Productivity - Program Launchers (60)

Unfortunately the website and download links are not accessible: "403 Forbidden" and "404 Not found" errors.

http://web.archive.org/web/20120509004406/http://www.download.irohde.de/launchv3

http://www.softpedia.com/get/System/Launchers-Shutdown-Tools/Portable-Application-Launcher.shtml

This is THE BEST portable launcher I have found so far with tons of features and customizations. Sadly, it looks like development has been discontinued. The website is down and there hasn't been an update since long :(

This looked cool, but its not what I thought it was. the description is (partially) accurate, you can't move icons around via drag and drop, doesn't support custom background images, and only one window.

The download link gives an File Not Found error. There are now two separate zips, one for 32bit and one for 64.

jessharpur: updated, thanks for the note

Also, if anybody is still interested, I've tracked down the (hopefully) original example configuration file to this address: https://gist.github.com/JackieKu/437200

@webb. Good work and interesting points made by yourself and the developer. Now we know why no documentation exists on SF. More might use this if a detailed overview was available describing what it does and its usefulness compared to similar apps.

@webb: excellent work!

Would it too much to ask you to repost the author's reply to KuShellExtension official forum topic -- which I have just added?

BTW, author's binary repo includes both 32 and 64-bit Mingw and VC2013 versions, up to release #37 (dated 2014-05-27)...

I added the commands famulus and "famulus ini" to manually add/edit commands and settings (and use the mouse less). This is a great find. Thanks, dmg.

@loner - How many times do we have to tell you, don't flood the comments section with irrelevant comments. Use the Forum please.

For those interested, I continue to use Famulus on Windows 10, both Home and Corporate editions.

Really good for me ! Freeware, Open Source, Light, customizable... I like it for my portable applications. I'm waiting impatiently the gui editor. Thanks Chao !

Responsive and light on resources. However, there is no one-click feature to easily remove entries from the interface.

My Win XP installation has toolbar problems - the toolbars take upwards of 15 seconds to initialize and often need to reinitialize during the day; probably some strange conflict with my antivirus software. To compensate, I've been looking for a good application launcher that allows me to group / subgroup the shortcuts and I think I've found it with Tray Launcher.
It takes very little time to initialize on my system and the menus always come up instantly, unlike some other application launchers I've tried. The skin functionality is attractive - I liked the "Office" skin particularly - and creating custom skins or changing existing skins appears to be very straightforward, although the documentation is somewhat incomplete. The provided menu editor does take some getting used to and the hotkey functionality seems to have some issues (I'm using HotKeyP and there may be some sort of conflict) but otherwise, this is just what I've been looking for.
If you try this program and are also having problems with the HotKeys, set up a hotkey or shortcut that simply calls the app. This duplicates the "ShowMenuAtMouse" functionality.
As of 01 Jun 2012, the documentation needs a lot of updating but the creator of the app is very much on top of maintaining it and has told me that he will be revising it soon.
Tray Launcher is a work in progress but is already a solid and attractive app and is very much worth using, especially if you're having the same problems with toolbars as I do.

This is a fantastic launcher that I've grown perhaps too dependent on. Really speeds up launching programs. If you like to type, this is the program for you.

I beg to differ. This launcher is diabolical.

It's a shame Colibri's development has stopped, it's an amazing product. The dedicated Google Group is still accessible and has a few valuable tips, if anyone's interested:
http://groups.google.com/group/colibri-talk

Also not mentioned at the site is the fact that Colibri is now OSS (source is hosted @ https://github.com/catch22/colibri) and has been looking for a new team for more than a year (http://stillmaintained.com/catch22/colibri)...

That is a good hint 1way. But is there a trick to make it launch a web address?

Sure Homer. For portability I use Browzar for private trackless surfing, put this in your .bat file: browzar http://www.1way.ws If you want to use Internet Explorer use: "C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\iexplore.exe" http://www.1way.ws (I'm using XP, if you use a different OS adjust the path to IE accordingly, the downside is the link then becomes OS dependent.)

Thanks 1way. It works well provided that the browser is in Porta'Menu's foder.

@CB13RY: from my quick checking, it seems that if you run the portable version once, it creates a 'Settings.ini' file in the application folder; you can edit this file with any text editor to change the paths included -- I was able to change from absolute path to filename only...

BTW, current version is now 2.3 -- please update.

@Midas: Updated, thanks.

Been using this app for a few years and it's great. I work part time at 3 different jobs and have a list created for each office. Run the appropriate command line first thing in the morning and all the programs/files I need for the day are loaded and ready to go.

A good simple alternative to Splat if you are only interested in launching programs.

You can create separate lists for programs you want to launch together, e.g. one for office work, one for graphic design, etc, etc. You can create a list of all your favorite programs and make them start with Windows. Does not remain open or resident in memory once all programs are launched.

Altogether a very useful program.

Tested and works in Windows 8.1 x64 too.

Very useful and simple tool for launching programs, opening folders, URLs, etc. with a shortcut. Launch lists use a text file so it's super easy to modify lists quickly and easily with the default txt editor.