Welcome to the MacNN Forums.

JayTay · Mar 31, 2004, 02:04 PM

http://www.obdev.at/products/launchbar/index4.html

The web searches are very handy as is the hierarchical browsing and the new interface is very fly. I was wondering how they were planning to improve it and I'm very impressed with the results.

workerbee · Mar 31, 2004, 05:16 PM

Originally posted by JayTay:
[url]I was wondering how they were planning to improve it and I'm very impressed with the results.

Exactly.

BTW: Who needs database-based filesystems (WinFS) when there's LaunchBar?

typoon · Mar 31, 2004, 05:43 PM

I just downloaded it and am playing with it now. It's VERY NICE.

chabig · Mar 31, 2004, 05:46 PM

Usually I wait for the release, but have you seen any reason so far not to install the beta?

Chris

King Bob On The Cob · Mar 31, 2004, 05:55 PM

Nothing yet...
Read the read me but I haven't noticed any show stoppers

Fothb · Mar 31, 2004, 06:25 PM

It's great. The aqua styled logo has now changed into a creamsicle style combination of orange and white. Overall I'm quite pleased with the new features, but it didn't seem to inherit my license from 3.x. I'm assuming that 4.x will require a new $20 license once it's complete. I'll probably fork over the money for the upgrade if it starts nagging me with pop-up screens. It really seems like Launchbar has taken the copycat competition out there seriously and one-upped them all with this release.

bbales · Mar 31, 2004, 06:51 PM

Originally posted by JayTay:
http://www.obdev.at/products/launchbar/index4.html

The web searches are very handy as is the hierarchical browsing and the new interface is very fly. I was wondering how they were planning to improve it and I'm very impressed with the results.

What does "interface is very fly" mean? I'm just wondering... like to keep up with the lingo you know!

gorickey · Mar 31, 2004, 07:02 PM

I have never found this useful...actually, I think I'm just really slow and don't understand how to make it useful for my needs! I guess I would like to know how most of you use this little tool efficiently and effectively...sorry for my ignorance!

Thanks!

ender2002 · Mar 31, 2004, 07:08 PM

Originally posted by bbales:
What does "interface is very fly" mean? I'm just wondering... like to keep up with the lingo you know!

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=fly&f=1

killa

mdc · Mar 31, 2004, 07:36 PM

Originally posted by Fothb:
...but it didn't seem to inherit my license from 3.x. I'm assuming that 4.x will require a new $20 license once it's complete...

i never noticed this. i looked around the obdev site and came across the following about the pricing.

Originally from the obdev site:
Launchbar 4 upgrade pricing
The pricing for the final 4.0 release has not yet been determined. Upgrade options for existing customers will be available.

[APi]TheMan · Mar 31, 2004, 09:00 PM

And then there's the freeware QuickSilver: http://www.blacktree.com/apps/quicksilver/

It's got the slick bezel interface option (like the volume up/down bezel). Freeware.

mpmchugh · Mar 31, 2004, 10:28 PM

I've used LaunchBar and QuickSilver, but now I use Butler (formerly "Another Launcher"), which I think is the most feature-rich and flexible of the bunch. It's also free, or "donationware" actually:

http://www.petermaurer.de/butler

-mpm

Fothb · Mar 31, 2004, 10:43 PM

Does anyone have links to review sites or whatnot that might have screenshots for these other two launchers that have just been mentioned? Or maybe take and post some screens of your own? LaunchBar's site has them already, so that one is covered. I'd like to visually compare the other two to LaunchBar without downloading and installing them. Call it lazy or cowardly, but I'm sure there are some other screenshot junkies out there who agree with me!

poocat · Mar 31, 2004, 10:46 PM

I'd love to see more discussion on the actual differences between Launchbar, Quicksilver, and Another Launcher (Butter? Can that be serious?) because although people talk all the time about price, not too many really discuss what it is that any of them do better than any other. I've downloaded the "bezeled wonder" that is quicksilver, but it crashed on install, and i decided to wait for a few more releases to look again (being in love with launchbar). Anyone with serious information or input, please, share.

poocat.

ticotek · Mar 31, 2004, 10:46 PM

I was about to send an email to OBdev regarding an update to Launchbar because of the great features QuickSilver keeps adding, glad I didn't. Using it over the last couple of hours I have not used the finder once.

