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Ask HN: Would you use a cross-platform launcher?

2 pointsby tsenkovalmost 10 years ago
I&#x27;ve built an app called Pagehop (https:&#x2F;&#x2F;pagehopapp.com), which is a launcher app, targeting the web (and currently only for OS X).<p>Pagehop&#x27;s core is cross-platform and I am thinking about pivoting to a new, not-so-distant idea - a cross-platform launcher. :) I&#x27;ll definitely rebrand, if I go in this direction, since the app will no longer be the &quot;launcher app for the web&quot;.<p>This time the idea is to have default tools such as the ones that Spotlight and Alfred provide on OS X (calculator, clipboard management, browse the FS etc.), combined with Pagehop&#x27;s web plugins (Google, Wikipedia, YouTube, Stackoverflow and bunch of other searches) AND a support for Teams with auto-sync of plugins between team members.<p>So if you have a team of 30 people and they use PC&#x27;s &amp; Macs, you can have a team account for the app and everyone on the team can have the same set of productivity tools, specific for the team, available on a globally-assigned key shortcut. And whenever you need to implement a simple new graphic representing some data of your business - you can have a developer build a simple Node.js plugin, upload it in the team account and everyone would automatically get it. Same goes for updating tools. And when a new team member comes along, they only need to install Pagehop and login to get their productivity tool-belt installed.<p>What do you think? Does that seem like a good idea? Would you use it for your team?<p>Thanks in advance for all answers.

1 comment

r3blalmost 10 years ago
I have something very similar to this called Synapse[1] which basically does the same thing. It&#x27;s open source, free and customizable with extensions. Plus, I can incorporate DuckDuckGo[2] with it which will allow me to search through specific domains (like, thousands of them, not just a couple). So, I really don&#x27;t see the point. It&#x27;s not really cross-platform and doesn&#x27;t support teams, but I don&#x27;t really need those features at all.<p>[1] <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;synapse.zeitgeist-project.com" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;synapse.zeitgeist-project.com</a> [2] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;duckduckgo.com&#x2F;bang" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;duckduckgo.com&#x2F;bang</a>