Would you spend money on utility software? What about ENSO?
I can hear people saying ‘NO’, and ‘HELL NO’ for the second question. Hey I totally agree with the first, but when it comes to ENSO, well I could argue otherwise!
First of all, for those who are not familiar with ENSO, it’s a software by Humanized that currently encompasses a program launcher and universal spellchecker/dictionary. Actually each one of those is sold separately. I gave quite a detailed overview of ENSO in a previous post, so read that if you want to find out what’s quite different and interesting about this software. But if you want to know whether the software is really worth buying, then read on.
Last week, my 30-days trial period for ENSO has expired. Honestly, I’ve gotten used to it during this period. But I didn’t want to make the decision to purchase it until I’m damn sure that I can’t go without it. I said fine, let’s have another 30-day trial period, only this time without ENSO’s services.
That didn’t work out too well.
I gave in and purchased ENSO Launcher couple of days ago. My friends thought I was crazy to shell out 20 bucks for a utility software even though there are several other free alternatives. Truth be told, I did my homework; I have tried most of the recommended alternatives during this period, notably a program called Launchy. Google Desktop was another viable alternative, even though it’s not meant to be a program launcher, but more of a desktop search engine. However none of them really hit the spot, for me.
So why ENSO?
Two simple reasons:
- It prevents me from switching mental context.
- It stays out of my way.
Let’s explore this a bit further by contrasting it to the alternatives I’ve considered: 
Google Desktop is cool. It’s free. It indexes your whole computer and brings you relevant results within a second. With some tweaking, you can get to be completely hidden and only come up with a search box when you double-tap the Ctrl key. However, its shortcomings as a program launcher are twofold:
- It returns more results than I need for a simple program launch, which is quite distracting (see point 1). If I type ‘Word’ for instance, the first result entry is ‘Microsoft Office Word 2007 - Start Menu’ but then there are 10 other entries below with the word ‘Word’ either in the filename or in the contents.
- It comes up right in the center of my screen with no way to move it. That’s right where I’m usually working with something. (see point 2)
Google Desktop, check. (Note: I still use it for searching though)
Launchy, on other hand, was the closest I’ve come to replacing ENSO if it weren’t for one simple problem: it’s stupid!
First of all, if I type ‘Word’ in it, the first place to look for results is obviously my start menu because that’s where you’d find programs I would want to launch frequently. It doesn’t do that (see point 1).
Second of all, it won’t go away by itself. If you bring it up, then you gotta hit ESC if you no longer need it. It won’t go away by itself if you change the focus to a different application. I’m sorry, but for me, that was a deal breaker (see point 2).
Launchy, check.
Reasons applied to ENSO
Now let’s see how ENSO won me over by applying the above two points:
When you hit Caps-Lock, ENSO’s semi-transparent welcome message is shown in the upper-left corner of the screen. As you type a command, the text goes right underneath it and the results (if it’s an ‘Open’ command) are shown below as well.
Case in point: it stays out of my way!
Furthermore, ENSO’s results are minimal and most of the time relevant to what I’m trying to do.
Case in point: it prevents me from switching mental context by not forcing me to think too deeply on which choice to go with, as in the case with Launchy and Google Desktop.
Did I mention ENSO’s freakin’ stylish?
The beautiful and simple typography with the semi-transparent backgrounds that ENSO sports right out of the box are simply gorgeous! It’s also minimal (no borders and stuff) so it will do little less to distract you from whatever it is you’re doing.
One more reason
I’m not ashamed to admit it, but part of my decision to purchase ENSO was based on supporting Humanized, the company who made ENSO possible, and the work they’re doing in the software usability department. I’m a regular reader of their weblog and, having keen interest in software usability, I’m always impressed by their thoughts, methodologies and their ambitions to “making our computing life simpler, more peaceful, and more productive”.
There is more where this post came from:
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Comments- Automation: My Ultimate Guide to Productivity at Alaeddin’s Blog
- The quickest way ever to launch any application or website at Alaeddin’s Blog
April 4th, 2007 at 11:11 pm
Hello,
I’d have to disagree with your opinion on launchy. I’ve used Enso (just the trial) and Luanchy and I’ve found launchy does what i need for free.
I agree that launchy doesn’t find the most relevant results at first but after a few searches it begins to recognize what you need. For example your search for ‘word’ might not have found MS word first time but if you scroll down the list and select what you want, the next time launchy will put it closer to the top of the list or make it the first item. After a few hours with launchy it did an amazing job recognizing the programs and files that I would use and I hardly use the drop down menu at all.
Also, launchy does go away without you having to hit escape. It does this after you hit enter and it launches the file/program you need. If you start launchy but then don’t hit find the file or program you need and don’t hit enter, the search box will remain (meaning you have to hit escape) most of the time this doesn’t happen.
Launchy does everything I need it to but I think people should try Enso out too, its just a matter of personal preference. Ensois a very nice program, but for me its price wasn’t justified especially when luanchy does everything i need for free.
April 5th, 2007 at 12:55 am
Well it happened to me lots of times and this was the main reason that turned me off. I agree with you though on the first point, I guess I didn’t give Launchy enough patience or didn’t recognize its ability to learn and adapt (which is ironically missing in Enso)
In the end, both are debatable in respect to being program-launchers. I guess Enso is priced at such because of its other features and commands.
April 8th, 2007 at 8:09 am
Hi Alaeddin,
I’m curious to know if you tried slimKEYS? If you didn’t, forget about the question, I’m not writing to push my program, but simply to gather feedback from users who tried it.
