A scripted quick launch gadget for the Vista Sidebar

The last few weeks I've been hammering away on a Vista Gadget to quickly launch applications / websites / folders etc. using the keyboard. It's somewhat inspired of the old "Quixecute" application I made a few years ago, only this time the configuration is simpler, and it's all hosted in the Vista Sidebar.

Like other Gadgets, it's built using mostly JavaScript, CSS and HTML. In addition, I've wrapped up an ActiveX which enables the binding of global hotkeys to JavaScript callbacks. This means that you can have any other window focused, hit some key combination, and instantly focus on the Gadget's input box.

A demonstration video: http://screencast.com/t/eDUFuaTe3O5

Among the more nifty features, and also an extension from the old "Quixecute" app; you can now use JavaScript to script the actions. To add a shortcut to a website, you'd e.g. create a new command with the shortcut "mysite", and an action such as "http://www.mysite.com". If you'd like to enable parameters for the "mysite" shortcut, you could expand the action to "http://www.mysite.com/$param1-", or -- using the javascript feature -- "http://www.mysite.com/{{ if(this.params[1] == "foo") return "Whee!"; }}". This last action would add "Whee!" to the url, granted that the first parameter passed to the "mysite" command is "foo".

The Gadget, called (ever so cheezy) "SwiftRun", can be downloaded at http://gallery.live.com in a few days. I'll post the URL here when that happens.

Update: here's the gadget's download page