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Launch apps from the Finder without using a mouse
Authored by: kupietz on Apr 23, '04 08:25:29PM

In classic, here's what I used to do to use the keyboard to open apps, documents or folders from entirely within the Finder... this would work in principle in OS X too.

1. Create a folder called "shortcuts". Use the Keyboard control panel to assign this folder to a function key... say, F4.
2. Open this folder then drag the window to the bottom edge of the screen to turn it into a popup window (shame on you, Apple, for draggining your feet on adding this functionality to the OS X finder.)
3. Fill this folder with aliases to your favorite apps, documents, and folders.
4. Make several copies of each alias, with the various things you'd want to type to launch them... for instance, for Internet Explorer, I had aliases called 'exp' and 'ie' and 'internet explorer'.

Now, whenever I wanted to open Explorer, I could do it entirely from the keyboard with the following combination of keystrokes: F4, then type 'IE', then hit cmd-O to open it, lickedy-split, with the nice visual feedback of the Shortcuts folder popup up and then retracting.

This system worked well for me for a very long time. The only reason I prefer Launchbar to doing it this way is that my technique requires manually creating aliases every time I want to add an abbreviation, while Launchbar can scan whole folders at once for new items.



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