i’ve moved away from deskbar to gnome-do as my primary launcher.

gnome-do [plugins] there’s a few plugins available that most ubunut/linux launchers already have, but the interface is the solid selling point gnome-do. i also haven’t had any issues with it, unlike deskbar which will randomly lock up and require a reload.

there are even plugins for gmail contacts and google calendar, but they look like they might be bleeding edge. i’ll have to look into the google api plugins to see how to get them installed/working, but any of the other plugins i tried are installed and working.

i installed katapult last night… i’m liking it a little better than launchbar or any other launcher i’ve tried under ubuntu. out of the box it doesn’t automatically scan programs without icons or terminal/cli commands. to change that behavior:

• launch katapault with [ctrl+space]
• bring up the context menu with [ctrl+c]
• scroll down to programs in the catalogs
• uncheck the options you want to change.

wikipedia has an app launcher comparison list which covers winxp, macosx, and linux. i need to work on writting some shell scripts to help automate some functionality and i’m kinda disappointed about the lack of a good launcher for linux w/ extensible 3rd party plugin support. launchy has much less plugins than quicksilver… but i’d take either one (omfg.. quicksilver for linux already?) over the current crop of launchers out there for linux.

i was seriously considering replacing launchy with dash. it’s not opensource, and it does cost $20, but it has some nice plugins. honestly i wish quicksilver would start doing linux and windows clients already. macos only? booo. check that video out if you’re curious what you can do with dash or what a quicksilver replacement for windows looks like. just don’t expect to get that level of functionality from the trial though. [ lifehacker ]