Author Topic: LifeHacker launcher application voting and FARR Name (Read 45,784 times)

vitalyb · « **on:** May 21, 2008, 10:09 AM »

First of all, there is a voting for best launcher, so go ahead and vote:
http://lifehacker.com/392136/best-application-launchers

BEFORE you do however notice that everyone have to vote correctly for FARR votes to be counted. To do this you must write the same application name in the comment:

VOTE: Find and Run Robot

Which brings me to the next subject. Quite a few people voted there already, each using a different variation of the name (FindAndRunRobot, Find&RunRobot, FARR) needless to say it hurts the chances of FARR to appear in the final count (unless an editor of LifeHacker actually goes over the votes manually).

Since Mouser announced he will be coming back to working on FARR core I think it is a good time to talk about the name. It is confusing, long and deserves a change. Something sprakly, googly and web 3.0. Do you agree at all? What does Mouser think?

sri · « **Reply #1 on:** May 21, 2008, 10:17 AM »

Done.

tomos · « **Reply #2 on:** May 21, 2008, 10:21 AM »

they (Lifehacker) make it sound like a competition to even make a comment (registering)

Audition to become a commenter. To become a registered commenter on this site, you first need to be approved by our team. We're looking for comments that are interesting, substantial or highly amusing. So write a comment, polish up your words and choose a username and password below. Your comment will only appear once (or if) you're approved.

vitalyb · « **Reply #3 on:** May 21, 2008, 11:55 AM »

It wasn't like that when I joined =\ I guess they became too popular.

mouser · « **Reply #4 on:** May 21, 2008, 12:27 PM »

Wow Launchy is completely dominating the comments. Haven't seen a blowout like that in a while. Can't tell how much of that is because it has gotten so much attention on lifehacker in the past, and how much of it is from people who have really tried everything and decided they like Launchy the best. Strange.

I appreciate vitalyb starting this thread -- If you use Find and Run Robot and like it, and prefer it to the others, it's nice if you say so. At least a few people who read into the comments will learn about FARR for the first time.

mouser · « **Reply #5 on:** May 21, 2008, 12:47 PM »

It's kind of sad how little mention there is of Find and Run Robot in that Lifehacker poll.. I'm a little taken aback..

tomos · « **Reply #6 on:** May 21, 2008, 01:04 PM »

well,
I gave up trying to make a comment - maybe they've blocked comments cause there's already so many
I've tried registering (just now), no comment box, no mails from them & login not accepted

mouser,
I think most people who use Launchy see it looks slick & it opens the programmes & dont think beyond that
I remember trying it & something bugging me about it but cant remember what now

A good few mentions of resource hog in connection with it

TucknDar · « **Reply #7 on:** May 21, 2008, 01:28 PM »

I'd vote for FARR if I was signed up... maybe I'll do that later.

mouser · « **Reply #8 on:** May 21, 2008, 01:36 PM »

As a meta comment, here is some advice to lifehacker and other websites that conduct polls like this:

If you want to know which programs are the most popular among (registered) users of your site, then it's fine to ask your users what they use and like.

If you want to know which programs are "best" -- then you have to make an effort to ask people who have tried all/most of the programs and have an informed opinion about which ones they prefer over others. If you feature one program over and over on your site, you shouldn't be surprised to see a heavy bias among your users in favor of the one you've been talking about -- since for many of your readers, that's the only launcher they've ever tried (based on hearing about it from your previous stories).

Anyway, that's not to say that Launchy isn't excellent or that these people voting wouldn't prefer it above others if they tried.. It's just that there is a certain flaw in the logic of conducting a poll of this sort. It's also why we need more sites for informed comparative reviews rather than popularity polls.

Perry Mowbray · « **Reply #9 on:** May 21, 2008, 02:21 PM »

Quote from: mouser on May 21, 2008, 12:47 PM

It's kind of sad how little mention there is of Find and Run Robot in that Lifehacker poll.. I'm a little taken aback..

