A while back (I mentioned this to a few folks, so there's prior art) I started working on the "ZenBar." The basic idea was that I spend a HELL of a lot of time on in the Run Dialog (Window-R) or at the command line using CD and Tab Auto-Completion. It's just faster for me to use a hotkey or command line to move around for many things than use the mouse. ZenBar was to be simple. A floating, partially transparent text box that would index my world and give me autocompletion for all things. It was a little like ActiveWords and a little like Dave's Search Bar (both are great, by the way, but I just wasn't willing to LIVE in them.
But, as projects go, I got about 40% done then stopped. Too many other things.
Yesterday I checked out Mike G's Daily Grind via Tim Marman and HOLY CRAP. Someone wrote it. They wrote it better than I could have, and they did it in Delphi.
It's SlickRun, and it rocks my world. Here's why, and what I did to fit it into my life.
- It's a resizable, floating text box. I changed the font to Lucida Console, Bold 14 point. When you're running 1600x1200 you like a larger font.
- It does autocomplete for commands and for directories. You can type C:\doc and you're in documents and settings. Awesome.
- You can setup MagicWords like "Mail" for Outlook, or Google to search, etc.
- This is the BEST: You an have Multi-MagicWords like "morning' that will launch six web pages, your Mail, and Microsoft Money. The "Morning" Macro. Fabulous.
- It's an inline calculator.
- It can be bound to a Hotkey - I've got it bound to Window-Q, and it can Grab Window-R if you like.
- It includes Jot notes for quick notes, easier than notepad, less hassle than a yellow sticky.
What a wonderful thing. Check out SlickRun. It's fast and small. Faster than Dave's Search, and easier than ActiveWords. I shall delete my half-assed attempt at the ZenBar immediately and bow to Bayden Systems.