A beginner's guide to Quicksilverby Adam Pash. Click to view. Quicksilver is bar- none the best productivity application on the market today.
Whether we're talking Mac, Windows, or Linux, freeware or shareware, this Mac- only, freeware application launcher- and- then- some is the best productivity booster I have on my computer. Quicksilver can be used to launch files and applications, manipulate data, and seamlessly plug into almost any application on your Mac so that you can perform actions as soon as you think of them in a few short keystrokes. The only problem with Quicksilver is that a lot of people also find it to be one of the most obtuse desktop applications around. In this first part of our Quicksilver series, I'm going to introduce you to the basics of Quicksilver to lay the groundwork for more advanced Quicksilver kung fu to come. The beginnings. First things first: If you haven't already got it installed, head over to the Quicksilver web site and grab the latest version. The first time you run Quicksilver, you'll have to go through an installation process that gives you an overview of Quicksilver, suggests a few plug- ins, and lets you define the Quicksilver keyboard shortcut and catalog scan frequency.
If you don't know what any of this means, don't worry - we'll get there shortly. Quicksilver recommends popular plug- ins along with plug- ins matching up with items Quicksilver has scanned in your Applications folder, so it only recommends plug- ins you might potentially use.
This turns Google Desktop into a fantastic program launcher. Anyone who gets QuickSilver done right on Windows. Colibri is a pretty decent start at a QuickSilver for Windows. Download Quicksilver for Windows Mac OS X direct from Softonic secure servers Free Download Safe download. Your program is now downloading. If the download doesn't start automatically, click here. Liked 6295 (23%) of 27154. Popular Alternatives to Quicksilver for Windows, Mac, Linux, iPhone, Android and more. Explore 54 apps like Quicksilver, all suggested and ranked by the AlternativeTo user community.
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At this point, you can install whatever plug- ins you want; you can always grab more later. On the keyboard shortcut front, Quicksilver defaults to Ctrl- Space.
I prefer Cmd- Space, but it's taken by Spotlight by default. I'd recommend changing Spotlight's shortcut in the Spotlight preferences and assigning Cmd- Space to Quicksilver (this is personal preference, but once you get good with Quicksilver, the more convenient Cmd- Space shortcut will be worth it). When you finish the setup wizard, you'll see the Quicksilver primer interface in the screenshot above (you can change interfaces in the Appearance section of the Quicksilver preferences - I prefer Bezel, which you'll see in the rest of the screenshots). You can invoke Quicksilver at any time, no matter what application you're using, by pressing the hotkey combination you've set up (again, Ctrl- Space by default).
Quicksilver programming. Authors: Bryan Cooper: Monique Verrier: Published in: . Adobe Reader QuickTime Windows Media Player Real Player. Did you know the ACM DL App is now available? Quicksilver Software, Inc. Quicksilver also ported other titles for Activision, such as the Windows 3.1 and Mac OS versions of Zork. QuickSilver provides this magic through a kind of. It's a genuine modern windows 2000/xp/vista/win7/win8/win10 program with built in TLS/SSL and many other. This is a companion program to QuickSilver Lite. 10 Windows Alternatives to Quicksilver. Launching programs from a few keyboard shortcuts is fantastic fun, but completely replicating Quicksilver on a Windows machine is another thing. Slickrun; SmartStartMenu; slimKEYS. Mastering Quicksilver: The Basics Pierre Wizla on October 14th 2013. Quicksilver — a program that finally came out of its 10-year long beta period a few.
To get rid of the Quicksilver interface, either press the invoke combination again or press escape. So there you have it. Quicksilver is installed, and you understand how to invoke it. Now what? Launching applications, files, and folders. Launching apps with Quicksilver works the same as any other keyboard app launcher.
Invoke Quicksilver and then begin typing the name of the program you want to launch. It's cataloged your Applications folder so that it knows what's in there, so it quickly finds a match for what you're typing. In fact, Quicksilver is so smart that you don't even have to type all of the letters.
