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Launch HN: Raycast (YC W20) – CLI-inspired desktop app for non-coding tasks

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Re: Launch HN: Raycast (YC W20) – CLI-inspired desktop app for non-coding tasks

#61
Maybe it's because I'm a Windows user so I'm not your target audience Mac user, but my IDE already does all of this.

From my IDE , I can already interact with GitHub, JIRA, search stack-overflow, and pretty much anything else either natively or through the plugin system.

Re: Launch HN: Raycast (YC W20) – CLI-inspired desktop app for non-coding tasks

#62
post #52
post #40

Love the concept & the idea! But why did go for MacOS / Swift instead of something cross-platform, such as Electron or Qt? Many devs outside of SV aren't using Macs.

Applications like these highly benefit from deep integration into the environment. Also, keeping them native and easy on resources makes them using a snap. You want these to come and go quickly, at the whim of a fingertip. You want them to connect to your local search services, reuse local components, etc. The biggest problem for most of these "Launchers", is that they try to be cross-platform, making them slow and a…

Wox+Search Everything is my spotlight/alfred replacement for windows. Not on the same league, but the ux/ui at least does the job.

Also use SmallWindows for a Mission Control like interface.

Re: Launch HN: Raycast (YC W20) – CLI-inspired desktop app for non-coding tasks

#63
post #61

Maybe it's because I'm a Windows user so I'm not your target audience Mac user, but my IDE already does all of this. From my IDE , I can already interact with GitHub, JIRA, search stack-overflow, and pretty much anything else either natively or through the plugin system.

Same. Vscode has plugins for everything I need - slackoverflow, jira, github, stack, runner, and just about anything popular.

eg - https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=Atlassia...

Re: Launch HN: Raycast (YC W20) – CLI-inspired desktop app for non-coding tasks

#65
post #17

I want something like this, which is why I more or less have the skeleton and something that at least approaches this idea, built organically through time using various utilities. Rofi, some shell scripts, etc. This is a great idea in theory but much harder to do properly in practice. The idea is only really worthwhile as long as you can really extend it to a lot of things(no one cares about adding an Nth tool that c…

> I want something like this It's existed for almost 40 years, and it's called emacs. If anyone questions emacs's ability to display incredibly useful UIs, try using magit[0]. Emacs sucks though, so I hope this comes out better! [0] https://magit.vc/

Also the Raskins', Jef and his son Aza, were onto this a long time ago. The general idea is applications, desktop or web, are the problem and that a better interface is one that provides a ubiquitous means of issuing commands with natural language.

About 10 years ago or so Aza created Enso which ran on the desktop and then Ubiquity which ran in the browser. These were both steps in this direction. I looked at going further with the idea but quickly ran into the question of how best to implement with currently available desktop technologies. But a lot of folks have been nibbling at the edges of this problem for a long time and they end up using rofi or dmenu or emacs and a bunch of custom scripts.

In my opinion one really needs to design a brand new shell from the ground up. But when I say shell I mean OS, not terminal.

Re: Launch HN: Raycast (YC W20) – CLI-inspired desktop app for non-coding tasks

#66

I'm fairly confident one can write an Alfred plug-in for most of these tasks.

Yeah, my idea was something with the interface of a launcher but where the results are display as a tree list. The result of a very large set of commands would either be a tree list or the rendering of some other GUI element in which case the tree list results would be empty. In turn, the elements of the tree list could be easily selected and another command could be run on them. This is very similar to something like gnus in emacs only with a modern UI.

Re: Launch HN: Raycast (YC W20) – CLI-inspired desktop app for non-coding tasks

#67
This sounds similar to another tool called Linear [0], as described in this TechCrunch article [1].

Though it seems that they're only primarily focused on work issue tracking (GitHub, Figma, etc.).

[0] https://linear.app/

[1] https://techcrunch.com/2019/11/21/linear-lines-up-4-2m-led-b...

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