Filed under: Utilities, Windows, Productivity, Freeware
Colibri Type Ahead - Today's Free File
by Jason Clarke Jan 26th 2006 at 10:00AM
Colibri was pointed out to us by reader Zach in the comments for the
recent post about SlickRun. Zack
points out that Colibri has some things in common with the highly acclaimed Mac launcher program extraordinaire,
Quicksliver. Colibri is a learning application launcher, which means that once you choose a given application, it
becomes the first choice for the initial sequence of letters you type. It's very quick and responsive, good things
for a launcher to be, and has a pleasing look to it.
There are a couple of quirks that should be
pointed out though, if you decide to give this launcher a try. Firstly, the documentation is all but nonexistent.
Clicking help from within the application simply sends you to the features page from the websites. Also, upon first
launching Colibri, it will do an index of your start menu and quick-launch folders, but gives no warning that it will
be doing so, other than an enigmatic white orb that floats in the center of your screen saying, simply, "Start
Menu" then "Quick Launch". No progress bar or anything like that. Finally, once it has installed and
indexed, pressing the hot-key combination to bring it up (or clicking on the system tray icon) brings up a completely
blank white rectangle in the middle of the screen. It took me three tries before I realized I need to start typing
something at this point for it to go to work. Once you wrap your head around it (and it takes no time at all) you
might find you've got an intuitive new way to launch all your favorite programs.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Taylor said 12:01PM on 3-14-2006
Try Launchy
http://launchy.net/
Uses way less resources than Colibri, but doesn't have volume control or anything. Works great, otherwise.
Reply
Jeff said 10:59AM on 1-26-2006
Anybody figure out how to activate the Volume Control or Colibri Settings as listed in the "Help"?
Reply
Jason said 11:38AM on 1-26-2006
There's a note on the Colibri page that says "(Note: not all of the described features are yet present in Colibri 9α)", so those features are probably not yet working.
Reply
Angel said 12:53PM on 1-26-2006
You should also check "Find & Run Robot" (yes, I know, the name sucks ;-)
I've tried all freeware (and shareware) application launchers and while I like Colibri (it looks real cool "Find & Run Robot" (FRR) is the best launcher I've used (and the only one that is still installed on my machine). It is _very_ customizable, from its looks (you can select among many cool skins) to the folders that it searches to the types of files that you want it to find and so much more.
Give it a try: http://www.donationcoder.com/Software/Mouser/findrun/index.html
Don't be put off by the picture in their website. That picture uses the default (windows) skin, which is ugly. There are many more which are much better.
Cheers,
Angel
Reply
Jason said 2:18PM on 1-26-2006
Thanks Angel - I'll be posting about Find and Run Robot tomorrow!
Reply
Raj Mandalia said 2:31PM on 1-26-2006
I emailed Colibri's creator, Michael and he replied promptly with help regarding the getting to the settings - check http://colibri.leetspeak.org/whatsnew/. Also he said in his email that to search Google its
Google Search Term
Reply
carl said 4:58PM on 1-26-2006
Jeff (#1): type "volume", then hit the tab key, then use the up or down buttons to select up/down/mute.
I just installed this and it works quite well. Then I tried SlickRun and didn't find it nearly as easy to use. Even if slickrun is more powerful, I'll probably just use colibri.
Reply
Tivac said 10:45PM on 1-26-2006
I can't get it to launch anything, pressing enter closes the Colibri window but doesn't actually launch anything. Is there something I'm just totally missing here?
Reply
Jason said 12:26AM on 1-27-2006
Tivac - once you get the window up, start typing the name of a program you use regularly - even Notepad. It should start bringing up program names and then pressing Enter should launch the one it's currently highlighting. Good luck!
Reply
Tivac said 5:09AM on 1-27-2006
Jason, I know how it works. It's just that beyond launching file paths (C:, D:temp, etc) Colibri just doesn't do anything. Even if I type in a name, hit tab to select the "Launch" option, and then hit enter. Colibri closes the popup and nothing happens. I've tried rebooting and making sure nothing else is running, but nothing has helped.
Reply
den said 6:44AM on 1-27-2006
I don't know why MS just create and provide us a similar tool NOW for XP. It's already part of Vista (check out the vid)
http://channel9.msdn.com/Showpost.aspx?postid=114694 or
http://channel9.msdn.com/Showpost.aspx?postid=114710
Sorry I can't remember which video it's in, but it's in one of these.
Reply
Jason said 1:16PM on 1-27-2006
Sorry Tivac, I misunderstood your original comment. I can't think of why it wouldn't be working though. :-(
Reply
carl said 1:26PM on 1-27-2006
I installed it on one machine and it works fine. On another machine, it mysteriously opens everything in my start menu, control panel, etc., except for my OpenOffice programs. Maybe it could use a little more work.
Reply
Bram said 1:04PM on 1-28-2006
I got some weird problems too, everything I want to launch using Colibri opens up in Notepad. It seems like instead of running the shortcuts it opens them in Notepad.
Reply
Dan Geech said 12:12AM on 1-29-2006
Awesome program. Thanks DownloadSquaud.
Really...It kicks ass.
ctrl+space
Reply