An 'alt+space' launcher for Windows, built with Electron

https://github.com/appetizermonster/hain

by gnocchi • 10 years ago

44 61 10 years ago

github.com

evandrix• 10 years ago

How does this match up to Launchy?

reitanqild3• 10 years ago

Launchy doesn't require you to install npm first.

bengotow2• 10 years ago

I don't think you're intended to build it from source - you can just get a binary: https://github.com/appetizermonster/Hain/releases

SlashmanX5• 10 years ago

Neither does this...

marvy4• 10 years ago

Shouldn't the docs mention that alt-space already does something on windows? Or is it assumed that whoever doesn't know about the default functionality won't miss it? Or maybe everyone knows?

bigp3t3• 10 years ago

They definitely should. I have a dedicated button for it, so will continue to use that, but many of my colleagues (at a S-ME IT service provider) didn't know this menu existed. Trust the Indian guy to know, though

Stratoscope5• 10 years ago

You have a dedicated Alt+Space (System Menu) button? Never saw that before, would be curious what kind of keyboard this is. I'm always interested in different kinds of keyboards.

Or is it a menu key that opens the right-click menu (not the same as the alt+space system menu), like this one:

http://www.laptopmag.com/images/wp/purch-api/incontent/2012/...

Stratoscope5• 10 years ago

Sometimes people just get a great idea for a cool keyboard shortcut and simply don't know that it already has a standard meaning.

This may be such a case, and Parallels is definitely one. Parallels 11 takes over the spacebar (just plain spacebar) in Windows Explorer, using it to pop up an OSX Quick Look panel like it does in Finder.

They apparently didn't think to check whether spacebar already does something in Explorer. (It does, and keyboard users like me use it all the time - it's an essential shortcut for keyboard navigation.)

And from what I've seen in forums and other interactions, they can't seem to imagine that it was a bad idea to take over this key with no option to turn off the behavior.

I love Parallels, but this is so clueless!

marvy4• 10 years ago

What on earth does spacebar do? I've been using windows for decades and I have no clue! I just tried it right now and still have no clue!

Mithaldu3• 10 years ago

This is cute as a proof of concept, but it needs severe performance improvements if it's intended to replace Launchy.

Launchy sits there with 30mb ram used and no cpu used when not in use.

This launcher sits there with 170mb ram used, and 1% of a core in constant use.

reitanqild3• 10 years ago

But launchy doesn't use Node.js..!

That said, honestly I wish I knew the Node.js ecosystem:-/

TickleSteve• 10 years ago

Why do more people not get annoyed with the inefficiency of JS... its just burning CPU cycles and RAM!

Even 30MB is ridiculous for this type of App... back in the DOS days there were similar TSRs using a few KB of RAM.

ygra4• 10 years ago

Those TSRs also had little to no UI, and keep an index for fast searches. Images are probably also a part of it since seemingly no application these days can look like a native application anymore :|

bengotow2• 10 years ago

Ahh the DOS days are long gone I'm afraid... A single 1024x1024 app icon on Mac OS X weighs in at 4MB once it's inflated to raw bitmap data from ICNS / PNG. Throw a couple of those onscreen at once in a list and you're looking at 30MB easy, and that's just in images!

Of course, you could leave out the images, but you could also just keep using DOS if RAM is a concern :-)

clevernickname4• 10 years ago

Because the vast majority of these people don't have the slightest clue as to how computers work. No troll, no bully, no malice. They don't know and they don't want to know. They deliberately wish to remain ignorant, as evidenced by the offence they take and rationalization they make whenever someone tries to explain any of the realities of modern hardware to them.

WEB SCALE!

IO BOUND!

Forget assembly, they refuse to learn even the most basic and incredibly important consequences of the memory hierarchy. It's garbage collection and best practices all the way down.

I don't want to make fun of people. In fact, I can't make fun of people because the overwhelming majority doesn't appreciate the joke.

All I want is for people to give a shit.

