Launchy / News: Recent posts

Launchy 2.5 is here. Updates include:

* Added Simon Capewell as a developer. This release owes quite a lot to him. Thanks Simon!
* Faster performance
* Better behavior on Linux – Thanks Mike! (d9b5)
* OS X now supported
* Icons displayed correctly
* Environment variables updated correctly when system changes
* Controly includes more items, thanks Fabian!
* New shortcut keys
* New controls:
* Shift+tab or Shift+bkspc deletes previous tab
* Shift+Ctrl+Enter launches in elevated mode (Vista and Win7)
* Down arrow shows history (when there is no current search text)
* Default skin built into executable in case no other skin is found
* Launchy now has an icon in the system tray
* Skins are simplified and easier to create
* Directory browsing auto-completes correctly

2.1 has been released, which includes what is essentially a beta version of Linux 2.1. It was hard to get Linux testers without first making a release, so use at your own risk ;)

• Added Linux support! (KDE and Gnome both work, possibly others)
• Added Google Calculator plugin (gcalc)
• Added configurable default search to weby (all searches with no results default to google)
• “/” and “\” now tab complete while file browsing
• Added rescue mode to recover lost windows or forgotten hotkeys (in Linux run “launchy rescue” or use the start menu in windows)
• Minimum transparency set to 15%
• Searches are even faster and the catalog uses slightly less memory
• Bug Fixes:
o Fixed the database update timer
o Fixed centering problem when multiple monitors in use
o Fixed the url encoding problem, e.g. googling for “c#” now works

Whew! It's here! Check out the forums for download details and comments. Please let me know how Launchy on Linux is working for you!

https://sourceforge.net/forum/forum.php?thread_id=2127754&forum_id=827410

I've got a fully functional Linux release working, and it's checked into SVN. There are a few more bugs to fix up but it's *SO* close!

It will work with gnome/kde/xfce/whatever. If you're running a composite manager (compiz/kwin 4.x/beryl) you will be able to use the same beautiful skins as windows users have. Otherwise they will be slightly degraded.

2.0.0
• Launchy has been completely rewritten with QT
o Your old plugins/skins will no longer work
o Your old configuration will be wiped
• A new look! New icons and skin thanks to Tyler Sticka
• Much better skinning support
• Options merged into a single, tabbed dialog
• Skin selection now shows previews
• Plugins much more configurable
• Launchy can hide when it loses focus
• Fade in/out effects
• Customizable transparency
• Optional shallow scan of directories
• Unicode support for Firefox bookmarks
• Vista support
• It’s just better.

As I said earlier, the next version of Launchy will be cross-platform. I've had to rewrite everything from scratch, which takes a little while :)

But, thanks to the wonderful tools (QT) that I get to use, development has been rapid. Right now, I've got about 90% of Launchy running and the first plugin is coming right along.

From this point, it's mostly a matter of finishing up some plugins, debugging, and adding a little polish. So while the alpha release is still at least a few weeks away, the next version is roughly on target.... read more

It's going to take awhile, but I've begun porting Launchy to QT 4 on Windows. Over time KDE and OSX ports should also become available. There is a non-trivial amount of platform-specific code in Launchy so it will take time to make Launchy work for each platform, but it will be feasible. This step also requires a complete rewrite of Launchy so don't expect new features for awhile.

Josh

Things are moving right along. I had intended this to primarily be a bug fix release but I couldn't help myself from adding some necessary features.

I've heard from plenty of people that they would like the ability to add their own customized commands. Well, that is now available through the Runny plugin. To add your own commands to Runny, right click on Launchy and go to the Plugins dialog. From there click on Runny and hit the Plugin Options button.... read more

• Launchy now supports plugins! Check out the “Plugins” folder inside your Launchy directory, you can add and remove plugins from there when Launchy is not running. Following are the plugins that come with Launchy by default, I expect many others to be developed by myself and the community.

