Jumping Ship

Well, now that I’m finally settled in my new apartment, 5mb cable humming along, it’s time I got back to posting. As promised, today I intend to talk about an app for mac that has changed the way I interact with all of my apps. Of all of the apps that I have looked at both prior to and following my acquisition of my new mac, I can safely say that Quicksilver was the most talked about. At first blush, Quicksilver appears to be nothing more than a glorified app launcher; but if that’s all you wind up using it for, you either: A) don’t really need it, or B) haven’t truly taken the time to understand the genius behind it. I spent one week off and on reading the documentation and watching a brief video tutorial, and I am convinced it’s one of the coolest apps I’ve ever seen as far as “productivity apps” are concerned.

Quicksilver is called up using a simple keyboard hotkey (the default is Ctrl+Space, but I have changed it to Cmd+Space due to how often I use it). From there, you are given a simple box in which you begin to type what you want to do. The behavior of the program is very similar to Spotlight, in that as soon as you start typing, it will anticipate what you want to do. This can be anything from opening other applications and folders, to running scripts. But the real beauty of the program lies in its adaptability; as you use it, you can tell it what actions you use most, and it will tailor itself to those frequently executed actions. All of this while remaining completely invisible, until it is called upon.

Since I started using Quicksilver, I have since started using it as frequently as I use Finder, moving files and folders 6 or 7 branches deep from the home directory by just using keystrokes, and without opening any additional windows. It’s also become an invaluable companion in iTunes, allowing me to easily move to the next track, or even assign tracks to playlists and apply ratings, all without ever bringing iTunes out of a minimized state. My current project with Quicksilver, which is taking some time due to Thunderbird inconsistencies, is to type a brief text message, an email address, and then to send said message, only using Thunderbird briefly for the send prompt. This, and other frequently repeated actions, can be perfected with just a little practice. For those of you on windows who want to see what this experience is like, I suggest you try Launchy.

Well, that’s all for now; if you give Quicksilver a try after reading this, I would be interested in hearing your first impressions of it, and how you use it. Remember, less is more!