Discussion: BetterTouchTool Launcher / Spotlight Replacement (very much work in progress)

Configuration Help & General Discussion
21

Nice, I will give it a try and replace Alfred with it next week in the office.

Would you mind sharing your setup of the leo.org floating menu. This is much better than opening a browser tab - that I need to close after I see the right translation.

Thank you.

22

here it is, best use with 6.410:

leo-floating-menu_launcher.bttpreset (69.2 KB)

The keyword is set to "leo" in this preset

23

with 6.430 support for creating launcher plugins via AI should be much better.
I asked it to create an in-launcher Tetris and it worked on first try (after it fixed a few initial compilation issues by itself)

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image1546×884 158 KB

24

Hi Andreas,
that is amazing and leads me to the question: "When can the Launcher run Doom?" :rofl:

After using the Launcher productively for the last three days I can say that it already works pretty good and most of my findings are fixed with the current alpha version (6.433).

Only one thing is left so far:

  • Marking words with the mouse in the prompt e.g. to delete them does not work - instead the launcher position is moving, even if I have configured that it opens at the center of the focused screen

Feature Idea:

  • I guess this can easily set up with a Floating Menu
  • Type e.g. "Timer 1m30s" into the launcher and press "Enter"
  • A Floating Menu with a Countdown Timer opens and counts down from 1min 30s
  • At the end of the Countdown a tone or notification (HUD) pops up
  • Bonus Buttons: Pause, Restart, +30s, -30s and Close
  • Bonus Information: Original Start Time of the Countdown (e.g. 1min 30s), End time of the Countdown e.g. 2:31:31pm
  • I was trying to adjust this timer Porting timer widget from the Touch Bar to a floating menu - #3 by Andreas_Hegenberg but so far couldn't invest enough time

Best regards,
Volker

25

6.434 improves the dragging (hopefully) and adds a integrated timer widget. If you assign a keyword to that timer widget you can e.g. type "timer 15min" (supports various time formats)


26

Looks great, would be nice to have the option to set a audio file for the timer to play when timer ends.

27

BTT launcher - that's great! Thanks Andreas!

Strange behavior - typing exactly what the result is (check 2nd screenshot) doesn't show the needed action.

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but when slighly changed it knows what I want to do.

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I guess it is because the 1st word is timer, but still I find it a bit odd that typing exactly what is shown as result in the 2nd screenshot doesn't show the actual action, but it is offering me some other actions - search files etc.

Another one for the Timer, the Pin is always active and there's no way to go back:

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image1358×370 39.2 KB

28

Is there anyway to reset the launcher settings/configuration? I’m having problems with the launcher, the trigger does not activa the launcher. It may be a problem related to a frozen status while allowing permissions in the first activation. Don’t worry, I understand that it is in beta stage.

29

Last update solve the problem to start the launcher. Is there anyway to select the desired calendars in the calendar widget? Thanks

30

The launcher currently appears to only search based on adjacent letters. The only way I've been able to get abbreviations like the ones below working is to assign custom keywords.

  • ap → Affinity Photo
  • mb → MusicBrainz Picard
  • tp → TablePro
  • trm → Transmit

It would be great if nonadjacent searching could be supported, possibly with a heavier initial weighting for capitalized letters (i.e. tp would rank TablePro above Tips). Thank you!

31

good idea, will add that!

32

Any plans on supporting the raycast extensions store.

33

@Andreas_Hegenberg Can we expect the standard clipboard manager UI to be updated to match the Launcher’s Clipboard Manager at some point? I like it a lot!

34

Playing around with the launcher, it seems pretty feature-rich, but one major miss is searching macOS system settings. For example if I type “keyboard” in alfred, raycast, or spotlight it will show the keyboard setting, keyboard accessibility, keyboard shortcuts, language input settings, etc, all I assume coming from spotlight. So maybe the answer is to support the spotlight source in BTT launcher as well?

35

good idea, I'll add an option to include system settings search

36

Could you check whether this works for you in 6.443?

Playing around with the launcher, it seems pretty feature-rich, but one major miss is searching macOS system settings. For example if I type “keyboard” in alfred, raycast, or spotlight it will show the keyboard setting, keyboard accessibility, keyboard shortcuts, language input settings, etc, all I assume coming from spotlight. So maybe the answer is to support the spotlight source in BTT launcher as well?

System Settings search should now also be available in 6.443 (basic). It is currently in a subgroup by default, if you want it to work on top level you need to drag it up there in the launcher settings.

37

I want to download 6.443 but it seems 6.441 is the latest one.

Captura de pantalla 2026-04-27 a les 16.13.31
Captura de pantalla 2026-04-27 a les 16.13.31744×728 51.3 KB

38

Was traveling by train today and apparently earlier this morning the connection dropped. I just initiated a reupload!

39

Yes, it works. Thanks!

40

The clipboard preview seems to be broken for me in the launcher (it’s fine in the old clipboard manager). I can see all of the same list of history times, but the preview pain is empty. Sometimes changing the preview type from Auto to public.html will show the preview, but most of the others are blank too.

I’m on macOS 15.7.5 and BTT 6.443.