AppLaunch Files

AppLaunch v3.1

Copyright © 2004 - 2010 Robert Bienert

AppLaunch comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY. This is free software, and you are welcome to redistribute it under certain conditions; see "Help" → "License" for details.


DESCRIPTION

AppLaunch is a "graphical" shell for MacOS X. The program consists of a command line for executing commands and opening files as well as URLs.  Simply type the URL, filename or shell command you wish to and press enter: The command will be executed immediately. Although this may cause some security problems, I think I made the right decision, because you have got access to the environment, shell acronyms like "~" for your home directory and much more. But the most important reason for this is that the shell called by AppLaunch does path expansion; that means you can execute your programs as always without specifying their full path.

A new feature introduced in AppLaunch 3 is the possibility of manipulating the processes environment. You can set, change or remove environment variables for the application you want to launch. You can also save these settings to your user defaults and restore the saved ones from a previous session. Please note, that the variables are not set by default, you have got to hit the «Set Environment Variables» button and press «OK» to set the values.

AppLaunch 3 also offers the possibility to run shell commands with super-user rights. Simply activate the lock symbel as known from other MacOS X applications, authenticate as admin and then launch your command line utility.

For launching X applications there is now a button on the main window. By clicking this button, AppLaunch starts your local X server, this is /Applications/Utilities/X11.app. There is also the environment variable DISPLAY set, so that launched commands will find the X server. Sadly, this variable is currently not available via the environment editor.


ISSUE TRACKING

There is now an issue tracker installed which can be found at <http://applaunch.wiki.sourceforge.net/Known+Issues+and+Workarounds>. It is also available in the programs "Help" menu.


ERROR HANDLING

If errors occur while executing AppLaunch, the program notifies the user with certain informative dialogues. Additional, all messages from the operating system and the shell are written to the system console log; you can view the log by clicking "Show Console" on the alert panel which will run /Applications/Utilities/Console.app.


SECURITY CONSIDERATIONS

Although AppLaunch may require certain rights to open files or executing secure commands, never forget that restricted users can use AppLaunch to start applications their Finder does not show. So if you deny a command line to those users, deny every command line, even AppLaunch.

Please be very careful with the privileged execution of shell commands! In most cases, there is no “undo”, so you can damage your system, really.


BACKWARD COMPATIBILITY

In contrast to previous AppLaunch versions, the release 3.0 introduces real «tilde expansion» and «tab completion». That means that you can type "~" and AppLaunch will look automatically in your home directory. This works also for "~name": The application uses the user "names" home directory.
Tab completion means that you only need to type the starting characters of a file or application name and AppLaunch will search for you all items that match this name after pressing the tabulator key.

The former AppLaunch version 1.0 stored only a simple set of information into your user defaults under ~/Library/Preferences/de.robertbienert.AppLaunch. Since this information may be useful for later releases, you may want to rename this file to net.sourceforge.applaunch or may want to copy it over the file net.sourceforge.applaunch instead.


INTERNAL

AppLaunch uses as command line history your .bash_history file by default, that means the entries from this file will be displayed in the combo-box and commands executed by AppLaunch are added to it. You can change this setting by viewing the "Preferences" from the main menu. The program saves the name of the history file as so-called "user default"; these information are stored in ~/Library/Preferences/net.sourceforge.applaunch.plist.