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The latest pre-release version of LaunchBar, my application launcher of choice on Mac OS X, has broken through a barrier that has bothered me for a few months.

Being surrounded by Quicksilver fanatics, since students naturally gravitate to free software, I had tried out Quicksilver for a month or two last spring, and found it okay. It certainly has a novel take on the application launcher genre.

If I were to compare its chief vocabulary difference most succinctly to LaunchBar, I would say that Quicksilver puts the data or object first, while LaunchBar puts the action or verb first. For this reason, and perhaps because the data and actions can be chained together more visually in Quicksilver, it is probably more suitable to those who want to actually chain together actions. LaunchBar works for me because I use the rest of the operating system to chain together actions, and LaunchBar is used for quick, distinct tasks.

One feature I’d grown to love in Quicksilver was the free-form ability to display any random Large Text on the screen. This was so cool that I used it over and over to send oversized messages from my screen to those within visual range. (Type too much text, however, and the display got small enough that you had to be very close to read it.) Used discreetly, it was exceedingly powerful in much the same way—with similar useful yet potentially subversive qualities—that instant messaging or text messaging is. In fact, it was very much like a visual channel for instant messaging.

However, the way that Quicksilver works—although liberating in the same manner that any application launcher on Mac OS X is, including Spotlight—just didn’t suit my style. In the past, I’d dinged it for an inability to search with the ease that LaunchBar’s AASv4 algorithm can; that is no longer the case. I don’t think I can quite put my finger on why I switched away. Certainly, some of my unease was simply that I’d already bought LaunchBar. The admitted fact that the authors of Quicksilver had set out to clone LaunchBar but make their version free let a strong and sour taste in my mouth. Overall, I longed to return to the land of LaunchBar.

Just one thing held me back: Large Text.

Now, version LaunchBar 4.2 beta 2 offers this, and with a vengeance. The new beta of LaunchBar not only implements Large Text for phone numbers and addresses associated with contacts (something previous versions had done), but it can also supports the display of free-form text in the same kind of dark, semi-transparent bezel display used elsewhere throughout Mac OS X. The shadowed text itself can have two sizes and specified line breaks, as well, which is neat. (Quicksilver has some more customization options regarding the appearance, but I actually like LaunchBar’s fit-in strategy more.)

Beyond that—and here is where I start to develop some concerns—several functions are now accessible via a new x-launchbar: URL scheme. In one sense, this is a benefit because you can:

• have a link in a Web page that, when clicked, uses LaunchBar 4.2 to display a message in large text on your screen
• save those links into a local Web page, to collect common phrases in one handy location
• put individual links in URL clippings files, or Internet location files, which could be stored in the filesystem and indexed by LaunchBar for quick access
• display large text from the command line or a script by wrapping the Large Text URL action in quotes, and invoking it using /usr/bin/open.

Already, just because of these discoveries, my coworkers are looking at ways to do interesting new stuff even with Quicksilver’s Large Text feature. I can imagine that it won’t be long before Quicksilver itself uses URLs in similar ways.

However, the ties between actions and URLs also a drawback for many of the same reasons, all of which boil down to the fact that URLs can be called by any random Web page in your browser, without your knowledge or consent. Several different techniques allow this. Can you image a META REFRESH or a pop-up window or an embedded script having this sort of effect on your application launcher? It makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up, even though LaunchBar is by no means on every Mac and Mac OS X is by no means one everyone’s desk. I guess I’m grumpy mostly because it affects me, but if it also affects Quicksilver users because of the arms race between these applications, that could start to snowball into something very bad.

At least it doesn’t look like this trick works when LaunchBar is not already running. But for me, it’s always running. Therefore, without more controls and protections and assurances in place, I distrust this. After all, all software has bugs and many bugs are just a tiny step away from an exploit.

I should also admit that we did come across another way to bring up Large Text—or I should say, “Large Type.” There is a LargeType Service for Mac OS X from Cold Pizza Software that takes any text input to the service and presents it in transparent bezel. Barring the use of either Quicksilver or LaunchBar, and having on Services to depend upon, this is a decent choice that I didn’t know was available. Thanks to Steve L for pointing it out.