News :: 15MR: NLauncher
Welcome to another installation of 15MR! Today’s subject is NLauncher which shows some potential. We’ll see after my review.
As Giveaway of the Day states: “NLauncher is a desktop organizing utility that enables users to free the desktop from icons, folders and files by moving them to the multilevel pop-up menu.
The menu can be placed on one side of the desktop or split into left and right panels and placed on both sides.
The NLauncher menu is a one-click way for launching any user-defined applications, opening folders, files, Control Panel items, URLs, and sending e-mails to any specified address.”
Quick Pros
- Fairly simple to use
- Well-written tooltips in the Preferences window
- Handy Multi-level system
- Is faster than the start button to ‘spider’ the tree
- Possibility of the Item Properties are nice.
- Ability to change icons nice for group folders
Quick Cons
- Helpfile a little lacking
- Cheezy sounds that need to be turned off
- No way found to quickly populate a ‘group’ IE: Recurses folders
- Dual-monitor support non-existent
- Can’t drag-n-drop more than one item at a time
- Too many clicks to make a group item, name and iconify it
- Theoretically more intrusive of an interface than the Start button
Expansion
Not too much to expand on. This application is fairly straightforward. Considering the help files are very limited, you don’t really need them too much. It is pretty simple to use; Drag-n-drop is very easy for adding items. The ability to strap arguements to it can be very handy; you could make backup scripts that rely on the argument; you could make it select your favorite options for a game. The abilities are the same as shortcuts, but taken to the toolbar.
While the group function is nice, there is no way to add them from a predefined folder structure; you have to right-click and insert each folder one at a time to get a tree structure. As well, it takes too long to make a group icon and name/icon it; 9 clicks altogether and some mouse rushing around. The cheesy sounds need to be replaced with something a little less childish as well. My biggest peeve is my work computer I could not use my right bar; it attaches on the left side of my right monitor. I had to turn this feature off at work, which is okay with me. As for the slide-out, it’s cool, but with myself in graphic design position, may become an irritation. I will say that giving it a 1-pixel column to activate will make this 10x better than the annoying Microsoft buttonbar ( cringe ) so hopefully for longevity, it will be fine.
Final Verdict
While I will keep using this application and do a follow-up review on it, there isn’t too much more to say about it. While I do like the application, I can’t say if it’d be worth $20 to buy/upgrade or to suggest to another. For one click less than the Start button and shaving a few milliseconds off of recursing through a properly-organized Start button, I’m not sure if I could warrant spending $19.99 on this application.
Posted by BladedThoth on Tuesday, January 30, 2007