Thanks.
June 26th, 2007 at 11:59 am
I agree that Launchy is stupid. I have not tried ENSO. But based on the two points mentioned above, Slickrun is pretty good program launcher.
Read my review at http://desipenguin.blogspot.com/2006/05/productivity-enhancing-software-part.html
June 26th, 2007 at 3:33 pm
@desipenguin:
I gave Slickrun a trial run. Honestly, I can see how you like it seeing as you come from command-based UNIX background. However, for me, first I thought it was very lacking in the usability and aesthetics department. More importantly, it failed a very basic “word” test (that should have launched Microsoft Word). I think I had to create a “MagicWord” for that beforehand.
Overall, I had a very bad experience with it and I just thought it was too “clumsy”. But hey, thanks for the comment and suggestion :)
January 25th, 2008 at 3:39 am
Nice article, Enso hmm, I’m having a closer look at this.
Regards
Vincent
The World of Office, XP and Vista Tips and Tricks.
January 26th, 2008 at 8:10 pm
I review a lot of software, and I recently came across Enso through lifehacker. In the end, they pretty much gave it the thumbs down. However, now that Enso is free (a year later after the article was written), I decided to give it a try.
Enso itself is not bad, however it doesn’t serve to compete with Launchy or Quicklaunch. I find the fact that you even compared it to Googledesktops or similar applications to be absurd. Why? Because Enso is designed to replace the “cut and paste” method of the keyboard, not to open applications. It’s meant to make to take simple commands done with the MS calculator or mouse, and make it faster. However, this falls short due to the fact that you still have to use the mouse to select the text you’re copying.
The calculator is a cool command, as are the maximize and minimize functions (which I use a ton since I’m switching through Autocad, Photoshop, and Dreamweaver a lot).
As an application opener, it quite frankly fails. I wanted to open firefox for example: it always gave me the (safe mode) option. Erm, I don’t want to open firefox in safe mode? It wanted to open “about itunes” and not iTunes. It’s like it failed to look at what was installed on my computer and give me results.
Enso does excell as a web searcher. I simply just hold caps, type my search terms in after inputting “google,” and it finds what I’m looking for. I highly enjoy this feature.
Despite the ups and downs, the placement of the hotkeys ultimately makes the execution of this program fail. The fact that it’s assigned to the caps key is inhibiting - I use the caps key a lot for many different applications. Also, how am I supposed to type on the q, a, and z keys? It’s weird that I have to “think” about moving my left ring finger to hit these keys, when my pinky should be doing it. I honestly hate that. Enso claims with time, that this would become second nature, but to each his own.
A year ago, I would not have bought this application. Even now, I wouldn’t buy it. When it fails to “open” a program, it’s a turn off ya know? It simply isn’t finding exactly what I want.
Based on your reviews, it seems that the mindset is, “no matter what, Enso will always be the best.” Launchy is a solid product for what it does - Enso is a solid product for what it does. Launchy opens applications, and Enso makes mouse commands easier. Two different objectives for two different products in my opinion.
April 15th, 2008 at 12:14 am
Strongly agree Cody’s comments. I’ve tried ENSO for several hours and to me it is a software does exactly the same thing as Launchy, as long as you do some configuration after the setup. Actually, you can configure Launchy to index your start menu and quick launch bar only (that’s what I will do since almost every programs I wanna launch is in at least one of those two places). Other than the indexed items, you can also use Launch to open folders and several system components (like control panel). Other than that, I still don’t understand why bother to hold caps lock down and awkwardly press “copy” or “paste”, instead of simply using ctrl-c and ctrl-p? That just doesn’t make sense to me considering the later one requires less inputs)
Regarding to the quasimode ENSO is using, I personally disagree that’s reducing mental switch. Normally people want keyboard to be as effective as it could be. We’ve been very familiar with the way we are typing words, but by using ENSO I have to do mental switch to figure out how to type certain word without my left pinky. From this perspective, ENSO is not as intuitive as Launch, in which you active the utility, type the command, execute and close Launchy with ENTER or close it without doing anything with ESC. I bet people will get used to Launchy more fast than ENSO, if they haven’t used any of them.
Anyway, people always want to stick with what they’ve been used to.
May 14th, 2008 at 4:24 pm
Enso’s pretty spiffy, and I can see lots of potential for its development. I’d really like to be able to teach it (on the fly, such as with the “learn as open” command) to open an application/document, and then immediately carry out specific keystrokes or menu commands. If it can’t learn to do that, then it doesn’t seem much smarter than Launchy, which I can “teach” to open various filetypes in various locations across my harddrives.
In Enso, It really trips me up that it responds only to “open” rather than “run”.. I’m having to train myself to remember “open”…
Launchy’s pretty happy, and doesn’t require that I type “open” every time I want to launch an application.
Enso would be TENS better with an option to turn off the splash/welcome screen. When I have an application automatically load on startup, I don’t need it to announce itself every time, and I can see perfectly well that it’s running in the task/status bar (which should also have an option to turn off, but at least that’s not obnoxiously obtrusive).
I’m running both Enso and Launchy these days. I’m new to Enso, so am still feeling it out, but like it enough to recommend to others. Won’t give up Launchy any time soon though.
afterthought: whether Enso or Launchy or other, I don’t (anymore) see myself spending more than a day on one computer that does not have the ability for type-to-launch-on-the-fly.