If you spend much time at a computer, chances are you've got a set stack of programs and documents that you need to run every morning when you get to work, or every time you need to tackle a certain task. But doesn't it seem like a lot of unnecessary work to open the same programs every day, navigate to the same pages, and open the same documents and folders?
It's not that it's hard to go through and launch your programs individually, but you're life hackers - you save time and pick up productivity every chance you can get. With the help of Windows Batch scripts and Lifehacker, you can easily hack together your own quick launch workspace that will open every program and file you need to create an instant work environment, all with one click of the mouse.
Create your workspace folder
First, to make things particularly easy, start off by creating a new folder somewhere on your computer. I'm calling mine "My Lifehacker Workspace" and I'm going to put it in My Documents.
Add shortcuts to applications and documents
The next step is to create shortcuts to all of the programs you'd like to run in your workspace. For mine, I'm going to need a shortcut for Firefox, Thunderbird, SnagIt, Homesite, and the folder I save screenshots to.
A quick and easy way to create shortcuts in Windows (that I only recently learned) is to right-click and drag the program/shortcut into your destination folder. A context menu will pop up when you release, and you will want to select "Create Shortcuts Here." Be sure to rename all of your shortcuts so that there are no empty spaces (for example, I renamed "Mozilla Firefox" to just plain ol' "firefox").
Write the launcher batch file
Once you've done this with all of the programs you want to launch at once, you're ready to put together your batch file. Open a new text file with Notepad and save it in your quick launch folder as yourfilename.bat, being sure to set the file type to "All Files." Now that you've got your shortcuts set up and your batch file created, you're home free. Writing the batch file is the easy part.
If it's not already open, you can open the batch file for editing by right-clicking on the file and selecting, "Edit" (double-clicking just runs the script). Okay, so like I said, here's the easy part. For each shortcut you've created (you remembered to rename them so there are no spaces, right?), simple type
start shortcutname. For example, my batch file will look something like this:
Notice that if you pass URLs behind Firefox, you can choose what sites you'd like to open. Each URL you separate with a space will open in a new tab. Since I like to run a second window for blogging in MovableType, I've got a second Firefox entry that will open a new window to the MovableType URL. You can do the same for other programs, like Microsoft Word. Just create your shortcut for Word, then include the path to the file in quotation marks like so:
start word "C:\Documents and Settings\user\My Documents\Word file.doc"That's all there is to it.
Create a shortcut to the launcher batch file
For good measure (and quicker launching), I created a shortcut to the batch file on my quick launch bar; to make things even smoother, I gave it a Lifehacker icon. Now it's just one click, and I'm ready to publish to Lifehacker any time.
Of course, your imagination is the limit on what different uses you can make of this very simple scripting using batch files. You could launch a BitTorrent environment that would open your favorite BitTorrent program and websites, open a Photoshop or video editing session with all the tools you need to access. Don't forget, you can open individual files, too.
I admit that I'm a batch scripting novice (if I can even call myself that), and I'm sure a lot of you have concocted a batch of voodoo much stronger than my own. If it's comprehensible to the common man, please share it. Let us know how you quickly launch your workspaces or batch file your life into productivity in the comments
Via Lifehacker.com