WalterGR3• 10 years ago

Launchy sits there with 30mb ram used and no cpu used when not in use.

n.b. Launchy 2.6 beta 2 on Windows - the most recent version since 2008 - pegs a CPU while it's running.

Mithaldu3• 10 years ago

That sounds like a bug and something to do with your system instead of "default behavior". 2.6 beta 2 behaves fine here.

mc_hammer• 10 years ago

i really love these launcher apps.

this one sort of illustrates the problem with developing windows apps:

- you either learn complicated c++ and windows api and have to write your own rendering framework for custom components

- or use C# and xaml and get terrible performance with systems with no gpu acceleration

- or use VB for terrible performance and CPU usage

- or use javascript and node for huge memory usage and slower rendering than c++ (VB has the same issues)

ygra4• 10 years ago

Uh, where did you get the VB for terrible performance and CPU usage? There's nothing inherent to the language that makes it less efficient than C# or anything else running on the CLR.

mateuszf• 10 years ago

Would be awesome if it was also working on OSX. Pity I can't and don't wat to program apple platform.

konart2• 10 years ago

Why? This was made only because OSX already has Alfred, LaunchBar and Quicksilver

konart2• 10 years ago

npm
JS
Electron

for a thing that should be hyper-light and -fast? With all due respect - no, thanks, but - no.

djulius• 10 years ago

Don't want to be the naysayer here, but this project is yet another 'I made smth already exisiting but with node.js and the original is still largely better'.

I think there are more interesting open source projects that should hit the HN frontpage. So let's start with this one, that computes Wikipedia Pagerank on a single node in less than 30 minutes : https://www.nayuki.io/page/computing-wikipedias-internal-pag...

nickonline• 10 years ago

There's nothing stopping you from submitting, if it's truly interesting it will appear on the front page.

Don't try to hijack someone else's post.

staticelf• 10 years ago

As others have pointed out, there are stuff that should not be made with Electron and this is one type of app that just shouldn't.

If it is platform specific anyways, why not do it in like C# or something that would make it lighter and faster?

Rohansi• 10 years ago

Because someone already did that.

https://github.com/Wox-launcher/Wox

oblio3• 10 years ago

I'm pretty sure that the .NET runtime can compete on size with Electron. I.e. it is as big if not bigger. We just don't care about that because Microsoft includes it in the base OS.

I can't speak about the "faster" part, though.

seqizz• 10 years ago

The name "Hain" is named by Hyunseop Lee, it means "a Servant" in Korean.

Also means "traitor" in Turkish, cool name.

fulafel• 10 years ago

Scottish/gaelic "fein" is pronounced "hain", meaning self/yourself.

s_kilk2• 10 years ago

Huh, in Irish Gaelic (best gaelic) "fein" is pronounced like "feign" in English, with a leading "f" sound.

oblio3• 10 years ago

And it means "cruel" in Romanian. We probably borrowed it from you guys to describe you :D

clevernickname4• 10 years ago

Windows Key then type. No need to create a Chrome instance just to launch a program.

dzaragozar• 10 years ago

Exactly what I was going to reply.

wink• 10 years ago

You both assume that people only use applications installed via a "standard" installer, that sit in c:\program files (or whatever) and have proper menu entries.

I have 4 GB of random stuff under c:\apps of which some things have been copied over for nearly 10 years and countless windows installations. Also PortableApps, which don't sit in the start menu.

eps2• 10 years ago

Native Windows-S does nearly the same thing, does it not?

0x4a42• 10 years ago

Yes...

myhandy• 10 years ago

Off topic, but does anyone know what program they used as a screen recorder in the README .gif?

huhtenberg• 10 years ago

Don't know what this guy used exactly, but GifCam is really good - http://blog.bahraniapps.com/gifcam/ - it's not fancy, but it's well done on the engineering side, maintains good FPS when capturing and compresses really well.

butz• 10 years ago

What happened to tinyapps? I propose a challenge to create app launcher that is 100KB or less.

An 'alt+space' launcher for Windows, built with Electron

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