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Show HN: Wox – an open source launcher for windows inspired by Alfred and Launchy

by ishu3101 on 11/23/15, 12:06 AM with 19 comments

  • by warunsl on 11/23/15, 6:14 PM

    I have been using this for a while. It is good. It is not a replacement to GNOME Do yet (I am not sure if plugins bridge the gap) but I have found that the application search is much faster compared to the Windows 7 Start Menu.

    If the dev is here I have a question/bug report: Every time I reboot my machine, there is a error dialog (with a huge stack trace) that I have to dismiss. I see from the stack trace that it complains about not finding certain applications. I have realized that these applications were on my system when I first installed Wox, but since uninstalled.

    Thanks for making this utility though. Makes my life on Windows 7 a bit easier.

  • by KirinDave on 11/23/15, 4:54 PM

    I'm willing to try this, and it would have been really nice to have during the Win8/7 days but...

    What purpose does it serve in Windows 10? Every feature and voice recognition seems to be part of the basic Win10 search (although you need to tweak it a bit to get local content search mixed in with app launches; I usually turn that off on spotlight).

    Part of the reason I really like Win10 is that it has something that has parity with these older tools. Indeed, Win10 is rightfully referred to as a search-driven OS. Most help articles refer to searching from the top level box into other apps, that can trivially publish search targets.

  • by torgoguys on 11/23/15, 10:19 PM

    Docs say the keyboard shortcuts for this is alt+space. Does this mean that if I install this, I can no longer access the standard alt+space windows menu to minimize, resize, etc? If so, can the shortcut for Wox be changed? I've used the standard windows menu since at least windows 3.0.

  • by herbst on 11/24/15, 2:13 PM

    When i read launcher i thought i am going to see a a Windows Environment replacement. Damn Android terminology. Anyway, i would definitly try that when i would have Windows.

    It is one of the typical missing features that let me wonder how windows people can even talk about productivity. Kudos.

  • by daviross on 11/23/15, 7:34 AM

    Very cool! I've been hoping something like this would get active development again, since Launchy basically died.

    Alfred's been pretty good Mac-side.

    Shame that Synapse & near as I last saw Gnome Do seem to have also died off Linux-side.

    It's a useful product space.

  • by mavromatis on 11/23/15, 10:59 AM

    Nice idea but can't install most plugins. The installation by wpm or manual complete succesfully yet the plugin is not installed. Example: Switcheroo for Wox; Wox.Plugin.SimpleClock.

  • by blainesch on 11/23/15, 6:08 PM

    Open source, but no github/bitbucket links on the project or the plugins? This makes any type of contributing very limiting.

  • by spacey on 11/23/15, 9:25 AM

    I will give it a try, looks like a good alternative to Launchy. The online readme contains some broken images.

  • by ivanyu on 11/24/15, 8:28 PM

    I wanted such a thing so badly that started to write it myself. Thanks!