STabLauncher is a lightweight and attractive dock which makes it easier to launch your favourite apps, web pages, documents and more.
The program is extremely unobtrusive, so on first launch you may wonder exactly where it is. Take a look at the top of your screen, though, and you'll see two tabs: "Internet" and "App". Hover your mouse over either of these and you'll see each tab contains a couple of sample icons (IE, Explorer, Notepad and Windows Calc), and clicking any of these will launch the relevant program.
Basic sTabLauncher configuration is just as easy. You can add items to either tab just by dragging and dropping them from Explorer, for instance. Right-clicking a tab reveals options to add new items, or separators. And you can drag icons around to organise them in any way you like.
Of course you'll probably want more than the original "Internet" and "App" tabs, but the right-click > Options > Tabs dialog allows you to add just as many as you might need.
And while all of this looks great to us (nice gradient colour scheme, Mac-style bouncing icons), the program is highly configurable, so if you don't like something then there's a good chance it can be changed.
Yet for all of this, sTabLauncher remains extremely undemanding, with the core process using less than 3MB RAM on our test PC.
We did find some issues. The Options dialog allows you to add a Music folder, for instance, with what looks like a built-in music player... But, unfortunately, none of its options worked for us.
And troubleshooting this kind of problem, or trying to understand the program's more advanced features, isn't helped by the total lack of any documentation.
Still, sTabLauncher worked just fine with our own tab configurations - even on Windows 8 - so if you're looking for a new launcher then it might be worth a try.
Verdict:
Lightweight and very configurable, sTabLauncher is a simple and stylish way to organise your applications
Your Comments & Opinion
A smart OS X productivity boost
Quickly access and switch between your applications with this attractive free dock
A desktop launcher, search and productivity tool
A simple keyboard-oriented program launcher
Launch and browse a folder from an icon on your taskbar
Keep your desktop free from clutter with this file docking tool
An alternative launcher for OS X with a raft of extras
Keep an eye on the health of all of your hard drives with this free tool
A useful hard drive benchmark
An advanced free tool for renaming large numbers of files in a flash
Preserve your desktop icon layout with this handy backup tool
Preserve your desktop icon layout with this handy backup tool