Getting Quicksilver-ish with Launchy
One of the downsides of Launchy is that it’s only an app launcher, so if you’re used to all the power of Quicksilver, it falls short. But I had a small epiphany this morning – if an app supports command line parameters, you can get a lot more functionality out of Launchy.
Using Outlook 2003 as an example, there are parameters for creating new emails, appointments, etc. Outlook MVP Diane Poremsky has a great summary of Outlooks parameters.
The ones I’m using are:
- /c ipm.appointment creates an appointment
- /c ipm.note creates an e-mail message
- /c ipm.note /m {email address/alias} creates a pre-addressed e-mail message
There are also commands for other Outlook objects, but I rarely, if ever use those other ones.
So here’s the actual tip – Create a folder to put your parameterized shortcuts in and configure Launchy to index it. If you add the folder under the Start Menu, Launchy will automatically pick it up on its next reindexing. But you can add customer folders, too:
- Open Launchy
- Right-click anywhere on the Launchy window
- Select Directories
- Add the new directory
- Right-click on the Launchy window and choose Rebuild Index – It’s possible that Launchy will automatically reindex as soon as you add the new directory, but it doesn’t hurt anything to force the reindex.
Any suggestions for other apps I should be using this trick with?