27 February 2007

Radial menu launcher

Trampoline [via] is a new (well, not very new since it’s up to version 2.0) launcher for OS X that displays a radial menu when you press a hotkey / click an extra mouse button / move the pointer to a hotzone. Radial menus being the epitome of usability for mouse usage (it’s kinda odd, by the way, that OS X still ignores them), that’s a good thing, and the program seems to be well developed throughout. Twenty bucks, however, for a single launcher to store a dozen of your favorite apps?

For the record, you can do the exact same thing with Quicksilver, with more versatility and no cost at all — except that of figuring how exactly to set Quicksilver up, which is a rather geeky task. One of these days I’m going to make Quicksilver video tutorials, but in the meantime:

• enable advanced features, relaunch

• install the Constellation Menus plugin

• install the Mouse Triggers plugin

• create a folder with your shortcuts (or several folders; you’ll be able to define as many different menus as you like) (mine is called XMenu because I once used that program)

• create a trigger for (Your folder) / Show Radial Menu

And there you go:

My radial menus are a bit on the large side, but that’s entirely configurable.