Application launchers are very useful and can save you a lot of time. In their most basic form, they provide you access to your frequently used files and programs. The more advanced launchers support running of different scripts on your computer to automate tasks.

MakeUseOf has covered application launchers in the past. However, more often than not, an application launcher can be heavy on system resources. They have been known to prolong system startups. Radian is another application launcher for Windows, which has a surprisingly tiny footprint.

At 636KB (installation), it barely leaves a mark on your hard disk. The program itself is more mouse-oriented, so keyboard lovers would be a bit disappointed. Let me take you through the various options provided by Radian. You will need to start by downloading it from here.

Setting It Up

At first run, you will need to hold down your right mouse button to take Radian into the design mode. Radian basically resembles a circle divided into four sectors. Each of these sectors can hold up to 6 shortcuts, thereby giving you a choice of 24 launchers. Each of these 24 options can be customized completely to launch only what you want to use.

In the design mode, 4 buttons are provided, which resemble 4 gears. Each of these can be used to access the settings of each quadrant (such as background color, etc.).

Let’s now add a shortcut to Radian. Once you’re in the design mode, click any of the buttons to customize it. This will bring up a small box with two fields. The first one, called “Title” is for you to give a caption to the button. The second one is to enter a path to what you want to launch. Use these boxes to input the settings for the button you just selected. Once done, either hit “Test” to try it out, or click “OK” when you are satisfied. In my example, I’ve set it to launch an image file. You can set yours to anything you like (an app shortcut, a file, a folder, etc.). Repeat this step for all the shortcuts that you want to use.

You can set each quadrant to display links from a particular folder as well. For example, the bottom quadrant, in its default settings shows the “Desktop”, and the top quadrant shows links from “Quick Launch”. You can customize what each quadrant shows by clicking on the gear icon for a particular quadrant and and specifying the “Mode” for the same.

Using Radian

Now that the hard work is over, we can get down to using this nifty app launcher. Start by holding down your right-mouse button. Now, without releasing the button, move the mouse to any one of the four quadrants of the circle. This will cause the items of that quadrant to pop out. Thereafter, select the item you want and let go of the button to launch the app. Screenshots follow below.

Given enough time, you will find that an application launcher is something that is indispensable for a computer user. Once you are hooked to the convenience of a launcher, you will hate reverting to a situation without a launcher. If you are a keyboard ninja, you should give EnsoLauncher a shot. In case you use any other launcher, do let us know in the comments.

Image credit: arvindgrover

Tagged: application launchers • mouse gestures • productivity