Launcher
Launcher is yet another application launcher for RISC OS, which sits to the side of the desktop and allows applications to be started from a palette of shortcuts. It can also run files and open directories.
![[Launcher Screenshot]](../data/software/launcher/top-bar.jpg)
A bar at the top of the screen
Its panels can be placed to the top, left, right or bottom of the screen, and will slide out of sight when not in use. They can be quickly brought back into view with either a click of the mouse or a simple mouse-over, depending on preference.
![[Large Buttons]](../data/software/launcher/big-icons.jpg){kind=icon}
A side-mounted bar with labels beneath the icons
The size and layout of buttons can be varied as required, with the option of including the button names beneath the icons if desired.
![[Options Screenshot]](../data/software/launcher/options.jpg)
A range of options are available to control behaviour
Despite being in use on my computers since 2003, it took sixteen years and many nudges from people who saw it on the left-hand side of my desktop at RISC OS shows and WROCC meetings to make it out into the wild.
In order to use Launcher, you will require:
- a minimum of RISC OS 3.50,
- the 32-bit Shared C Library (version 5.43 or later), which is a standard part of RISC OS 5 and can be obtained for other systems as part of the System Resources download from RISC OS Open Ltd, and
- the Nested Window Manager, which is a standard part of RISC OS 4, 5 or Six, or can be soft-loaded on RISC OS 3.
Version History
0.50 (23 April 2019)
First public release.
0.51 (17 May 2019)
Update to first publicly released version.
- Add !Boot file to ensure that Help works correctly (ticket #679).
- Correctly redraw edit dialogue when contents change (ticket #680).
1.00 (25 May 2020)
Second public release.
- Prevent multiple copies of Launcher from starting by mistake (ticket #683).
- Allow multiple bars on different edges of the desktop (tickets #678, #681 and #682).
- Bump icons added to the 'X position' and 'Y position' fields in the Edit button dialogue.
- Enable buttons to reflow within a panel when they fall outside of the available area.
- Warn of unsaved changes to the panel or button layout on exit (ticket #665).
- Allow iconsprites to be merged instead of a full application boot (ticket #688).
1.10 (26 July 2020)
Third public release.
- Add support for automatically opening panels when the mouse moves over them (Ticket #707).
- Improve the launching of objects, passing items to *StartDesktopTask, *Filer_Run or *Filer_OpenDir as appropriate (Ticket 706).
- Find the most appropriate sprite possible when adding a button using drag-and-drop.
- Use ResConf-style system variables to identify resources.
1.20 (12 January 2021)
Fourth public release.
- An update to the licence, from EUPL v1.1 to EUPL v1.2.
- A sidebar size option in the Choices to allow the thickness of the sidebar to be changed, as requested at the London Show.
- Button sizes can be configured on a panel-by-panel basis.
- Buttons can optionally include the button name below the icon sprite.
- Fall back to unknown filetype sprite if sprites are missing when redrawing panels.
