Mac, where have you been all my life? (1 Viewer)

[McPaul]

Quicksilver:
the cmd-space brings up spotlight, not Quicksilver.
the append text doesn't seem to work.

 

[Christ Reynolds]

Well, I won't claim to have any unique uses for it, but I'll talk about how I do use it.

I used to have about 20 items in the dock, and Quicksilver has eliminated the need for that many. I just have the items i use VERY frequently, Firefox and Thunderbird. When looking for an application, I used to click the finder button on the dock, click applications, then scroll down the (long) list for the desired app. Now, I hit ctrl-space and start typing, and after the first 2 or 3 letters, I hit return, and the app is launched.

I also use it to browse my hard disks. Instead of bringing up a finder window and clicking on "Fry" or "Professor" (my two hard disks), I ctrl-space, type pr and hit the right arrow, and I navigate through my 500GB drive with ease. I usually find what I was looking for faster than it would have taken just to navigate to the drive the old way.

Same with loading a specific webpage. Old way was to load Firefox, click on forums tab in bookmarks, click on HTF. New way...ctrl-space, type htf, hit enter. Saves me from ever having to see my startup page, unless I want to.

Same thing with email contacts. Old way was to load Thunderbird, click write, locate contact, load from the address book. New way is to start typing the name of the contact, and select compose mail.

The huge benefit of Quicksilver is that it knows about ALL of your data. It knows the name of every application, every video and MP3, every image, every bookmark, and every contact on your machine. Even better, it learns YOUR favorites, and quickly.

CJ

 

[McPaul]

yeah, I was referring to the guys on MacBreak, and changed the hotkey to cmd-space as well, but spotlight kept coming up. Any idea how to change the hotkey for spotlight?

I've just removed a bunch of things from my dock as well. It doesn't need to be so cluttered.

How did you get the HTF example to work? I'd love to go here by typing htf or new york times by nyt or red flag deals by rfd... but it didn't work, this site wasn't in the list when I typed 'htf'.

I've also been reading 43folders.com which I never visited before, despite seeing Merlin Mann on MacBreak for the last year or so. Very useful site. I'm going to pick up that Getting Things Done book, but his archives give links to so many other useful things. I've just played around with his smart mailboxes that collect mail from smart groups in my address book too... I'm having way too much fun!

 

[Christ Reynolds]

The HTF example works for me because my bookmark for this place is entitled HTF. Start typing the name of your bookmark, and it will show up. You could always rename your bookmark and rescan.

Did you have a need to switch the Quicksilver hotkey combination, or did you just want to? To switch the spotlight preferences, start typing 'spotlight' in Quicksilver, and the spotlight preferences pane should be the first entry.

CJ