rcmnd

LaunchBarSoftware

by Objective Development

Who uses, recommends or left LaunchBar, in their own words: each a verbatim quote with a link to where it was said.

8 people

Steven Frank
Co-founder of Panic, the Portland software company behind Transmit, Coda, Nova and the Playdate handheld.
loved

LaunchBar is usually the first piece of software I install on any Mac.

His Uses This interview, on the three Macs and the small set of apps he kept installed.

2009-01-17·usesthis.com ↗

Joe Hewitt
Software developer; created Firebug, helped create Firefox on the Netscape browser team, and built the original Facebook iPhone app.
liked

LaunchBar is my swiss army knife, though I would prefer Quicksilver if only it weren't a dead project.

His written "Uses This" interview, from his Facebook iPhone-app years.

2009-06-28·usesthis.com ↗

Chris Wanstrath
Programmer; co-founded GitHub and was its CEO, and created the Mustache templating language and Resque.
uses

The very first piece of non-Apple software I bought for OS X was LaunchBar back in 2005 and I haven't stopped using it since.

His written "Uses This" interview, from GitHub's early years.

2010-12-03·usesthis.com ↗

Kieran Healy
Sociologist at Duke University who writes about markets and exchange, and about plain-text tools for social science.
uses

LaunchBar has a lot more functionality than I actually make use of.

The Setup (usesthis.com) interview: an essay-length account of his research and writing toolchain.

2010-10-17·usesthis.com ↗

Michael Lopp
Engineering manager who has worked at Apple, Netscape, Slack and Palantir; writes as Rands at randsinrepose.com and wrote Managing Humans.
uses

I'm a LaunchBar guy. Any time I have to touch the mouse, I feel inefficient.

His written "Uses This" interview, covering his "coffee shop rig" and "home rig".

2010-07-09·usesthis.com ↗

Loren Brichter
Mac and iPhone developer; creator of Tweetie and of the pull-to-refresh gesture.
uses

I used QuickSilver forever, but now LaunchBar.

The Setup (usesthis.com) interview, given shortly after Tweetie 2 shipped.

2009-12-03·usesthis.com ↗

John Gruber
Writer and creator of Daring Fireball, a long-running blog about Apple and technology; co-created Markdown.
uses

After several years of switching back and forth between Quicksilver and LaunchBar every few weeks, I settled on LaunchBar about a year ago.

His written "Uses This" interview, answering what hardware and software he works with.

2009-01-22·usesthis.com ↗

Alex Payne
Programmer and writer; was Twitter's API lead, co-authored Programming Scala and co-founded Simple.
uses

LaunchBar to get to what I need quickly and to keep my clipboard history accessible, Growl and HardwareGrowler to get visual notifications from software

His written "Uses This" interview, from when he was API lead at Twitter.

2009-01-02·usesthis.com ↗

What they also use

Every entry is a verbatim quote and a link to the public post it came from. Nothing is paraphrased. If it is not on record somewhere public, it is not here.

The verdict is what they actually said: loved and liked are explicit; recommended means they told others to get it; uses means they only say they use it; read is a book on their public shelf with no verdict; mixed and disliked are kept too.

A dashed affiliate link, sponsored or their own label means the post disclosed a relationship. It is shown, never hidden.

The shading behind a date shows how dated a recommendation is for its kind of thing.

The shading behind a date shows how dated a recommendation is, for its kind of thing. Fully green is recent. It drains a quarter at a time as the post gets older, and is empty once it reads as dated.

What counts as old depends on the thing. A laptop praised four years ago has been replaced twice; a book loved twenty years ago is probably still loved. The shading is gone after about:

Stripes mean the post carries no date and the date shown is an estimate. No date at all, no shading.