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Comment by prophetjohn | Hacker News Reader

I can't imagine how typing the name of the app you want to open is a design failure. I use Windows 7 and OS X Lion about equally and Alfred on OS X and the Start search box on Windows 7 are the only way that I find apps that I want to open. It's largely the same way with finding files I want. It's my preferred way navigate the operating system.

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I agree with you. In fact before I discovered that feature on a Mac I was absolutely baffled trying to figure out how people used Macs for real work.

On the other hand, I do a decent amount of desktop support in my job and I have yet to find a user who knew it was possible to hit the Windows key and start typing. There's a huge difference in usage patterns between the "power users" and "everyone else".

I too have used windows since v.3 and didn't know about this... One of the reason's I love OSX is using quicksilver.

try Launchy for Windows, it's no Quicksilver but it does a good job.

First thing that I did when I got a mac was drag the applications folder to the dock and make it a list view. Instant start (menu on the side of the screen. I still use it from time to time, sometimes you just need to see the app icon. But command + space changed the way I compute. I understand why type searching was given focus in Unity and now Win 8.

The Dock. Is it baffling how people can do real work via the Dock? I myself use QuickSilver, but I don't ponder over how people do real work without it.

Definitely. I'm surprised that keyboards don't have a "magnifying glass" key since search is entirely keyboard-oriented. (A Windows key doesn't count because it's not an intuitive search indicator. The Mac Spotlight's command-space is also unintuitive.)

I recommend Alfred too, as well as Dash (similar but targeted to programming). Both tools come up instantaneously compared to Spotlight, they're more configurable and they seem to stay out of the way better. Even though they cost money they are well worth it because of the productivity gain.

Alfred is free.

I feel like I was the only person on the entire planet who actually organized their start menu and deleted all the crud. Even now, I use ClassicShell on Windows 7 and I launch apps by category and muscle-memory.

But I've seen enough people's machines to know I'm in the minority, even among power users.

If you delete things from the start menu there's no way left to find them (other than rummaging through your whole hard drive for executables). Things I want to launch often go in quick launch or on the desktop; the start menu is always the interface of last resort.

An application install will add a new folder with the company name, the application launch icon, and a bunch of supplementary icons including an uninstall. I delete all that crap, except the app icon, and move it to an appropriate folder. Launching Visual Studio, for example, involves me clicking Start -> Programming -> Visual Studio. I'm not deleting application icons (unless they're built in and I don't use them).

I used to do the same, but I ran into too many problems with uninstallers. Specifically, I would try to uninstall an application and it would begin by trying to delete the start menu items it had created. Since I'd deleted 90% of the crud, those items were gone and the uninstaller would crash.

Of course, this is back in the 9x days. Have you run into this issue recently?

Never happens -- I install and uninstall crud all the time; no problem with uninstallers crashing if their icon isn't found. The only downside is if you move the icon the uninstaller won't find it.

I put all my Start Menu items in the same folder that contains the Programs folder. My programs folder then just contains the crud I haven't decided to keep yet or haven't otherwise organized.

I have ClassicShell configured so the class start menu appears if I click but the Win 7 start menu comes up if I use the keyboard (for searching).

Basically I almost never use the Start menu for launching apps. All my day-to-day softwares are pinned or in the Quick Launch. If not the case typing is usually quicker than looking in the start menu.

But as I said : I "ALMOST" never use it. I don't want it to disappear.

> I can't imagine how typing the name of the app you want to open is a design failure.

It's nice to have, but something is wrong if that's the fastest way to start a program. Even if you're a fast typer (most people are not btw), it's way to slow to use with commonly used applications.

My favorite ways to launch the apps I use all the time are:

- Keyboard shortcuts! Seriously, try it :) available on most linux/unix gui's.

- The launcher in Mac OS X, or "pin" in Win7: After logging in to my windows desktop I often start 3-5 programs in 3-5 clicks. Would be a pain to have to type the name of them all one-by-one >(

- Customized menus. Works ok, but still find it slower than the others. Never use the menus in fluxbox, I just use keyboard shortcuts for the common ones, or a terminal for the others (almost as fast as typing the name in gnome3)

- Typing the name. Use it on gnome 3 and kde sometimes. Mostely becuase I haven't bothered to set up keyboard shortcuts.

"Pinning" to the taskbar also allows you to launch the first 9 (i think) programs by pressing Win+{1,9}

I can open a program in my quick-launch-bar with one click before you even typed the first letter of that program. Maybe it's not a design feature, but it gets in the way.

(And yes: I'm using Windows 7 with the Windows Classic theme.)

I have a bunch of programs in my dock and I still prefer to open them with Alfred a lot of the time. If using 'CMD+space, ph, Enter' for Photoshop takes any longer than using quick launch then it's only by a minute amount.

You can still do that in Windows 8 as it still has the same merged quick-launch/task-bar.

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