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QuickLaunch for Haiku

QuickLaunch is a small launcher tool that helps you to quickly start any installed application.

Simply start to enter the name of an application and QuickLaunch will find all programs matching these initial letters and show them in a list. You choose an app from that list with the CursorUp/Down keys and launch it by hitting RETURN. ESC quits QuickLaunch.

Here's the main window after searching for all applications starting with "me" and behind it the settings window when clicking the Setup button:

In the main window the context menu was evoked via a right-click. The first item adds the selected app to the ignore list (more on that in the setup options discussed below). The second item opens the app's location in a Tracker window. The same can be achieved by pressing CTRL + RETURN.

The setup window shows these options:

• Show the version of an application — only really useful when having older and newer versions of an app installed.
• Show the path to an application — interesting when you have several copies of an application.
• Wait for a second letter before starting the search — starts QuickLaunch with the previous search.
• Remeber last search term — probably only useful for slow systems.
• Window always on top — the window floats modally in front of all others. Useful if you start a few apps after another and don't want to lose QuickLauch under the newly opening windows.
• Ignore these files & folders (and their subfolders) that you can add and remove from the list with the buttons at the bottom. You can also right-click an app in the main window's result list to add that specific app to the ignore list.

• Assign a keycombo to QuickLaunch in Haiku's Shortcuts preferences, like OPT + SPACEBAR, for even quicker QuickLaunching apps.
• Use '*' as wildcards, e.g. "*play" for all apps with "play" in their name.
• SHIFT + RETURN will keep the QuickLaunch window open after launching the app.
• CTRL + RETURN will open an app's location in Tracker instead of launching it.
• These folders are ignored by default: B_SYSTEM_ADDONS_DIRECTORY and B_TRASH_DIRECTORY In other words, applications in Trash are ignored, as well as add-ons. B_SYSTEM_BIN_DIRECTORY used to be ignored, but since especially ported software often ends up in the /bin folder, that is a bad idea. You'll have to remove unwanted commandline apps manually now, e.g. via the context menu.

QuickLaunch is directly available through HaikuDepot from the HaikuPorts repository. You can also build it yourself using Haikuporter. The source is hosted at GitHub.

Please use GitHubs's issue tracker if you experience unusual difficulties or email your general feedback to me. Also, email me if you'd like to provide more localizations.

I have to thank DarkWyrm for some helpful hints and for some of the code I re-used from his RunProgram app and his EscapeCancelFilter. Equally useful was Robert Polic's EZLauncher of BeNewsletter 3-46 and the help I got on the #haiku IRC channel. Finally, thanks to everyone that contributed translations for QuickLaunch.

0.9.0 - 01-02-2010:

• Initial release.

0.9.1 - 04-02-2010:

• Show version info to distinguish different versions of the same app.
• Home/End key jump to first/last item.
• Shift+Return will keep the QL window open.
• Added script to add QL to the Deskbar tray. Remove via context menu (Removal will only work with Haiku > r35402, for lower revisions, open Terminal and enter "desklink --remove=DeskButton".)

0.9.2 - 04-03-2010:

• Add setup window to toggle version and path information.
• Ignore user definable folders.
• Make main window horizontally resizable.
• Remember window position and size.

0.9.3 - 05-03-2010:

• Ignore path information wasn't loaded correctly.

0.9.4 - 11-03-2010:

• Added Control+Return to open an app's location in Tracker.
• Added live-truncating of strings on window resize.
• The query now returns only app names beginning with the search string and now starts right after entering the first letter.
• Better handling of different system font size settings.
• Less restrictive window size limits.

0.9.5 - 17-05-2010:

• Ignore Trash on all volumes, not just on /boot.
• Be stricter on the apps' signature. They have to conform to the standard and start with "application/x-vnd". This avoids listing e.g, libraries.
• PageUp and PageDown keys now work in the result list.
• Case-insentive sorting.

0.9.6 - 14-10-2013:

• Small changes to work under Haiku with package management.

0.9.7 - 17-05-2014:

• Added a setting to only start searching after entering a second letter of the application name.
• Respecting custom colours set in Appearance preferences.
• Better handling of bigger/smaller font sizes.
• Renamed "jokers" to "wildcards".

0.9.8 - 02-01-2015:

• Fixed a crash on quit. No idea how it has worked all these years, frankly.
• Removed a never used variable and its get/set functions.

0.9.9 - 15-01-2015:

• Don't ignore /system/bin/ by default. Now that more and more ports are available for Haiku, some GUI apps do appear in that folder...

0.9.10 - 15-06-2015:

• Allow specific files in the ignore list, not only complete folders (and their subfolders).
• Show a context menu when right-clicking an app to quickly add it to the ignore list.
• Scroll to original location in the app list instead of jumping to the top after adding to the ignore list.
• Updated icon to show three app cubes as Q stroke.
• Localization for German, Dutch, Japanese, Polish.

0.9.11 - 16-08-2015:

• Add "Open containing folder" to the context menu.
• Add an option to always start with the previous search term.
• Have the windows always on top of every other app.
• Add horizontal stroke below every list item.
• Cosmetics on resizing window so the height won't jump and flicker.

0.9.12 - 03-09-2015:

• Make the "Window always on top" optional. Not everyone was pleased with that change of v0.9.11...
• Also fix the formerly not usable file dialog when adding files/folders to ignore. It was hidden behind the always-on-top window.
• Added Italian localization, thanks Barrett!