Mac: Launchers and text expanders

Back on my Windows times, I have been using a couple of apps that were definitely increasing my productivity. I’ve been looking for their corresponding apps under Mac, and lately this list has started to grow quite a bit, so I’ve decided to post the links here.

Launchers

I think at this chapter, the most advanced Mac users will cry together: QuickSilver. Well, I must confess that it looks impressive, but it is a bit overcomplicated for my taste. Here, are my findings, starting with the one I am currently using (in the past I’ve been using just the integrated Spotlight):

• Namely. Some more details can be read here.
• Butler. Still a bit too complex for me. There are a couple more apps available from the same author.
• ABCLaunch. I haven’t tested this one, so don’t consider this a recommendation.
• Quicksilver. I think this one doesn’t need any special comments. The app has been extensively covered on Lifehacker
  • A beginner’s guide to Quicksilver
  • Advanced Quicksilver guide - slashes, appends, and proxies, oh my!
  • Top 10 Quicksilver Plug-ins
  • The Quicksilver video extravaganza
  • A look under the hood of Quicksilver

Probably a subcategory of launchers should be the shortcut based launchers. Here, I’ve been using only Spark, but basically with a complete different purpose (see text expanders).

Text expanders

These applications allow you to define different abbreviations and then they are taking care of replacing that with the full expanded version. The feature can be found natively in apps like Vim or your IDE. But, the following are providing a generic solution that works with all apps.

• textexpander. (commercial)
• TypeIt4Me (commercial)
• Spark. It works a bit differently than a normal text expander: you have to define shortcuts for the text snippets.

Tomorrow, I’ll probably provide a list of the corresponding Windows apps.

Posted by: Alex Popescu (aka the_mindstorm)