Is great to see both this great commercial software and a future OSS one.

tico
Caracas, Venezuela

Adam Betts · Mar 31, 2004, 10:56 PM

It doesn't tempt me away from Quicksilver at all. Launchbar's GUI is okay but QS just make more sense, IMO

poocat · Apr 1, 2004, 06:41 AM

I've been playing with LaunchBar 4 and it's pretty darn awesome.
I just downloaded the newest Quicksilver beta, it's interesting, the gui
has some nice possibilities, but...

Hmm. I hear reports from all over the web as to how it's the bomb,
i'm just waiting for someone to give me details.

I should say that it took me a couple months to get really, really into LaunchBar too,
so i'm expecting the lag.

I love having so many great apps in development for the mac.

Rock.
poocat.

chabig · Apr 1, 2004, 10:18 AM

It doesn't tempt me away from Quicksilver at all. Launchbar's GUI is okay but QS just make more sense, IMO

This is what I don't understand. I don't use Launchbar's GUI. All I do is hit cmd-space, type a few letters, then hit return. Who cares about the GUI? Before I switched to Launchbar I used F10 Launch Studio for a while, but the GUI just slowed it down. Launchbar is fast, unobtrusive, and easy to use.

Chris

eevyl · Apr 1, 2004, 11:01 AM

Originally posted by chabig:
Launchbar is fast, unobtrusive, and easy to use.

QuickSilver is that, plus free. Hard to beat.

pope52 · Apr 1, 2004, 12:41 PM

Originally posted by eevyl:
QuickSilver is that, plus free. Hard to beat.

Quicksilver uses 7 times the resources as LaunchBar. Further, the Beta of LaunchBar appears to be even quicker, while offering quite a few new features, such as inline web searching.

http://www.obdev.at/Images/launchbar4/google-search.gif

chezpaul · Apr 1, 2004, 01:15 PM

I was a Launchbar user and have been a Quicksilver user for the past two months... Why... ??? Well it's free as everyone says but most of all because launchbar was starting to annoy me how long it took to read my drive at certain startups and then at how slow it would respond to my command click and then to launching the program once I hit return...

Quicksilver is... well... quicker... much quicker..., no wait... That did it to me...
another thing I like is that quicksilver will open a name in my address book directly.

chabig · Apr 1, 2004, 01:20 PM

Launchbar 4 doesn't make you wait while it indexes. It does it invisibly in the background, so that objection has been addressed. Also, Launchbar can open any contact in your address book directly...type a few initials then hit cmd-return.

Chris

RevEvs · Apr 1, 2004, 01:26 PM

im liking quicksilver! just swapped launchbar for it.

revs

fortepianissimo · Apr 1, 2004, 02:10 PM

Originally posted by RevEvs:
im liking quicksilver! just swapped launchbar for it.

revs

Same here - guess OBDev just did their competitors a big favor now that many people discovered better alternatives (myself included).

One question though: how do you do Google search using QuickSilver? Read the manual but still not clear about that...

Thx!

fortepianissimo · Apr 1, 2004, 02:45 PM

Originally posted by fortepianissimo:
Same here - guess OBDev just did their competitors a big favor now that many people discovered better alternatives (myself included).

One question though: how do you do Google search using QuickSilver? Read the manual but still not clear about that...

Thx!

Ok got it working - so the first visit of a search site must use keyword "quicksilver" - and it seems that the "search" action is not available if the URL doesn't contain a '?' in it.

pope52 · 11:26 AM

Originally posted by fortepianissimo:
Ok got it working - so the first visit of a search site must use keyword "quicksilver" - and it seems that the "search" action is not available if the URL doesn't contain a '?' in it.

[edit]This is for LaunchBar -- sorry I misread your post[/edit]

For a pre-defined search, command-space, type "google" then hit the spacebar.

You can add new engines in the configuration page.

fortepianissimo · Apr 1, 2004, 03:42 PM

Originally posted by pope52:
For a pre-defined search, command-space, type "google" then hit the spacebar.

You can add new engines in the configuration page.

Another question about QuickSilver - it seems to forget to scan some of the catalogs whenever it's relaunched? And it's not remembering the indexing done last time if you restart the app?

Mr Scruff · Apr 1, 2004, 03:53 PM

Originally posted by pope52:
Quicksilver uses 7 times the resources as LaunchBar. Further, the Beta of LaunchBar appears to be even quicker, while offering quite a few new features, such as inline web searching.

http://www.obdev.at/Images/launchbar4/google-search.gif

Are you sure it isn't 7.5?

