or browsing to folders.

Program usage

Launchy automatically loads on boot and waits for the user to call it by pressing Alt + Space or a custom

hotkey computing, a keyboard shortcut also known as hotkey is a series of one or several keys to quickly invoke a software program or perform a preprogrammed action. This action may be part of the standard functionality of the operating system or ...

. The user then starts typing the name of the program or file they wish to launch. Launchy automatically searches its list of programs for the closest match as the user types. When it finds the desired program, the user hits Enter and it is automatically launched. Launchy can add folders and file formats to its catalog for indexing, so it can launch almost anything on a computer, including programs, URLs (also from bookmarks) and documents; as well as run Google, Wikipedia, MSN and Yahoo searches, bringing the results up in the default browser. Launchy can be extended with plug-ins.

Platform

Launchy was originally written in C# (ver. 0.5), and in

C++ C++ (pronounced "C plus plus") is a high-level general-purpose programming language created by Danish computer scientist Bjarne Stroustrup as an extension of the C programming language, or "C with Classes". The language has expanded significan ...

since version 0.6. The latest version, 2.0, has been completely rewritten using Qt. This has resulted in incompatibility with older skins and plugins.

Included plugins

The following plugins are included with the 2.0 release:

Controly

* Adds control panel items to the catalog

Weby

* Allows web search * Can launch URLs, also from bookmarks

Calcy

* A simple calculator

Community Plugins

Ampy
controls

Winamp Winamp is a media player for Microsoft Windows originally developed by Justin Frankel and Dmitry Boldyrev by their company Nullsoft, which they later sold to AOL in 1999 for $80 million. It was then acquired by Radionomy in 2014. Sinc ...

, iTunes and foobar2000.
gCal Plugin
posts events to Google Calendar.
iTuny
controls iTunes.
Killy
terminates tasks by name.
Launchy#
allows loading of plugins written in a

.NET language The domain name net is a generic top-level domain (gTLD) used in the Domain Name System of the Internet. The name is derived from the word ''network'', indicating it was originally intended for organizations involved in networking technologies ...

.
MathyResurrected
adds additional mathematical capabilities.
PuTTY Launchy Plugin
launches saved PuTTY sessions.
PyLaunchy
allows loading of plugins written in the

Python programming language Python is a high-level, general-purpose programming language. Its design philosophy emphasizes code readability with the use of significant indentation. Python is dynamically-typed and garbage-collected. It supports multiple programming p ...

Plugin development

Launchy 2 has a C++ API for developing extension plugins that add new types of objects to the catalog. Community-developed bindings for other programming languages are provided as plugins: * PyLaunchy allows developing

plugins. * Launchy# allows developing plugins in

.NET languages CLI languages are computer programming languages that are used to produce libraries and programs that conform to the Common Language Infrastructure (CLI) specifications. With some notable exceptions, most CLI languages compile entirely to the Com ...

Awards

2007

* SourceForge.Net Community Choice Awards, Honorable Mention: Best New Project * PC World 15 Best Downloads of the Year: Powertools * CNet Download.Com Top Ten Downloads of the Year

References

External links

* * {{Navigationbox Desktopsearch Free software programmed in C++ Application launchers Software that uses Qt Portable software 2007 software Desktop search engines