You just as easily get a match for Firefox by typing 'ffox'. The point is, Quicksilver is smart; it even learns what you launch most often and begins ranking popular items higher in your results. The worst default Quicksilver setting for beginners is the . If you're new to Quicksilver, I'd recommend turning this off before you go any further. When you match the app you want to launch, you'll see that the default action for applications (in the second pane) is Open. That means to launch an app, invoke Quicksilver, search until you find the app, then hit Enter.
You can launch files and folders in the same way, provided you know how to find them or they're already in your Quicksilver catalog (more on this next week). So what makes Quicksilver any different from other app launchers? Advancing. The point at which you begin to use Quicksilver for more than just application launching is very similar to the step between traditional application launching (mousing around, finding the app, double- clicking it) and using a keyboard app launcher.
You'll begin to wonder why and how you ever worked any other way. More advanced Quicksilver use can be confusing for beginners. However, once you get the idea, it turns out to be a very intuitive way to work with your computer. Quicksilver consists of a three- paned interface (the third of which only shows up when it can be used). You move from one pane to the next by using the Tab key. A lot of people (myself included) find it helpful to think of using Quicksilver's three panes like they're constructing a sentence.
The first pane, the pane you type into to search for an application or other object (whether it's a file, folder, bookmark, etc.), is going to be the direct object of the action contained in the second pane. For example, when we launch Firefox, we've constructed a short sentence saying, . This object- action relationship is what makes Quicksilver so powerful, especially when coupled with the third pane. For actions ending in ellipses, you get to use the delightful third pane. The third pane describes with, to what, or how you want to apply the action.
So in the screenshot above, the sentence I've constructed has told Quicksilver to Open todo. Text. Mate. By default, Quicksilver has lots of useful commands. To get an idea of the commands you can perform on an object, try invoking Quicksilver, searching for an object (like an application, a file, or a folder), then hit Tab to jump over to the action pane. At this point, hit the down arrow. You'll see a drop- down list of all of the actions you can perform on this object.
Feel free to try out a few that look like they might be handy. You can also browse your entire list of commands by going to the Actions section of the preferences, where all of your actions are listed in the ranked order they're going to show up when they match your text. Spend a little time looking around at the available actions and you'll quickly see just how much useful stuff there is under the hood. Plug- ins. You can add more commands and functionality to Quicksilver by installing more plug- ins (sort of like Firefox extensions).
Some plug- ins tie into applications on your Mac, while others add powerful functionality to Quicksilver without the need of any external program. All of Quicksilver's plug- ins are installed through the Quicksilver interface, so just invoke Quicksilver and type the plug- ins shortcut (Cmd- . Quicksilver will automatically look up the word and pull the definition to a small window. File Compression: Compress files and folders into a number of different archive formats from Quicksilver. Firefox/Mozilla: Indexes all of your Firefox bookmarks and bookmarklets so you can invoke them no matter where you are. Image Manipulation Actions: Scale and change the file format of almost any image file on the fly from Quicksilver.
Tunes: This one's a doozy - lets you fully interact with your i. Tunes library without ever opening it up. Text Manipulation Actions: We've covered this one before, but it never gets old. Append (or prepend) text directly to a text file from the comfort of Quicksilver. More to come. This has been a quick overview of Quicksilver, but stay tuned for a lot more showing and a lot less telling next week, when I'll dive into some of my favorite uses for Quicksilver in a bit more detail. Adam Pash is a senior editor for Lifehacker who feels crippled without his Quicksilver.
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Windows Alternatives to Quicksilver. Reading about the great productivity wonders that can be achieved through Mac’s Quicksilver app makes many Windows users jealous, myself included.
Scott Hanselman does the good thing and rounds up ten Windows alternatives that can get similar jobs done. Launching programs from a few keyboard shortcuts is fantastic fun, but completely replicating Quicksilver on a Windows machine is another thing. Slickrun. Smart. Start. Menuslim. KEYSColibri – The closest thing so far, IMHO, to Quicksilver on Windows, although this little gem has a slow startup time, it runs fast! It’s being actively developed and promises integration with a dozen third party programs. Launchy. App. Rocket.
Active. Words. Dave’s Quick Search Bar. Google Desktop. Find and Run Robot. We’ll be running some more detailed implication of these programs here at Lifehack in the future. Which do you guys recommend? Replacing Start Run – The Quest Continues –.