I recently switched from Launchbar to QuickSilver. One of the nicest features is that it is far more responsive than Launchbar 3 (haven't tried 4), and it's resource usage is barely noticeable.

eevyl · Apr 1, 2004, 05:15 PM

Originally posted by pope52:
Quicksilver uses 7 times the resources as LaunchBar.

You have something very wrong in your setup. Currently Quicksilver on my machine, using 0.0% CPU in the background and 9.37 MB real memory. Does Launchbar uses 1.3 MB or real memory? Let me doubt it. While being under active use, it was consuming at the very max 22%, but that was only briefly once, usually in the 8-15% range. Does Launchbar while in use consume 1.14-2.14% of cpu? Let me doubt it.

superfula · Apr 1, 2004, 06:13 PM

Originally posted by pope52:
Quicksilver uses 7 times the resources as LaunchBar. Further, the Beta of LaunchBar appears to be even quicker, while offering quite a few new features, such as inline web searching.

http://www.obdev.at/Images/launchbar4/google-search.gif

QS does inline searching...better than LB.

As far as resources....while idle, QS uses 0%, and up to 40% when it's being used. While idle, LB uses upwards of 2%, and upwards of 70% while being used.

And don't even get me started on how much better of a gui QS has

Dale Sorel · Apr 1, 2004, 06:25 PM

Originally posted by mpmchugh:
I've used LaunchBar and QuickSilver, but now I use Butler (formerly "Another Launcher"), which I think is the most feature-rich and flexible of the bunch. It's also free, or "donationware" actually:

http://www.petermaurer.de/butler

-mpm

Ditto

JayTay · Apr 1, 2004, 06:28 PM

OK, just installed Quicksilver and one initial question: Does anyone else get two Help menus?

fortepianissimo · Apr 1, 2004, 09:18 PM

Originally posted by Dale Sorel:
Ditto

Just within one day I migrated from LaunchBar to QuickSilver then to Butler, thanks to this forum - WOW! Butler is really much more powerful (although a bit confusing at beginning). Now I can retire 2 other small apps by just using Butler.

What a wonderful world for Mac users...

fortepianissimo · Apr 1, 2004, 09:48 PM

Originally posted by fortepianissimo:
Just within one day I migrated from LaunchBar to QuickSilver then to Butler, thanks to this forum - WOW! Butler is really much more powerful (although a bit confusing at beginning). Now I can retire 2 other small apps by just using Butler.

What a wonderful world for Mac users...

After playing around Butler for 30 or so minutes, I found there's only one thing I missed from LaunchBar/QuickSilver - the ability to use arrow keys to browse filesystem in the search window.

Maybe I'm missing the obvious - is it possible in Butler?

Toyin · Apr 1, 2004, 10:20 PM

I initially came into this thread to add to the praise of Launchbar and the soon to be released 4.0. I read through the posts and thought.. "all you guy's are crazy".

I've been using Quicksilver for the last few minutes and I like it...I like it a lot! I need to give it a real work out to see if I'm going to switch.

Butler needs a manual to use and frankly for what I use these apps for, it's has a bit too much for me.

bewebste · Apr 3, 2004, 08:23 PM

Originally posted by JayTay:
OK, just installed Quicksilver and one initial question: Does anyone else get two Help menus?

Yes, but only the first launch, when its little wizard window comes up. This is a weird bug that occurs in Cocoa if you put up a modal panel before your main menu has loaded. I've actually seen this in developing my own apps before. But if you relaunch, there should be only one help menu.

poocat · Apr 3, 2004, 10:43 PM

I like this thread, it's giving me a lot to think about, though i still haven't gotten around to downloading butler and giving it a whirl. Interesting. Having now spent a couple of days with quicksilver i truthfully have to say i prefer launchbar's half-hidden interface. It feels much more natural.

Whatever, that's totally a matter of opinion, but it's good to see the alternatives. LaunchBar 4 (don't know how many people are playing with it in this forum) is really great, many options unavailable in quicksilver (spent last night reading the qs forums and manual) and there's stuff that's simpler, in terms of number of keystrokes, to do in LB than in QS.

Wow. We're lucky to have choices like these. I love it.

poocat.

workerbee · Apr 4, 2004, 06:22 AM

Originally posted by superfula:
While idle, LB uses upwards of 2%, and upwards of 70% while being used.

