![]() ![]() The problem is that even if a launcher app is free, the second indexing engine drags on the system and adds complexity, another database to store and manage, and removes another set of keyboard shortcuts from the pool. I took it one step further and used the Keyboard Shortcuts customizer in the Keyboard system preference to change the Spotlight shortcut to F12 on my notebook and F13 on my desktop so that I could get to Spotlight by pressing just one key.īefore OS X 10.4 brought us Spotlight, I used to be a devotee of LaunchBar, and I tried Quicksilver. Since I usually launch via the keyboard, I actually have my Dock hidden by default. You don’t even need to know where it is on your hard drive! Using Spotlight as an application launcher can also let you reduce the number of application alias icons littering your desktop or Dock. There’s a second benefit to leaning on Spotlight for this purpose: You never have to dig down to open an application or utility that isn’t already in the Dock. Spotlight is already capable of launching any application on your system without any further setup. Yeah, it’s more than a single keystroke, but on the other hand, to get this feature I didn’t have to modify my system, spend an hour configuring shortcuts, or add a utility such as LaunchBar. MENUMETERS MONTEREY MAC(You can accelerate searching for multiple words through abbreviation read about it here.)īy now I’ve got my Mac trained so that after pressing the Spotlight shortcut, Photoshop becomes the Top Hit as soon as I type “p”, and Mail is selected as soon as I type just “m”. If you keep picking the same item from the search results, OS X will eventually turn it into the Top Hit, and over time you’ll need to type fewer and fewer characters to get your preferred result. If you’re annoyed because you have to type a few letters before Spotlight narrows it down to the application you want to launch, have patience. Depending on which files and applications are on your computer, Activity Monitor may appear before you get to the third letter. So for example, if I want to use Activity Monitor, I press Command+spacebar, then type “act” and boom, there it is. ![]() (In OS X 10.4, you need to press Command+Return In 10.5, Apple simplified it to just Return.) If it isn’t the Top Hit, use the usual Spotlight shortcuts to get to it in the list: Use the up and down arrow keys either alone, or with the Command key to jump categories. Just hit the Spotlight keyboard shortcut (Command+spacebar unless you changed it), type the first few letters of the application’s name, and if the application’s name is the Top Hit, press Return to launch it. The key is Spotlight, the search utility built into OS X, which is a decent application launcher. They’re already there, but not in the form you may be expecting. MENUMETERS MONTEREY MAC OS XWith Mac OS X 10.4 or later, you don’t need to create or even learn shortcuts for applications. (Update: If you really want to assign a keyboard shortcut to a file like you can in the Properties dialog in Windows, conroy in the Adobe User Forums suggests an OS X tip involving Automator and Services.) The secret weapon is Spotlight ![]() MENUMETERS MONTEREY SOFTWAREBut if you want to assign a specific keyboard shortcut to an application, that capability is not built into OS X so you’ll need to use additional software for that (see the comments at the bottom for a discussion).Īnd if you came here looking for an Activity Monitor keyboard shortcut (as my blog stats suggest), read all the way to the bottom to learn why you might not even need one. The Spotlight feature in OS X can start any application from the keyboard, and you don’t even have to program it. ![]()
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