The Launch of Launcher

A week after its public debut at the Wakefield Show, I’m pleased to announce the availability of Launcher — both on R-Comp’s PlingStore and as a download from my website.

As its name suggests, Launcher is yet another application launcher for RISC OS — one which sits to the side of the desktop and allows applications to be started from a palette of shortcuts. It can slide out of sight when not in use, and can be quickly brought back into view with a click of the mouse.

Despite being in use on my desktop since 2003, it took sixteen years and many nudges from people who saw it on my machine at RISC OS shows and WROCC meetings to make it out into the wild.

There isn’t much else to say about it, really. It’s Open Source (licenced under the EUPL, as with much of my other software), and it could see further updates if enough interest is expressed by users.

For more details, visit http://www.stevefryatt.org.uk/software/utils/

Steve, I like !Launcher a lot, but is it possible to configure it to right hand side of screen (or top, or bottom)?
Also, would it be possible to have multiple launchers at different edges of screen?

Steve, I like !Launcher a lot

Thanks! :-)

but is it possible to configure it to right hand side of screen (or top, or bottom)?

Um. Sort of. Something like this (in an EX0 EY0 mode, to conflate two threads)?

Also, would it be possible to have multiple launchers at different edges of screen?

It probably would be. Time’s a bit short at present, but if I’m reworking it to allow the bar to move from left to right, top or bottom, I might as well allow multiple bars as well…

I’ve no idea when either will be released, but the screenshot above is actually real, and not something concocted in Paint (which is something :-).

Yep, that’s what I had in mind :)

I find my windows tend to congregate to the left of the screen (probably due to where the x/y origin is!) and on a widescreen monitor, it is good to find uses for the right hand side where possible. I tend to position Hermes/SafeStore there so that email/backup appears out of the way of everything else, but Launcher would be good too.

Fair enough! If you, or indeed anyone else, would be interested in trying to break an alpha release of Launcher with configurable panels on different sides of the screen, let me know and I’ll keep you in the loop when there’s something (possibly even something usable) up on my website.

It took slightly longer than planned (and was more work than expected), but there is now a working multi-panel, all-sides-of-the-desktop version of Launcher available to test — and just a day late for the show-that-didn’t-happen, too.

It’s very definitely alpha-status, but I’d appreciate feedback from anyone who feels like giving it a try.

PS. I’ve just remembered that it has a lot of Reporter debugging output enabled in the build. You won’t notice unless you habitually run Reporter; if you do… sorry!

There’s an updated version of Launcher (r5516) available to test.

I’ve fixed interactive help, tidied up the dialogue boxes, removed the Reporter debug… and squashed a nasty null pointer dereference when deleting panels.

I’d still appreciate feedback — especially from anyone who originally asked for configurable panel positions and multiple panels…

I’m pleased to announce the first major update to Launcher since it made its debut at last year’s Wakefield Show.

As its name suggests, Launcher is yet another application launcher for RISC OS — one which sits to the side of the desktop and allows applications to be started from a palette of shortcuts. It can slide out of sight when not in use, and can be quickly brought back into view with a click of the mouse.

The release of version 1.00 finally adds all of the missing features which have been requested over the past year.

• Multiple bars are now supported, and can be located on all four sides of the desktop. It is even possible to have more than one bar on any side.
• Buttons will reflow within a bar if the screen mode changes and they end up out of sight.
• It is possible to load an application’s icon sprites for shortcuts, instead of performing a full Filer boot.
• A warning is now given if an attempt is made to load more than one copy of Launcher, or quit with unsaved layout changes.

Launcher is free and Open Source, released under the EUPL. Copies can be found in R-Comp’s PlingStore, or on my website at http://www.stevefryatt.org.uk/software/utils/

Thanks Steve, Launcher is a great app and great to see it continuing to be improved.

The release of version 1.00 [of Launcher] finally adds all of the missing features which have been requested over the past year.

And, of course, resulted in a couple of extra requests…

There’s a new test build which addresses two points:

• If a shortcut is made to something that isn’t an application, Launcher will now do something more intelligent than just blindly passing it to *StartDesktopTask… Files are passed to *Filer_Run, and directories to *Filer_OpenDir.

• There’s a new Open on mouse-over option in Choices which does pretty much what it says, causing panels to open and close as the mouse moves over them and away again. It might not be to everyone’s tastes (I’m undecided, personally), but it was only a few lines of code and it defaults to off…

Feedback and bug reports welcome!

A couple of months after Launcher 1.00 came out, I can now announce the availability of version 1.10.

This version offers the option of opening panels on mouse over, instead of in response to a click. There’s a configurable delay built in, so that a stray pointer doesn’t cause panels to open immediately – and it defaults to off, for those who prefer the existing behaviour.

In addition, the way that Launcher runs selected items is more intelligent. Applications are still passed to *StartDesktopTask, but files are now passed to *Filer_Run, and directories to *Filer_OpenDir. There’s better support for picking an appropriate icon sprite for non-applications, too.

Finally, Launcher should now take a less broken approach to internationalisation – making use of the configured country along with ResConf-style system variables in order to decide which translation to select. It still only ships with English resources, however.

Launcher is free and Open Source, released under the EUPL. Copies can be found in R-Comp’s PlingStore, or on my website at http://www.stevefryatt.org.uk/software/utils/

Thanks for a nice update to Launcher.

Following feedback in the chat at the London Show last weekend, I can now offer a new test build of Launcher with the ability to configure the thickness of the panel sidebar. There’s a new Sidebar size field in the Choices dialogue, which is a bit nicer than fiddling with the Templates file¹.

The application also has a new web page, at http://www.stevefryatt.org.uk/risc-os/launcher – and test builds are on the same pages as their more stable siblings in my new site, too.

Feedback on the test build is welcome.

¹ Although, as I think I noted at the time, I might know an application to do that…

You’re fantastic :)

While I’m thinking about updates, it’s now possible to have filer-style text+sprite icons in buttons

It’s a test build with some largish changes to the icon plotting, so bug reports are welcome!