Hobbling my app launcher

I've been using an app launcher/switcher since at least 2011 – the date my Alfred v1 licence was created in 1Password – and for unknown years before that, when Quicksilver was the new thing.

App launchers do just that: they help you launch apps. Why grab the mouse and shuffle on over to the Dock when your fingers are already on the keyboard? We've had this capability for decades: Windows 3.0's File Manager had a File → Run… menu, with Windows 95 adding the keyboard shortcut Win-R. From there, type a thing and it'll launch.1 Alfred, Raycast and their ilk just do this faster and better.

Speed ≠ efficiency

Lately, I've noticed these tools getting in the way. I have Raycast bound to Cmd-Space and testing shows that I can switch from whatever I'm doing to anything else in 150ms: essentially instantly.2

This sounds like a benefit. But when I can switch to anything, instantly, that's what I find myself doing, and way too often. It's like all friction has been removed, and what remains isn't good. What remains is a slippery mess.

The other behaviour I've noticed is an almost manic switching between two apps. Safari, code, Safari, code. Flick-flick-flick between the two. My fingers are so used to these keyboard sequences I feel like I do them subconsciously! I end up in an app and wonder, what am I doing here? (I was previously using the builtin Cmd-Tab switcher for this, but I broke that habit by turning off the keyboard shortcut.)3

Reintroducing friction

Fortunately, Raycast makes it easy to disable certain apps. Because I don't want to quit Raycast entirely: it's far too useful. I use it as an emoji 👋🏼 and Unicode symbol ▷ ■ ◁ picker. At the former it's way better than macOS' builtin feature, and at the latter it fills a gap that the OS simply doesn't provide.4 It's also my clipboard manager, my snippet expander, and the list goes on.5

But you can turn off its ability to launch an app by just unchecking the Enabled box in Preferences → Extensions for that app. So that's what I've done for Safari and Discord, to start. As I notice other apps that are distraction magnets, I'll disable those.

Instead, it's back to the trackpad. Swipe-swipe-swipe to the Dock I'll go, and I'll click the icon and it'll take about a second and that already feels like an eternity. And my brain is enjoying that.

Footnotes

  1. In the early versions it wasn't quite this simple. Typing excel won't launch Excel, for example. You need to know the full name of the executable, excel.exe. In modern versions of Windows you should be using the newer search features to do this, although Win-R still brings up trusty Run. ↩

  2. I recorded my screen as I invoked Raycast, typed s, and hit return. This switches me to Safari. Raycast is only on screen for 7 frames of the 50 frames/sec recording. ↩

  3. Using the wonderful Supercharge by Sindre Sorhus. The setting Tweaks → Disable Command+Tab app switcher exists because I asked him to add it. :-) ↩

  4. For emoji, assign a keyboard shortcut to the Raycast builtin feature Search Emoji & Symbols. I use Ctrl-Opt-I.

    For Unicode, install the extension Unicode Symbols Search. I bind that to Ctrl-Opt-U. ↩

  5. Bind the builtin Clipboard History to Ctrl-Opt-C. ↩