Hmmm... LB 4b1 uses between 0% and 0.4% CPU while idle here, and under 10% when used, on an AIBook 1.33GHz/1GB RAM.

QS looks interesting, though�

android8 · Apr 4, 2004, 07:00 AM

Am I the only one who really really likes the "Shelf"-feature of QuickSilver?!

Drag url's directly to and from your browser to the shelf, drag text bits to the shelf from any app, drag files and folders to it...anything. I find it extremely usefull. I write articles and sw-reviews for a danish mac-site, and usually searches the web for info, pics, urls etc. before writing an article. I just drag snippets of info, pics etc to the shelf, and from there into the online editor I use for posting and uploading articles...would love to see that feature become and integrated part of OS X...

fortepianissimo · Apr 4, 2004, 11:57 AM

Originally posted by android8:
Am I the only one who really really likes the "Shelf"-feature of QuickSilver?!

Drag url's directly to and from your browser to the shelf, drag text bits to the shelf from any app, drag files and folders to it...anything. I find it extremely usefull. I write articles and sw-reviews for a danish mac-site, and usually searches the web for info, pics, urls etc. before writing an article. I just drag snippets of info, pics etc to the shelf, and from there into the online editor I use for posting and uploading articles...would love to see that feature become and integrated part of OS X...

Yup I like it very much! I've since abandoned the dock and put my temporary stuff (mostly links) to the shelf - very neat!

Adam Betts · Apr 4, 2004, 12:14 PM

Originally posted by android8:
Am I the only one who really really likes the "Shelf"-feature of QuickSilver?!

Drag url's directly to and from your browser to the shelf, drag text bits to the shelf from any app, drag files and folders to it...anything. I find it extremely usefull. I write articles and sw-reviews for a danish mac-site, and usually searches the web for info, pics, urls etc. before writing an article. I just drag snippets of info, pics etc to the shelf, and from there into the online editor I use for posting and uploading articles...would love to see that feature become and integrated part of OS X...

Nope you're definitely not the only one. As a web/graphic designer, I found it to be extremely useful. It's also a much better idea than Clipboard Storage App (though QS have one built in).

ambush · Apr 4, 2004, 12:29 PM

BAM, iSeek.

superfula · Apr 4, 2004, 05:53 PM

Originally posted by ambush:
BAM, iSeek.

iSeek is nothing like the products we are talking about.

King Bob On The Cob · Apr 4, 2004, 06:08 PM

Originally posted by superfula:
iSeek is nothing like the products we are talking about.

One of LaunchBar's new features will take place of most of iSeek's features.

superfula · Apr 4, 2004, 06:14 PM

Originally posted by King Bob On The Cob:
One of LaunchBar's new features will take place of most of iSeek's features.

QS already has as well.

chabig · Apr 4, 2004, 08:28 PM

What's the difference between using the Quicksilver shelf and just dragging things onto the Desktop? That's where I store temporary items, including URLs and text snippets.

Chris

Toyin · Apr 4, 2004, 09:04 PM

Originally posted by chabig:
What's the difference between using the Quicksilver shelf and just dragging things onto the Desktop? That's where I store temporary items, including URLs and text snippets.

Chris

The shelf floats over all other windows. This would have been really useful before Panther, but now with expose, dealing with windows has made the shelf superfluous.

I've been using QS for the last few days and it's quite amazing. It might be a tad slower then LB 3 series. I think both apps really feel like part of the OS, but I like the bezels better than the sliding drawer approach. I really like the detail put in OSX icons and this (plus command-tab) are ways that I can better appreciate it (I don't use dock magnification). I think I may be a permanent switcher.

thePurpleGiant · Apr 4, 2004, 09:08 PM

Originally posted by chabig:
What's the difference between using the Quicksilver shelf and just dragging things onto the Desktop? That's where I store temporary items, including URLs and text snippets.

Me too. Especially useful with a mouse-corner for expose to show the desktop. Works as one huge 'drawer'.

ambush · Apr 4, 2004, 09:35 PM

Originally posted by superfula:
iSeek is nothing like the products we are talking about.

Uh, yes.

deej5871 · Apr 5, 2004, 12:17 AM

I've been a QS user ever since I discovered it. My favorite thing is the nice graphics and that the author is constantly releasing new betas. It's great.