SlickRun Update
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From: Richard Steinfeld on 23 Sep 2009 04:24 who(a)wherever.gives.a.bleep wrote: > I went to the page and fail to understand why and how anyone would > regress to command line nonsense. Maybe I'm a bit slow, but I fail to > see what real use this program is. Who, the reason why you don't get it is because you don't touch type. If you did, you'd understand what a godsend this thing is. Richard
From: Richard Steinfeld on 23 Sep 2009 04:54
Bear, Thanks so much for coming up with SlickRun. I've been putting it through its paces. It is everything that you've stated. Anyone reading this who is a good touch-typist, run and install this thing! It's a very fine piece of work. Usability is outstanding. The process of setting up your own commands is efficient and intuitive once you get the hang of it. The whole enterprise is thoughtful and as simple and unobtrusive as possible. The sound effects (ordinary Windows stuff) annoyed me so I turned them off. Key combinations are, again, thoughtful. However, this is perhaps the only feature where I'd appreciate an improvement. I'll make my suggestions to Mr. Lawrence. I've got its hotkey combo set to <Shift> + <Spacebar>. Although the spacebar is shown as "-", it still works nicely. This is the most ergonomic pair I came up with for myself. It's good. I haven't even tried the note-taking function yet. One question: I have no idea what the percentage on the command line shows. I suspect that it's the amount of free memory. This program is self-contained, which I appreciate, except for "Help," which goes to its web site. "Help" is a misnomer because it's really the program's documentation. I prefer this over Enso Launcher, which is also a good piece of work. Enso bugs me because I have to type the entire command "open <Space> command." So, if you make a typo, you have to call up Enso with the hotkey and type the whole command again. I find Enso's limited hotkey choices awkward. Also, the user cannot change any settings locally: all settings are changed from menus _on the web site!!!!_ Enso uses a lot of memory, too. Aside from these issues, however, I still think that Enso is a good tool; teaching Enso commands is even easier than teaching SlickRun. I just think that SlickRun is better. In a little while, I'll have SlickRun set up and I'll uninstall Enso. Bottom line: For a mouse-centric launcher, I'm impressed with 8Start http://www.8start.com. It's a bit sloggy to customize, but that's because it's so nicely customizable just the way you want it to be. 8Start's gaining some keyboard facility, too. For people who are decent typists, having to interrupt the flow to constantly have to place a hand on the mouse, trackball, or even (in my case) a touchpad, is crazy-making. If you type, Slick Run is your tool! Richard |