I've just gone and added my vote

FARR BTW

Perry Mowbray · « **Reply #10 on:** May 21, 2008, 02:37 PM »

Quote from: mouser on May 21, 2008, 01:36 PM

It's also why we need more sites for informed comparative reviews rather than popularity polls.

All we like sheep...

Since when did popularity equal quality (as you said)? Honestly, I don't mind a bit of both, as long as the data is presented as such.

nudone · « **Reply #11 on:** May 21, 2008, 02:49 PM »

suggestion: to make farr more popular. make an idiots version. give it a 'friendly' web2.0 like name, e.g. tapr, typr, runr, ushr, impulse, blah, blah, blah.

straight out of the box looks 'nice' with a trendy web2.0 like skin. doesn't have more than a few options that the user will probably never see anyway.

basically, to make it popular. remove all the options that make farr the perfect piece of software that it is. options = dread. even if they are never used the fact they are there defines the software as being complicated. less is more and all that.

sorry, it has probably been mentioned before.

(i'm not suggesting to change farr - just make a little cousin to it - strictly aimed at being popular. think of it as a marketting experiment.)

mouser · « **Reply #12 on:** May 21, 2008, 02:59 PM »

Bleh.. popularity is not the goal.. i'm not making a special version for that purpose

FARR already has a default beginner options mode anyway.

I think there are lots of ways to improve the usability of FARR, lot's of ways to make it better, etc. Let's not worry about popularity of our programs and just concentrate on making them the best.

nitrix-ud · « **Reply #13 on:** May 21, 2008, 03:15 PM »

@mouser

Quote

Let's not worry about popularity of our programs and just concentrate on making them the best

great to read that !

FARR cannot be the most popular launcher (and should not be) because it is too advanced...

(on a side note, i suspect that not many FARR users really use its power, how many uses dosearch commands ?, noresults ?, restartsearch to build menus ?, advanced hotkeys ?, aliases with complex regex mask ?, command-line switches, dosearch switches)

i'm in love with FARR, actually i could not imagine working without it, but it is a fact that i installed launchy more than FARR (on other people's computer), just because in 2 minutes you've got something working, nice, slick which does the work when it comes to search the start menu...

FARR is like a ferrari, it is not the one people have the most, but believe me when they actually see it (once again i'm talking about advanced uses), they just can't believe it

Keep up the great work mousey !

nitrix-ud · « **Reply #14 on:** May 21, 2008, 03:17 PM »

i forgot...

i actually got used to the name, i personally call it : FARR

FARR ahead of the competition

TucknDar · « **Reply #15 on:** May 21, 2008, 03:28 PM »

One suggestion about the options (this was first brought up by icfu some time ago) is to make the options dialog more streamlined. The tabbed interface looks a bit confusing and is not very intuitive IMO. Like icfu suggested would be better with a "list" of sections on the left and the options under each section on the right.

Something like these examples:

Total Commander (Total Commander 32 bit international version, file manager replacement for Windows) [TOTALCMD.EXE] Screenshot - 21.05.2008 , 17_22_53.png

edit: Guess that was a little OT, but not farr... 'scuse the pun

nitrix-ud · « **Reply #16 on:** May 21, 2008, 03:38 PM »

the one really really annoying thing about FARR options is that when it looses focus you loose it !
IMHO, it should be a completely different window with save, apply and cancel buttons

in my experience the new options dialog of directory opus 9 is amazing
one should try it to believe it (especially the filtering...)

kartal · « **Reply #17 on:** May 21, 2008, 03:38 PM »

Some people were even suggesting using clean desktop as a launcher. It is amazing.

TucknDar · « **Reply #18 on:** May 21, 2008, 03:43 PM »

Quote from: nitrix-ud on May 21, 2008, 03:38 PM

the one really really annoying thing about FARR options is that when it looses focus you loose it !
IMHO, it should be a completely different window with save, apply and cancel buttons

in my experience the new options dialog of directory opus 9 is amazing
one should try it to believe it (especially the filtering...)

