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A beginner's guide to configuring Butler
Authored by: Tovarizzle on Apr 26, '04 06:59:12PM

Perhaps a thread should be started in the forums with a good, healthy pro-con debate on each, and plenty of good hints for the users of each program. I'd certainly contribute what I've found out with LaunchBar, and I'd love to hear about some things I might be missing with some of the others.

Let the Better Browser Battle (Paging Dr. Seuss :-p)



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Butler, Launchbar, Quicksilver
Authored by: William McCallum on Apr 26, '04 08:35:16PM

All of these programs are good at what they try to do, but there are two completely different approaches here: organize or search. The organize approach is to arrange the things you want (files, folders, applications, iTunes controls, bookmarks, emails, etc.) in some hierarchical way and provide efficient access to the hierarchy. Butler does this brilliantly. The search approach relies on powerful search functions to avoid the need to categorize things. Launchbar and Quicksilver do this brilliantly.

Launchbard and Quicksilver don't even try to do all the menu and hotkey stuff that Butler does, so obviously they don't do it as well. Butler does add a limited search functionality, with the command space-bar window, but it is not even close to the other two in speed, depth, and flexibility.

There are small differences in what these programs do for you but the main difference is in how they do it.



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A beginner's guide to configuring Butler
Authored by: mathewlu on Jun 19, '04 02:18:52PM

I find myself using Butler and Quicksilver together. Butler replaces a couple of other discrete apps (iMote and Youpi Key) which I used for iTunes control and text macros respectively. However, I don't think I'll use Butler in preference to Quicksilver as a launcher, simply because the bezel mode of QS is so darn beautiful! I don't think there is any reason to choose; just use both or all three.

Regards,
--Mathew



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A beginner's guide to configuring Butler
Authored by: mathewlu on Jun 19, '04 02:23:06PM
I forgot to mention that MacDevCenter already has an article comparing some of the features of these launchers:

http://www.macdevcenter.com/pub/a/mac/2004/04/09/launchers.html?page=1

Regards,
--Mathew

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