Ok, this is not an Eclipse tip, unless you consider that it can improve the experience of launching the Eclipse application, in which case, yeah, I guess this is an Eclipse tip… false alarm people.
I came across a gem of a program called Launchy. Basically, it allows you to launch programs (and other things) by using keyboard shortcuts instead of hunting through the Start Menu or Windows Explorer. It does this by indexing certain types of files in certain folders, such as .exe files in the Start Menu folder.
From the website:
Launchy is a free windows utility designed to help you forget about your start menu, the icons on your desktop, and even your file manager.
Launchy indexes the programs in your start menu and can launch your documents, project files, folders, and bookmarks with just a few keystrokes!
You launch Launchy with the shortcut Alt-Space, then you start typing the name of the thing you want to launch, which Launchy will auto-complete. For example, by the time you’ve typed “e”, “c”, “l”, “i”, Launchy will have proposed Eclipse as one of your options (assuming you’ve created a shortcut in the Start Menu for Eclipse) and you can hit enter to launch it. Type “f”, “i”, “r”, “e” and Firefox will come up. Very cool. Want something even cooler? Type “fire” and then hit tab, then type www.eclipse.org and Launchy will open a new tab in Firefox for the Eclipse home page.
I mentioned that Launchy can launch other things, by that I mean it can launch an mp3 or a Word document, or anything that is launchable. You have to configure it a bit by telling it to index your My Music or your My Documents folder but that’s as easy as right-clicking it and selecting the Directories option.
You really just have to try it, you won’t be disappointed. I can already feel myself becoming disencumbered of some of the weight of Windows, and that’s a good thing.
Launchy is a Windows app. If you are lucky enough to be a Mac user, check out the even more impressive Quicksilver and if you are at all interested in user-interface design, the creator of Quicksilver has given a fascinating Google Talk that you must check out.
Interestingly, Launchy and Quicksilver are both open-source applications which have thoughtful and delightful user-interfaces. I can’t find it now but I read a blog a while back about “why open source software sucks” and the number one reason was that is was unusable because the developers who built it did not have the talent or desire to build quality UI’s. Well, here are two counter-examples to that claim (and I would also throw Eclipse into this mix) and I think it’s a good sign for OSS and users of OSS.
Today’s tip:
Alt-Space (if you’ve installed Launchy): launches arbitrary stuff
