Apptivate 2.0

Apptivate is a really simple and useful application launcher. What is really interesting about Apptivate is that lets you assign system-wide hotkeys to launch any application on your Mac.

As a matter of fact, it doesn't really have to be an application, you can launch Applescripts, workflows, a file or a document. When running, you will find Apptivate on the menubar, at the top of your screen. By right-clicking on its icon, you can see the list of all the configured applications and the hotkeys assigned to them. You can easily add new apps from there as well.

Apptivate boasts a very interesting feature called "Quick Peek." Basically, it allows you to bring an application to the front (or show it, on other words) only while you hold the hotkey assigned to it. It is a great way of checking the progress on a window quickly. When you release the hotkey, the app is hidden again. So for example, if you want to see how your torrent downloads are going, you simply press Cmd+U+T or whatever hotkey you assigned to your torrent client, and the application will come up. Release it, and away it goes again.

I can't live without an application launcher. I'd love my application launcher to have hotkey support like Apptivate does. But you have to manually add each application that you use with Apptivate, and it won't find files or folders for you, unless you add them.