Bevy – The App Launcher with a 50,000 Foot View

very good
key review info
  • Application: Bevy 1.0.0
  • Reviewed on:
application features
  • Unified view for all your existing / running applications
  • (7 more, see all...)

Bevy has been specifically designed for those who like to use the mouse, according to developer bergdesign. You may wonder why an app like Bevy is even necessary – after all, you have the Dock as your perfect application launcher, right? Wrong.

While the Dock indeed does the job of launching your apps, it provides limited functionality for organizing your icons. The more applications you add to it, the smaller it gets, hence the more difficult it is to click and launch the right application. That is, if you can spot it. By contrast, Bevy displays all your applications in a much bigger space, not being limited by the size of your display. It provides separators for groups of apps like "Internet," "Graphics" and "Utilities," and lets you instantly zero in on your apps via filtering options. You don't have to use Spotlight for finding applications ever again!

The Looks

Bevy displays all your application icons in a translucent pop-up window that can be opened with a global hotkey, from the menubar or even from its Dock icon. Admittedly, Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard provides a stripped-down version of Bevy's main feature, if the user places the Applications folder in the Dock. However, Bevy doesn't just launch apps for $9.95.

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Besides using the global hotkey, Bevy is accessible both from the Dock, and the menubar

When you fire up Bevy for the first time, it searches a standard set of folders where applications are typically installed, and it displays those applications' icons. You can organize these application folders differently, to suit your exact needs.

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Bevy User Interface

The Works

Probably the best thing about Bevy is that it intelligently finds which app opens which file. Just drag a picture or a song over Bevy's window and hold down the Command (CMD) key. Bevy will instantly highlight all the applications you have that can open that file. This feature alone is worth every penny!

If you have not moved the main window, Bevy's UI will disappear when you switch to another application, or by clicking outside of its window's bounds. However, if you move the main window, Bevy knows that you don't want it hidden, and remains visible even if you switch between it and other windows / apps. This is very useful if you regularly drag and drop files over Bevy's window to open and/or edit them. When you make the “drop,” Bevy again becomes invisible, but doesn't forget to launch the app you've selected for opening that dropped file.

By pressing only the Option (ALT) key with Bevy as the frontmost app, you get instant access to your recently removed items. By right clicking the (now) translucent icons of the apps you've removed, you have the option to re-include them back in Bevy's window, or to show that program in Finder.

You can filter application names using your keyboard. With the Bevy window in front of you, you can zero in on your choice by pressing and holding down the letter / character your app's name begins with.

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Bevy examples / functionality: Image #1 - showing removed items; Image #2 - dragging a picture over Bevy's UI to see which apps are available for opening it; Image #3 - highlighting apps that start with the letter "I"

You'll also notice a bunch of small buttons at the top left of Bevy's window. These allow you to filter your navigation even better. To only view your running applications, simply press the “Running” button at the top left of the window. To see what you've excluded, hit the appropriate button and Bevy will instantly reduce its window's size to fit just the number of applications you've “banished” from its interface. The other two buttons' (“Total,” “Included”) functionality is pretty much obvious. You can either use these functions by clicking the buttons with your mouse, or by using the TAB key.

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'Running' and 'Excluded' views

Having developed Bevy with intuitiveness in mind, bergdesign has included three ways to use Bevy's unique features.

1- Press Bevy"s global hotkey. By default, the hot key is “control-tab.” Alternately, you can set any desired key and modifiers by choosing Preferences from the app's icon in the menubar (using the hotkey again while the Bevy UI is displayed will, of course, hide it). 2- Click the Dock icon. 3- Select Show/Hide Window from Bevy"s menubar icon.

The Good

Priced at just USD 9.95, Bevy does the job of organizing and launching your apps unlike anything else. By allowing users to get immediate access to all of their apps in a neatly manner, as well as to instantly see the applications capable of opening and/or editing a certain file, Bevy makes the Mac OS X Dock look like a mere sidekick.

The Bad

While the app is indeed intuitive, it requires getting used to its functionality. The best thing users can do to avoid getting the commands mixed up is to fully customize the prefs to their most suitable configuration. Also, PowerPC users running OS X 10.4 Tiger may encounter graphical glitches. My experience with Bevy on a PPC machine running Tiger was quite bad. Still, the developer itself admits that some “visual flaws” may occur on the respective OS X version.

The Truth

Bevy is clearly a utility worth looking into, especially because it does so much for so little. Those using their Macs at full throttle are especially encouraged to check it out. The demo version is fully functional, but keeps reminding you to buy a license. While there's room for improvements, it's only Bevy's first days in the wild and, so far, it's doing great!

More Bevy screens can be found below. They depict the program's preferences and a couple of funny nag screens that appear in the demo (unregistered) version of the app.

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Bevy preferences

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Bevy nag screens
user interface 5
features 4
ease of use 4
pricing / value 4


final rating 4
Editor's review
very good
 
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