Finding The Best Windows Application Launcher

The application launcher I've been using for these years, mainly because the old Microsoft Edge doesn't support searching via a certain website, so I was in the need to find a launcher that supports this feature. And I was using Win+R with links in a folder to quickly open apps.

It has so many options to customize and the functionalities are very practical to use, which I probably won't have thought about if I haven't used Executor. The priority of the searching list can be fully customized. I put the keywords at the top (R2) so I can use it as if using the built-in Win+R.

However, the UI is old and it doesn't support high DPI so it looks blurry. The software isn't open-source, and it's written in Delphi, which doesn't have a good prospect to be contributed widely even if it open-sourced someday.

The feature is very versatile and it has good support for Chinese and network proxies. It has a good design to support a good plugin ecosystem. I really wanted to love it. However, it doesn't satisfy R1 and R2.

R1: It does have Win+R support for open/close but limited to shell commands. The shortcut to open/close to search is Alt+Space. And unfortunately, the key combination can't be changed to anyone that includes the Win key.

R2: It can be configured to use a folder that contains links to applications to simulate keywords, but they won't always show at the top.

Also, another downside is the development is not active recently. From GitHub issues, there are lots of seemly same bug reports. I can't find a community to ask questions.

It derives from Wox and says it fixed lots of bugs. Quickly examining it, I can't find where it improves compared to Wox. R1 and R2 still can't be satisfied (see Wox). The UI renders poorly with MacType font rendering. The fonts are cut here and there.

Doesn't satisfy R1, and R2 maybe initially. The open/close shortcut can be configured but failed to set to Win+R due to confliction which the error showed. It will associate keywords to historically opened apps but automatically only. The keyword can't be manually set. There is a GitHub issue that has been open for two years with literally no progress. In another related issue, someone who comes from Executor seems to have figured out how to simulate manually associating keywords but no clear explanation.

The configuration is done by a text file like Sublime Text, which is a bit geeky. The documentations are in detail. Seems appealing to programmers.

Microsoft PowerToys Run is an alternative. I haven't installed it but watched a tutorial video. It seems experimental and isn't so customizable at this moment. And seeing its attribution from Wox, I can imagine that it doesn't satisfy R1 and R2 (see Wox).

Doesn't satisfy R1, but supports R2 seems in most cases in this setting now. I set e for Microsoft Edge but it will interpret it as a Math constant e.

The UI looks designed for Mac as the folder icon is blue. No support for Japanese or Chinese at this moment. The shortcut to open/close can't be configured to include character or number keys, which disappointed me so much.

The search feature is done correctly in my opinion. It only indexes something like .lnk files by default, which makes the searching list surprisingly clear. What extensions to the index are configurable. (I want to note that Executor also has this feature but I didn't configure it like this. I'm going to change to a similar setting and see now😂.)