ExpressLauncher - a Shareware Application Launcher for Mac

Every Mac running OS X includes the Dock, which is Apple's solution to the problem of launching your most common-used applications. Simply drag an application you use all the time into the Dock, and that application's icon appears there. Now, simply click the icon and your program launches. Simple!

Unfortunately, as many have pointed out, the Dock isn't perfect. The more items you have in it, the smaller each one becomes. Also, with Magnification on the icons change size when you scroll over them, and with that, they change position, so you're often aiming your mouse at a moving target.

I like the Dock; it's fine, but not perfect. For launching my most-used applications (the top dozen or so), it's what I use, but for everything else there's Quicksilver. Quicksilver is my all-time favorite launching application, because it launches anything and everything, along with having a ton of plugins and other abilities.

However, it appears (based on a lack of updates and other indicators), that development of Quicksilver may be slowing or possibly nearing an end, so I'm constantly on the lookout for other program launchers that could possibly fill the void if, in fact, Quicksilver one day stops working for me.

So today I'm trying out a program called ExpressLauncher. ExpressLauncher is a shareware product in active development, available for both OS X 10.4 and 10.5 (Tiger and Leopard), which costs 10 Euros to register. You can download a copy and try it out for 15 days, at which point you'll need to register to continue using it.

I've been looking at ExpressLauncher for a bit and have come to the conclusion that it's a very nice program. Similar to Quicksilver in some ways, and different in quite a few. Is it good? Absolutely. Will I be sad if this ends up being my replacement to Quicksilver? Again, absolutely. But it's not bad.

My main gripe with ExpressLauncher is that it doesn't really know if it's a keyboard launcher (able to be used completely from the keyboard), or mouse-driven. For instance, when you bring up ExpressLauncher, you see a nicely translucent black window with your items on it. It would be nice if you could simply start hitting arrow keys to navigate through the icons, then hit return to launch a particular application. But you can't. You need to use your mouse to move to the application you want, then click to launch. Not a big deal, but not nearly as efficient.

Another area where I feel ExpressLauncher could improve is in setup. A program like Quicksilver requires little setup. Simply launch it, start typing the name of what you want to launch, and when it appears, hit Return (or Enter). ExpressLauncher is not so simple. To use ExpressLauncher, you first need to set it up.

To set up ExpressLauncher, you need to create a group. This group can be named anything you want, and can include any item on your hard drive. The first thing I did was create a group I named Applications, then filled it with (you guessed it), all my most commonly-used applications. This isn't a difficult process, just more hands-on work than I'm used to with Quicksilver.

To the credit of ExpressLauncher, it's able to do more than just launch applications. I mentioned above that ExpressLauncher can launch any item on your hard drive, so the next group I created I named "Folders," and then filled it with folders, such as Music, Videos, Movies, that I use quite often. This is actually pretty nice, because now I simply need to bring up ExpressLauncher and click on the folder I want to go to and I'm there. No drilling down through my hard drives to find the one I want; it's right there at my fingertips.

All in all, I kind of like ExpressLauncher. It would take a bit of getting used to, made more inconvenient by the fact that with Quicksilver, I don't have to do anything to add the shiny new application I just installed on my computer. I just start typing, like always, and there it is. With ExpressLauncher I have to manually add it to one of my groups, or it will never show up. Add to that the fact that Quicksilver is free and ExpressLauncher is not (while other programs like Butler are free), and I'm not as thrilled with ExpressLauncher as I'd hoped to be. It's nice; it works; it just doesn't work as well as Quicksilver. Still, it's a decent enough alternative, but I'll keep looking. If I was forced to use ExpressLauncher I'd be okay with it... I just hope that doesn't happen!