kbLaunch – Users manual

Overview:

kbLaunch is a small and fast program that is designed to launch applications and documents. It is a keyboard driven program. The idea behind it is that you know what application you want to launch most of the time. The pseudo hierarchal browsing model that the Windows Start Menu provides does not lend itself to quick launching of applications based on its name.

kbLaunch uses simple abbreviations to speed up this process even further. The abbreviations are not set up ahead of time, but instead are built up as the application is used.

kbLaunch also provides the same keyboard based interface for currently running applications as well.

Usage:

The majority of the usage is in the main screen that pops up when the Windows + J key are pressed:

What you are presented with is a sorted list of documents and applications, an edit box, and a button to launch the item. To search for an item, simply type a few letters and select it from the list that is generated below. The next time you search with the same string of letters, that application will be at the top of the list. Eventually, the most used item will have the shortest abbreviation.
Running Programs Screen:

This screen is accessed by pressing the Windows+H keys. It displays a list of the currently running applications and allows you to quickly select the one to bring into focus. This is useful if there are multiple instances of the same application running, it’s quicker to type the document name than it is to browse through each instance of the application.

Add items screen:

This screen is accessed with the Windows+K key combination. It allows one to quickly add new applications or documents to the list. It supports drag and drop and automatically tries to use what is on the clipboard. There are three options on this screen:

Launch this file with Windows Explorer. This option simply adds the item to the list and launches it.
Launch another program that startsin this directory. This allows one to select a program that launches in the selected directory. This is useful for file browsers or command prompts.
Launch another program with this as a command-line parameter. This allows one to select another program to use to open the current item.

These items are added to the Start Menu\Programs\kbLaunch folder.

Tips:

URL’s are supported. So website addresses and email addresses can be added to the list of items to launch.
If kbLaunch is in your program path, one can run kblaunch with a filename as a parameter to bring up this screen. Example: kblaunch readme.txt will bring up this screen and allow you to add it to the list.

Configuration:

This screen is accessed by selected File->Options. This allows the hotkeys to be customized. The current scheme was chosen because the shortcut keys are all on the home row.

This screen allows one to select what items are available in the launch list.