If you need something more powerful and are willing to spend the time configuring it, DragThing is the best bet. If your hands are on the mouse more than on the keyboard, Overflow is a good basic choice. Fortunately, each of them works pretty well as is, so you don’t need to spend too much time wading through those configuration screens if you don’t want to. (Butler’s configuration screen is particularly daunting the vendor says that it will be revamped later this year.) You can assign hotkeys to almost anything, customize the look and feel, and much more. LaunchBar can index (and therefore launch) files, applications, and much, much more.All three are also almost infinitely configurable-too much so, for some users. You can also use all three to initiate Web searches, perform quick calculations, insert text snippets, manage your clipboard history, and more. When Quicksilver finds a file, for instance, it can perform 21 separate actions on it, from opening it in a chosen app to copying or moving it Butler and LaunchBar give you similar flexibility. These heavyweights can also do more with what they find. If you type xl and then select Excel from the resulting list often enough, Excel will eventually start appearing at the top of your results list. For example, they can learn what you want. Those three ably handle the simple stuff-finding and opening files and applications-but they often do a better job of it than their lighter competitors. If you want more flexibility in what you find and what you can do with it, you need one of the heavyweight launchers: Many Tricks’ $20 Butler ( ), Objective Development’s $35 LaunchBar ( ), or the free, open-source Quicksilver ( ). Application Wizard isn’t quite that bad, and Overflow is much, much simpler. Configuring DragThing can be a chore: For any given dock, you’ve got nearly 50 different options. DragThing folders are also spring-loaded (drag an item onto one and its contents will appear).ĭragThing lets you create customized docks, with multiple layers and themes.DragThing is by far the most powerful of the mouse-based launchers, followed by Application Wizard and Overflow they follow that same order when it comes to the time it takes to set them up. If you put a container-such as a folder or volume-into a DragThing or Overflow dock, you can then drag items onto it to copy or move them there.
DragThing accommodates those items plus URLs and clippings (little bits of reusable text). DragThing lets you create multiple docks and multiple sections (layers) within them you could, for example, create separate docks (or layers) for remote servers you regularly access, and another one for local folders.Īnything you can select in the Finder-applications, files, folders, and volumes-can reside in an Application Wizard menu or an Overflow dock. Overflow has a single dock, but you can create multiple categories within it the number of categories and items within them is limited only by the size of your screen. Clicking on those buttons opens up four completely customizable menus that can hold as many items as you want. These third-party utilities can accommodate way more items.Īpplication Wizard does so by placing four colored buttons in a small panel on the side of the screen. But OS X’s Dock can only hold so much before it gets unwieldy.
You can do the same with OS X’s own Dock. All three let you create customized docks, in which you can place applications, folders, files, and more.