Keyboard Power!

I know I have written about command-based launchers before, as well as other topics mentioned below - but I just realized how thorough my migration into the terminal is. I spend nearly all my computer time in terminals, Windows command prompts, VIM, GnuRoot. Even my phone's default launcher - T-UI - is a terminal. I launch phone apps etc by issuing commands.

Really the only time I'm reaching over for my mouse is when I have to do something on a website that uses JS in such a way that QuteBrowser's mouseless tools don't work. Or sometimes my workday tools like Outlook, Skype etc require some mousing.

I love being able to work without having to interrupt the flow to reach over and mouse around, then go back to typing. - This is why I dislike Apple's OS's, I was never able to get away from having to mouse to do nearly everything. Last time I was on a OSX, I couldn't even close dialogs etc w/out mousing. I tried Escape, nope. I tried tabbing to the Cancel button to hit Enter, nope. It was so frustrating. Of course it was probably that I just didn't know how to configure my OS, never the less my first impression was made.

All hail the keyboard!

On my phone I enter the first few letters of the app I want to launch, hints show up (The tab key is sadly buried in most mobile keyboards) and I touch the one I want. - Or I can be really hardcore and just type the full name out.

On my personal boxes I set up my global hotkeys to use Krunner as my launcher. I type the first few letters of the app I want and tab down to the desired result and hit enter. Or in some cases I just launch from the terminal, and have some bashrc entries to make this even easier (As in the case of Reaper which I run via Wine).

On my work boxes I have shortcuts in my home Dir. These allow me to enter the shortcut's name into the run prompt.

So on every machine I have, I kick off apps, not by clicking an icon etc, but by entering text into a launcher or terminal... that is - when I need an app outside the terminal.

I love it.