RUNit is a free launcher accessed via right clicking a hot area on your screen (the top edge of the screen by default).
You can set up multiple lists of items to be accessed via different hot areas of the screen. RUNit can launch apps, URLS, documents, or folders, supports drag and drop when adding items, is customizable, and is portable.
I learned about this from a comment on the RocketDock post that read “best launcher ever – RUNit 2.0.1b!” (thanks to reader “rws”). So I searched for and found it and … I really, really like it.
As launchers go the unique aspect of RUNit is the way it is accessed, by right clicking on the upper edge of the screen (or alternately you can enable shift-right-clicking anywhere on the screen or simply ctrl+shift). Which isn’t quite revolutionary, except that it can be accessed extremely quickly and somehow delivers a really nice user experience. Here are more notes:
- Set up different lists: you can create wholly different lists of items and specify different shortcuts for accessing them. For example you can set it up such that right clicking the top edge of the screen can display your apps while right clicking the bottom edge displays favorite URLs or whatever.
- Drag and drop: to add items, simply drag shortcuts, files, URLs or pretty much anything from anywhere to the RUNit setup dialog. The setup has a button that can reconcile shortcuts automatically, though I am not sure why the user has to actually “press it” for this to take place.
- Customizable: you can select large or different icons, change the font used, edit the order of items, launch apps minimized or maximized, and even set the coordinated on screen where you want a particular app to be placed when launched.
- Cascading menu structure: is supported; use dividers and create folders and subfolders within your menu.
- Portable: unzip and run; does not write to the registry.
- Source code: is available for download.
The verdict: the RUNit site states that “no one who has ever tried it could live without it anymore”, and after trying it I can see that there’s a lot of truth to that statement. A very nice launcher indeed.
Version Tested: 2.1beta6a
Compatibility: WinAll; no info on Vista.
Go to program home page to download the latest version (approx 67K).
