Application launchers are such time savers that we’ve made it our quest to cover all of the best ones. There’s another one that I thought would appeal to many of you because of the small memory footprint (under 4MB) and the extremely simple interface. It’s called Faster Than Ever, or FTE for short.
There are two different interfaces for FTE, both of which can be seen to the right. The one on the top is the classic appearance that lists out all of your shortcuts, and filters them as you type. The other interface, pictured at the bottom, is considered to be the “cool” one. It’s more like some of the other application launchers out there, and doesn’t show any list. The downside to this one is that you need to remember a good portion of the shortcuts name in order to retrieve it.
One of the things that makes FTE different than the other application launchers is that it only lists and searches the shortcuts you’ve specified. It doesn’t automatically bring in programs from the Start Menu, but it has a powerful shortcut manager that makes adding shortcuts a breeze.
–Create & Manage A Shortcuts–
FTE thrives off of user-created shortcuts, and for that reason I’m extremely appreciative that the interface for managing shortcuts is so nice. There are several different types of shortcuts that can be created, and this can be done simply by dragging and dropping shortcuts onto the FTE title (next to the little drop-down arrow and “X” pictured above). The supported types of shortcuts are:
- Programs - Create shortcuts for programs and games.
- Files - Create shortcuts for files that you need to access most often.
- Folders - Create shortcuts for folders that you use most often.
- Websites - Create shortcuts for your favorite websites. You can even choose which browser the website is opened in.
- Control Panel - Create shortcuts for different areas in the Control Panel.
- MultiShortcut - Open multiple shortcuts at once.
- Other - Open anything the Run Dialog can open.
You can also specify different types of highlighting for shortcuts you use the most, which makes it easier to distinguish them in the list.
Here are two screenshots that demonstrate how you can manage shortcuts (on the left) and how you can create new shortcuts (on the right):
(Click to Enlarge)
–Settings–
In the settings you can customize various things such as the hotkey used to initiate FTE, the skin/color used, and several general settings affecting how it behaves. One of the nice things is that you can make FTE appear under the cursor each time it launches, which helps minimize the distance you need to move your cursor.
Faster Than Ever Application Launcher
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Tags: Freeware, Software, Application Launchers, Customize, Screenshots, Settings
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Hi, after trying it I think FindandRunRobot is faster with less memory consumption.
I’ve been using Launchy for quite a while now… it consumes about 5MB, reading your post Launchy seems to be a bit more feature rich.
Will have to wait and see how FTE develops.
FindandRunRobot is tough to beat in memory consumption because of its stripped down interface. If you’re looking for efficient then that is probably your best bet.
Launchy is definitely nice, but I think some people prefer the simplicity of apps like this. Especially since this one lets you specify the shortcuts it displays.
I love Launchy. Although I wish there were a way to open files from MyDocuments with it.
I use launchy to open files from MyDocs. Just add MyDocs to the launchy search directories and specify which types of files you want to be able to search.
My “MyDocs” has lots of small files (of various types).. not all of which I want to be able to search for, so I specify certain extensions that I search for most often (like .pdf, .nri).