Scripting my application launch process

Every day for work, there’s several applications I always use. The other day, I put together a quick and dirty bash script for opening all of them at once.

I’m terribly inexperienced at this, so don’t poke fun, only offer good suggestions for improvement…

[sourcecode language=”bash”]
#!/bin/bash

# Open all of the requisite applications
echo ‘Opening Chrome’
`open /Volumes/Macintosh HD/Applications/Google Chrome.app/`
echo ‘Opening Skype’
`open /Volumes/Macintosh HD/Applications/Skype.app/`
echo ‘Opening Sparrow’
`open /Volumes/Macintosh HD/Applications/Sparrow.app/`
echo ‘Opening Linkus’
`open /Volumes/Macintosh HD/Applications/Linkinus.app/`
echo ‘Opening Adium’
`open /Volumes/Macintosh HD/Applications/Adium.app/`
[/sourcecode]

7 Comments

Nick Momrik December 30, 2011 Reply

I use an AppleScript in Alfred to do something similar. Looks like this:

launch application “Skype”
launch application “Firefox”
launch application “Adium”
launch application “LimeChat”
launch application “iTerm”
launch application “Coda”
launch application “Safari”

Daniel Bachhuber December 30, 2011 Reply

Sweet, I haven’t ever played with AppleScript. What do you use to run it?

Nick Momrik December 30, 2011 Reply

AppleScript is handy. I use it for a few other things like launching a URL with a string from the clipboard as one of the query string values.

In Alfred you set a keyword, so I bring up the Alfred window, type auto, and hit Enter. The AppleScript functionality is built right into Alfred now so you don’t even need to create a file, it’s all in the preferences.

Max Cutler December 30, 2011 Reply

I don’t have a Mac to test this on (so YMMV), but here’s what I was referring to in my tweet:

https://gist.github.com/1540832

Egill Erlendsson December 31, 2011 Reply

I did something similar, creating an app in Automator + it closes all other apps than the ones I use for work.

Robin July 9, 2012 Reply

I’d just add them to the “Startup items” for your user in the System config’s user account panel…

Daniel Bachhuber July 9, 2012 Reply

I don’t always want to launch the applications though. With this approach, I have manual control over when it happens.

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