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

@Andreas_Hegenberg Safari web apps do not appear in the application list. For example I added Whatsapp Web.

Application info:

Option to create a web app in safari:

@yougotwill, try to refresh the app index:

Hi Andreas, I have done so and it doesn’t help unfortunately.

Does BTT index from ~/Applications as well?

yes, and it seems to show the safari web apps fine here :-/ I'll check with the whatsapp one. (Btw. the native Whatsapp app is much better imho :joy:)

//edit: ah I now see why webapps do not show up correctly on all machines. Will be fixed with the next build.

Great thank you!

P.S. Yes the Whatsapp app is much better but to my knowledge it doesn’t support multiple accounts so I use the web app for other accounts :see_no_evil_monkey:

Thanks so much of the conversions, it works great.

The dictionary/defnition results look something like this:

Clicking on the result just opens the entry in the dictionary app, but usually just the result it good enough.

It seems like over the past year or two, the dictionary results get pushed pretty far down in the results in Spotlight, which has been annoying.

Very cool testing this as you keep quickly revising the behavior.

Is it possible to change the default order for the actions for a given type or globally set the keyboard input for an action?

For example, when taking an action on a folder, I can set Return to open in Finder, but that does not apply to every folder, only that one folder.

Good point, these should not apply to individual file / folder items. Probably differentiating between files and folders is enough for now, I'll do that with the next build.

Hi Andreas,

I love the timer functionality in the Launcher and use it multiple times a day. Thanks for including this.

I like to keep an eye on the rest time, but don't want to keep the launcher open all the time.

Is there any chance to have the possibility to open a floating menu that shows the rest-time? Visually I think about a Pie-Chart that changes the size based on the rest time.

If there were a trigger and a variable with the rest and original time available in BTT I could try to implement this on my own.

Thanks for considering this and have a great day.

Best Regards,
Volker

FR: Search SF Symbols in Launcher, function is already in BetterTouchTool

Next version 6.485 uses SoulverCore GitHub - soulverteam/SoulverCore: A powerful Swift framework for evaluating natural language math expressions · GitHub for all mathematical operations in the launcher, making the calculator much more capable.

Soulver is an amazing app for macOS and iOS, highly recommended to check it out: https://soulver.app

Examples

  • 1h 30min + 1h 25min + 30min
  • 100g + 1kg
  • 1 USD + 2€
  • 1 cup + 1 liter
  • 100°C - 23°F
  • 90 minutes from now
  • 55usd + 33%

Is it possible to hide the AI group in the launcher? I've already hidden the AI Chat Conversations, but the launcher still shows an Ask AI item.

@somelinguist added with next build!

I was just about to ask for natural language date and time support! Amazing work Andreas :flexed_biceps:

@Andreas_Hegenberg Some visual bugs with the Day and Week Calendar Views.

BTT Version: 6.485

MacOS: 15.7.5 (24G624)

A few things that has made me go back to Monarch after trying out BTT Launcher for a bit (despite really wanting to stay with Launcher):

  • Clipboard history that relies on Spotlight -- Spotlight in Tahoe is BUGGY. A quick google search will show this. Spotlight has suddenly stopped working for me, which in turn affects Launcher's clipboard function. And even if it works, MacOS Clipboard functionality is rather basic.
  • If you'd consider building a stand-alone Clipboard function inside Launcher, I suggest taking a look at Monarch's approach -- they have a blacklist / whitelist function, so that, for example, texts from password managers wouldn't be saved.
  • Support for system commands -- in Monarch, I can simply type "restart", "shutdown", "empty (trashcan)" to execute those functions directly on the computer. May be there is a way to set this up with other BTT actions, but would be great if this can be supported by Launcher natively.

did you look at BTT's launcher or at Spotlight? (BTT's launcher integrates the full BTT Clipboard manager). And of course you can configure any system command and add it to the launcher.

Pretty sure I was looking at BTT's launcher (see image below). And somehow in MacOS's Spotlight preference, despite turning on "Results from Clipboard", if I reboot my computer and go into Spotlight preference again, "Results from Clipboard" would be shown off -- so there's some issue with MacOS itself.

When you say BTT's launcher integrates the full BTT Clipboard manager, are you saying there's a separate manager that BTT uses which is separate from MacOS' clipboard? It seems like no matter what I do, none of what I've copied shows up in BTT's clipboard -- which is why I assumed BTT simply uses MacOS's clipboard (and the issue I outlined above causes BTT's clipboard unable to capture anything).

Perfect! Thanks!

ah this happens if you haven't used the BTT Clipboard Manager before. I'll make sure to auto enable it when used from the Launcher for the first time with the next build.