Create a Services-based application launcher

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The services menu is available in every application, although the options within it are only available when copy or paste are active (depending on whether the service takes input, produces output, or both). Because this menu is nearly always accessible, it is possible to assign a shortcut to an item in it that will almost always be accessible. This method is not always available, but the upside is that there is not third party daemon always running in the background listening for keys.

In this example, the shortcut starts the screensaver, but it would be equally simple to start an application. To make this work, you’ll need the donationware application ThisService, which creates a service from any script.

Open the Produces output.scpt from the AppleScript starting points that come with ThisService. The ‘produces output’ means the application is available without having something selected to copy. Insert the d…