Obdev releases LaunchBar 5 Beta

Obdev has released its LaunchBar 5 beta and it is fantastic!

I’ve used LaunchBar since the day Mac OS X was released. The application is one of those I just can’t live without on my Mac. What does it do?

It gives you shortcuts to stuff

I can’t really put it much simpler. I trigger LaunchBar by pressing COMMAND+SPACE (⌘ Space) and then typing what I want to open.

For example, typing:

‘pse’ selects PhotoShop Elements

‘bb’ opens BBEdit

‘joe’ selects Joe Smith’s address book card

‘schoo’ selects School House Rock video in itunes

‘disney’ selects my Disneyland iPhoto album

Pressing return (⏎) opens the application, or address book, or itunes, or iPhoto respectively!

If you type some key sequence and LaunchBar guesses wrong, select what you desired from the list and LaunchBar will remember it next time.

But wait there is more! Now in version 5, I can press the spacebar and get a QuickLook of the information! I the case of the address book, I see the address book card (without launching the application) and can even click on an email address to send an email, or an AIM address to start a conversation.

LaunchBar does much more than this, but that is beyond the scope of this post. In short, you can execute actions on anything you have selected, and the actions can be extended by you; It all depends on how sophisticated you may, or may not want to become.

Another great feature is Clipboard History. LaunchBar will remember the last 10 items you copied to the clipboard. One quick keypress (I configured mine for COMMAND-OPTION-V (⌘ ⌥ V) and down pops a list of the items in your history. Cursor over one and press the spacebar and see a QuickLook of the item!

Another nice feature is something LaunchBar calls QuickMerge™. QuickMerge allows you to merge, if possible, the content you have selected in your document with the item you previously put on the clipboard. All you have to do is select copy twice in a row.

This is very useful if you are going through a a document and creating a summary for an email. Just copy the first passage, then copy copy the rest, go into your email and one paste will do it!

Check out LaunchBar. You’ll be able to make your Dock much more tidy by only keeping the 10 applications you use every day on it. Everything else is a few keystrokes away.