Why has Keyboard Launcher Been Abandoned?
With a few very small tweaks, it would be the most useful and powerful app in the whole store
Stardock Forums
So what are the few tweaks? Actually, there's only one of them, make every key on the keyboard (including the function keys) totally programmable.
The main thing that has killed Keyboard Launcher, that has rendered it "legacy," is the simple fact that the only modifier allowed is the Windows key and that is already globally used as a hot key in conjunction with many other keys.
OK, the best way to explain this is with an example. Take a look at Comfort Software's Comfort Keys and see how they have integrated their standalone Clipboard Pro app with their Comfort Keyboard app. You can do virtually anything with any key by using the Windows key, Ctrl, Alt, Shift, Enter (I think) singly or in any combination as modifiers. Practically, this means every alpha numeric or function key on the keyboard can be assigned two, three, eight, whatever functions.
Sure, there is such a thing as too much. Do I want to assign four or five or six functions to a key? Would I remember them all? No. Of course not. But the flexibility means I am not stymied from assigning one or two functions (mostly text fragments in my case) to a given key because the OS or an app has already programmed a Windows Key + function to it.
To be sure, Comfort is using a virtual keyboard in their iteration of this, but so what ... the programming can't be that different.
Also, just guessing, but I think the Stardock developers might be guilty of writing Keyboard Launcher off because, unlike a million years ago when it was written, not that many people want to launch Winamp or Gmail or anything else from their keyboards anymore ... there are to many other ways to do all that in a mouse and touch-driven society. So Keyboard Launcher is partially doomed by its name.
But if you think of it as a keyboard-driven multi-clipboard you come up with a whole different product ... why go to a standalone clipboard or cut and paste one of your 50 or so most used and abused phrases, urls, passwords etc when you can seamless drop it into place while you're writing by simply hitting, say, Ctrl-Alt E to paste your email address.