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After using Enso for a while, I noticed that it eventually could replace some of my favorite software tools:

• Firefox bookmark keywords / keyword searches
• Alt+F2 mini-shell command widget on Linux
• Launchy on Windows
• A text replacement tool like Texter

I really liked it because it ‘just works’, and has a lot of potential for extensions. In a way, it’s more of a platform that a tool. However, since platforms tend to get ignored if they have few users, I felt Enso could use some freeing up (of both price and source code) to get the ball rolling.

Seeing it just disable itself after the trial period was a real disappointment, also from a usability point of view.

Luckily, the Humanized team has been thinking in the same direction. From now on, Enso is free (the source code is still closed but this could change in the future).

What’s more, Humanized is joining forces with Mozilla. In terms of building a platform and reaching lots of users, this is a major announcement.

I was thinking about comparing Enso with KDE’s extensible krunner, Katapult or (the Quicksilver-like) Gnome Do, but this announcement indicates that Mozilla might be planning something even broader in scope. I’m looking forward to Firefox 4

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This entry was posted on Monday, January 21st, 2008 at 22:02 and is filed under English, Open source, Software, Usability. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site. Your comments will appear immediately, but I reserve the right to delete innapropriate comments.