Agree with the save/apply/cancel buttons, and how about a screenshot of the dopus9 dialog?

Nod5 · « **Reply #19 on:** May 21, 2008, 03:48 PM »

Quote from: mouser on May 21, 2008, 01:36 PM

[...] we need more sites for informed comparative reviews rather than popularity polls.

Agreed!

Just to be clear, the "Best Application Launchers?" post on Lifehacker is a part of their ongoing Hive Five series. It's a two step (two posts) thing:
1. a call for contenders asks users to vote for any app in some category in the comments
http://lifehacker.com/tag/hive-five-call-for-contenders/
2. the Lifehacker team picks the top five (vote count is a strong, or perhaps even the only, factor here) and posts a poll.
http://lifehacker.com/tag/hive-five/

So as things are still at stage 1, let's hope that FARR makes it to the top five!

Also, an idea on how to factor experience with multiple programs into polls: ask users to vote FOR their favourite program from a limited list AND at the same time ask them to vote AGAINST one or more of the other listed programs but only if they have tried it and found it less good than their favourite. Use the negative votes to discount the positive votes in some way.

rjbull · « **Reply #20 on:** May 21, 2008, 03:49 PM »

Quote from: nudone on May 21, 2008, 02:49 PM

suggestion: to make farr more popular. make an idiots version. give it a 'friendly' web2.0 like name, e.g. tapr, typr, runr, ushr, impulse, blah, blah, blah.

I suppose Launchalicious would be out?

kartal · « **Reply #21 on:** May 21, 2008, 03:55 PM »

I used Launchy for 2 years. Launchy is slightly comparable to Farr in my opinion. But Farr offers many more options. One reason launchy may get the votes because its probably easier to use and indexing may make it look like it is faster. In the end it is popular voting not technical.

rjbull · « **Reply #22 on:** May 21, 2008, 04:01 PM »

Quote from: nitrix-ud on May 21, 2008, 03:15 PM

i suspect that not many FARR users really use its power, how many uses dosearch commands ?, noresults ?, restartsearch to build menus ?, advanced hotkeys ?, aliases with complex regex mask ?, command-line switches, dosearch switches)

I don't, for one... Maybe part of the "problem" is lack of tutorials, which is why sri's is useful? It would help to have a simple summary of all the things FARR can do, whether you have add extra tools to make them work, whether the aliases are pre-configured, and what platforms they run on (e.g., not everyone has .NET installed).

Quote

it is a fact that i installed launchy more than FARR (on other people's computer), just because in 2 minutes you've got something working, nice, slick which does the work when it comes to search the start menu...

The RunIt program Mouser mentions in FARR's Help -> Related Programs is very good. Being relatively small, and fast, it's the one I use on my Win98 laptop at home. My FARR directory and subdirectories on the work compputer occupy 11 Mb - that's a lot for a launcher, even if it's a launcher plus plus. Hmmm... maybe that's another potential name, Launcher++...

nitrix-ud · « **Reply #23 on:** May 21, 2008, 06:23 PM »

Quote

I don't, for one... Maybe part of the "problem" is lack of tutorials, which is why sri's is useful? It would help to have a simple summary of all the things FARR can do, whether you have add extra tools to make them work, whether the aliases are pre-configured, and what platforms they run on (e.g., not everyone has .NET installed).

yes this is true, but i think the first thing would be to have a good help file (very good ?),
but let's not forget FARR is pretty much one man's work, and it is freeware ... so i will not complain

once again i think the directory opus online help is quite impressive ...
http://www.gpsoft.com.au/manual9/NetHelp/default.htm
(but this is a 80 dollars software)

kartal · « **Reply #24 on:** May 21, 2008, 06:28 PM »

I personally read help file of every program I use. I have found Farr`s help file not indepth but good enough to start using some advanced stuff. To me the most overlooked part of help file was regex stuff and predefined keywords like %date% %time%. I would like to see whole list of those kinds of keywords for example.

Maybe there is a wiki but we can start a slow Farr wiki maybe.