I’ve mentioned a couple of times that I like Direct Access, and use it on a daily basis (and by “daily” I mean “I type in a Direct Access shortcut about every 30 seconds to five minutes while working, but I do this every day, so thats daily”). You can see my full review of the program earlier on my blog. Actually, perhaps review is the wrong word to use: that implies objectivity, and I’ve got none here: I love the program like I love chocolate. Anyhow, the reason I’m mentioning it out of the blue is that another site I rather like, Bits Du Jour, is running a one day 50% off sale on it. So, if for some reason you’re still fence-sitting, you can get it for $20.
As usual, when I plug something here I’m not paid to do it.
Seriously, this program is like crack, you just have to have it once you tried it even once. I learned about it from this blog, and I have been using it ever since. Good find Patrick.
I’ve updated a report of the Bits du Jour sale at
http://blog.nagarsoft.com/2006/10/11/direct-access-on-bits-du-jour-report/
After reading your blog entry I tried out the similar freeware program linky. Then a friend pointed out you could do the same – use the keyboard for launching programs – with Windows Desktop Search, which I already had installed.
In fact WDS makes it easy to add new shortcuts – type the program name in the search box, when it finds it select it and hit Ctrl-S, then enter a short cut for that program.
Do you find you use the program launch feature or the other shortcut features more in DA?
I love the open source program Launchy. It has a large advantage over Direct Access: With Launchy, you don’t have to define anything. It uses the shortcuts already present in your Start Menu, the documents already in My Documents (if you configure it to index *.DOC files in your My Documents), etc.
Wanna start MS Word? Just type CTRL+Space and type “word”. It will find the shortcut.. now hit enter, and Word runs.
Perhaps you want to open that “TO DO List.doc” document.. no problemo.. hit CTRL+Space and type “TO DO” .. or just “DO”.. and hit enter.
.. and all this, with very little configuration.
The approach of Direct Access is different. You define a shortcut which runs Word. And then, after 3 days, you forget about the shortcut. :)
With Launchy, if you remember how a program is called, or a part of the name, you can invoke it with that fiendishly clever CTRL+Space, and without spending time on configuring the program.
Patrick likes Direct Access because he has a certain personality trait: he has a lot of patience and takes his time to do things. His blog and the way he develops software clearly show this. This is a very positive personality trait.
However, most people don’t have the patience to configure programs, forget everything quickly and want results now, now, now.
For these people, Launchy is a better alternative.
Here is the web site of Launchy:
http://www.launchy.net/