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Simon Willison’s Weblog

Quicksilver

I found out about Quicksilver via Ted Leung a couple of days ago, and it’s already become an indispensable part of my OS X desktop. On the surface, Quicksilver is very similar to LaunchBar which I’d tried and liked but not enough to justify the price tag. LaunchBar lets you launch any application on your system by hitting CMD+space and typing enough of the name to highlight the application you want. Quicksilver takes the same idea but expands it to cover address book entries, iTunes playlists, documents, bookmarks and more. It’s incredibly slick, highly configurable and doesn’t cost a penny.

It’s also being blogged to death at the moment, but it’s so good it really deserves the attention. See also Todd Dominey, Jon Hicks, Dan Dickinson’s useful tutorial and the cast of Technorati and Feedster.

Posted 26th March 2004 at 12:13 am

This is Quicksilver by Simon Willison, posted on 26th March 2004.

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7 comments

  1. Just for the record LaunchBar also searches your addressbook, documents, and bookmarks. Not sure about playlists (certainly finds MP3s), have to check when I get home.

    Which is not to discourage anyone from checking out QS.

    What they both need is a clear way to plug in new datasources.

    kellan - 26th March 2004 01:20 - #

  2. Launch Bar doesn't search iTunes playlists (I use MenuTunes instead) but it does search the developer documentation and arbitrary directory paths (e.g. I have remote connections for RDC and VNC indexed).

    Chris Adams - 26th March 2004 02:30 - #

  3. QuickSilver does index developer documentation, but it's not enabled by default. Check the box for Special -> Developer.

    And any data source can be added to Quicksilver, just drag it into the lower half of the window or use the buttons at the bottom.

    Dan Dickinson - 26th March 2004 02:36 - #

  4. Wow! Thanks for the link. - James

    James E. Robinson, III - 26th March 2004 12:54 - #

  5. it's pretty easy to add new datasources to QS - just pull up the catalog (in the application menu, or cmd-;) and hit the little "+" button. it adds a new source under the divider line after the default sources, then you pick the location and any other settings. don't think it could be simpler.

    paul - 29th March 2004 17:28 - #

  6. Has anyone here checked out Butler yet? Same idea; more stuff, less fluff. Also free.

    Nice.

    MSH - 2nd April 2004 21:43 - #

  7. Thanks for the Quicksilver tip, I switched from Launchbar and it's been great. I love the utility, though I agree with the idea about plug-in data sources.

    Jason Shao - 6th April 2004 17:36 - #

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