Weby Plugin (weby.dll)

Perform Web Searches: Launchy now supports the following search keywords: google, msn, yahoo, live, weather, amazon, wikipedia, dictionary, thesaurus, imdb, netflix, and msdn websearch. Type in any of these keywords, hit tab, type in your search query, and hit enter!... read more

Lots of new features and bug fixes. This has pretty much everything that I wanted in a 1.0 release. Note that Launchy has moved its configuration files to docs and settings\username\Application Data\Launchy. This means that your settings will be wiped clean. You can find your old config files in launchy\users\username\

Josh

• Launchy displays the full path and icon to files in the dropdown suggestions box.
• Filetypes can now be specifically set for each directory to index
• Always on top mode added
• USB Mode added
• Configurable index scan interval
• Configuration files moved to docs and settings\username\Applications\Launchy\ which is friendlier to users with limited access accounts.... read more

A year ago, I would have been happy to hit 300 downloads per month. Now Launchy get's over 500 per day. With 100,000 downloads, comes the beta preview of Launchy 1.0 :)

One step closer to 1.0 :) In this release we have..

• Launchy can now index directory names as well as files!
• A utilities folder with useful shortcuts is now included, it adds standard control panel programs, system shutdown / logoff/ reboot, and special folders such as My Documents, and My Music.
• Unicode now fully supported. All character sets should work.
• The old style of matching by association is completely removed, it’s now entirely based upon frequency of use... read more

• Once again, Launchy is prettier. The combobox has vanished.

• New skins! Please see the Author.txt file in each skin’s directory to give credit where credit is due.

• Bug Fixes:
o Sometimes windows shutdown prevented the database from being saved. Now it saves more frequently just in case.
o Arbitrarily long file extensions are now allowed, so you can filter on .mpeg for instance and not just .mpg
o A couple of minor graphical glitches have been fixed... read more

A bug was found in which an exact match of a file/program would be lower in priority than a frequency match. Fixed.

Okay, as promised, mostly bug fixes this round. But I did listen to you guys! Results are now sorted by frequency (as requested), and I must admit it was a good idea. Also, you can now remove the start menu directories if you so desire, which is so strange to me since the program was initially made for the start menu only!

Here is the changelog entry:

• Search results sorted by frequency of use now.
• Configuration files moved to the Users subdirectory of your installation. This means that your configuration file will start fresh.. sorry! It also means that Launchy can be run from a memory stick.
• You can now remove the start menu from the directories you scan if you so desire.
• Bug fixes, hooray!

Okay so I lied, it's 0.9 and not 0.82

This one is pretty.. download it and play with the included skins!

This is a feature complete run up to 1.0

From now until 1.0 will only be bug fixes.

Well, I've decided that Launchy needs to look nicer. So, now it has some new skinning features.. including alpha channel backgrounds :)

Expect a new release soon.

• New installer, after this release upgrades should be much better.
• Added icon support. Now icons are shown as well as the file name. The visual cue of the icon makes for faster launching. (It’s also prettier)
• The combobox is now a bit more sane. It won’t steal your focus away when it drops down.
• Launchy will rescan directories on startup as opposed to waiting a couple of minutes.

Finally. It's done! Here are the features:

• Launchy now scans user specified directories and stores the results in a compressed file to make startup faster.
• You can now change the hotkey that activates Launchy
• You can now create/select skins for Launchy
• Launchy searches *much* faster than before, enabling indexing of thousands of files

Okay, so I managed to kill my harddrive. I made a full backup earlier that day so no big deal, but getting to the backup will take quite awhile for rather ridiculous reasons. Happy holidays everyone, sorry for the delay.

In about 2 weeks the 0.8 release should be ready. I've gone ahead and added the ability to select additional directories and file types for Launchy to index. I currently have all of my music and pictures indexed with no noticeable speed degredation. Hotkey selection works great. A couple bugs have been tracked down and fixed.

Skinning is the only problem at this point. I still have a couple of annoying problems left there. Once finals are over it shouldn't take long to get that sorted out.

The next release is coming soon and includes some nice features:

1) Launchy is now skinnable! It will come with the default 'Blue Trim' theme but feel free to create and download other people's if you prefer. The skinning work is done, I just need to add an interface to allow users to select skins.

2) You can change Launchy's hotkey. Some people have requested this as alt+space can interfere with other programs. This work is completely done.... read more

Launchy now remembers selections you have made in the past. For instance, if you type 'wow' for world of warcraft, but it suggests another program.. such as "Windows Explorer" and you scroll down and choose world of warcraft, it will remember that association and recommend world of warcraft for "wow" in the future.

This is just a minor update

Alright, finally that's done. Now I can work on feature improvements for Launchy in a development environment that I like.