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There are many applications that make your BlackBerry and even better productivity tool. Last week we examined StudentDocket, an application that provides organizational tools superior to those natively on the BlackBerry. While StudentDocket can streamline your professional and personal lives, it doesn’t streamline your BlackBerry itself. This week we’re going to look at an application that does. It’s called QuickLaunch, and the name couldn’t be any more appropriate. It will make navigating your BlackBerry that much easier.

Overview

When I first saw QuickLaunch, I immediately thought of my new favorite Mac application, Quicksilver. The ideas behind both are the same. Instead of drilling down through menu after menu to launch an application, or launching your web browser and looking around for a site, these applications allow you to open these with minimal keystrokes.

QuickLaunch allows you to open more than just applications and web pages. You can quickly call, email, text, or BBM your most common contacts. If you’re a multimedia person, you can add QuickLaunch to audio and video files, allowing for quick and easy access. That’s the entire idea behind QuickLaunch: cutting out unnecessary steps so you can get on with what’s important.

Adding to the QuickLaunch library

The more applications, websites, contacts, and media files you add to your QuickLaunch library, the easier it will be to use your BlackBerry. It means that everything that’s important to you is just a keystroke or two away.

When you first run QuickLaunch, you’ll get the screenshot you see to your right. This is where you add to your library. To get started, let’s look at adding an application. On this screen, you’ll click the trackball on Application. That brings you to a screen where you can choose from any application on your BlackBerry. That will add it to the QuickLaunch menu, which we’ll examine in a moment. You also have the option of adding a shortcut key. That will allow you to access the application from the QuickLaunch menu, so you don’t have to scroll to the item.

Adding a website works in the same way. Click on Website, and you’ll get a screen with a few fields. First is Menu Display Text, which is for the website’s title. Then you enter in the URL, with the option of assigning a shortcut key. The only qualm I have with the website section is that you cannot add a bookmark directly from your browser. That would be a great addition.

The process works the same way for phone calls, email, SMS, and PIN messages. Click into the appropriate menu item, and then you can select the contact from your address book. Finally, for media files, you can choose from your device memory or from an SD card. All of these items will be added to your QuickLaunch meny for easy access.

Navigating the QuickLaunch menu

Once you have added applications, web pages, contacts, and media to your QuickLaunch, it’s time to start using the application. After you exit QuickLaunch for the first time, you’ll see the menu in the upper right hand corner of your screen. You can back out of this menu at any time by hitting the Escape key. To relaunch the QuickLaunch menu, just click on the application.

Tip: Set QuickLaunch to one of your convenience keys. Check out our quick tip on how to set your BlackBerry convenience key.

To access anything on the menu, either scroll to it and press the trackball, or otherwise press the shortcut key you assigned to it. That’s all there is to it, really. It’s why QuickLaunch is such a perfect application for your BlackBerry. Once you have it up and running, accessing everything on your BlackBerry is simple. You might never need to access the Applications Menu again.

Everything with QuickLaunch can be accessed by the menu. This includes adding new items or editing the highlighted item. To add a new item, click the Menu button with the QuickLaunch menu open, and select Add Item. You’ll then see the main screen, where you can repeat the process from the above section. If you want to edit the highlighted item, click Menu and select Edit item. A dialog box will pop up in the middle of the screen, allowing you to edit the display text and the shortcut key.

You can delete any QuickLaunch item by selecting it in the QuickLaunch menu, clicking the Menu key, and selecting Delete Item.

Creating submenus and separators

For greater organization capabilities, you can add submenus and separators to the QuickLaunch menu. As you can see in the corresponding screen shot, I’ve created a submenu for IMing applications, and then have created a separator below the BB Messenger item. The process is pretty easy.

In the QuickLaunch menu, click the Menu button. To create a separator below the highlighted item, select Add Separator. To create a submenu, hit menu (while selecting any item) and click on Add Submenu. You can add items to a submenu by highlighting it in the QuickLaunch menu, clicking the Menu button, and selecting Move to Submenu.

QuickLaunch options

QuickLaunch allows a few customization options to allow you the best possible experience. These options include the color and font, as well as the menu’s location (either on the right or left side of the screen). You can also instruct QuickLaunch to add the date and time to the menu — it will even add the current temperature if you want it to.

Once you’re in the QuickLaunch menu, you can set your convenience keys to perform different tasks. Well, okay, not really. You can set the convenience key to close the application, but that’s about it. I’d really like to see this expanded in a future release. If the application already overrides the convenience key, why not allow users to access other apps through it? It would essentially create two sets of convenience keys: two for when you’re outside of QuickLaunch, and two when you are inside.

There are a few other small options, but one that I truly appreciate is the option to hide the menu during screen capture. QuickLaunch comes with its own screen capture feature. The problem with using it is that when you see the item in the QuickLaunch menu, well, the menu is up on the screen. You can check a box at the bottom of the options page which will allow you to take a screen shot without the menu present. I unchecked the box when doing this write-up, but turned it right on afterward.

Demo video

Everyone loves a good web video, so here’s one demoing QuickLaunch.

Get QuickLaunch

If you’re looking to spend as little time as possible navigating your BlackBerry, I suggest giving QuickLaunch a try. I recommend it especially for Mac people who use Quicksilver. It’s the same concept, and it can save you time from pointlessly scrolling through various menus.

You can get QuickLaunch for just $4.99. It is compatible with almost all BlackBerry models, OS versions 4.5 and above. This includes OS 5.0 on the BlackBerry Storm.

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