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SonOfSylvanus
Fro Productions(tm)
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: London Town
 
2005-01-09, 15:43

A few days ago I downloaded Quicksilver. I could be hyperbolic here, but instead I'm just going to say that it's very, very good and suggest that you download it and try it... Nach, I can't help it- IT'S FRICKING AWESOME OMG!!1! GET IT NOW OR YOU WILL EXPLODE, EXPLODE, EXPLOOOOODE I TELL YOU!!11 OMG11!!





Quicksilver is an application launcher that can be used in unison with the Dock or can be used in place of it if you wish. More than this, however, Quicksilver can be used to access webpages, send email, define words, do sums, search folders, play songs in iTunes, put the computer to sleep, fast user switch and many other things. If I understand correctly, it does this by creating an index of the important folders on your drive (you can specify these in Preferences) and working from there.

All this is achieved by typing in what you want, or an abbreviation of what you want, in an input field. For example, I can send an e-mail to my best friend Dave even if I don't remember his e-mail address and if I don't have Address book or Mail open by doing the following. Type:

"adcon [right arrow]" (to show Address Book Contacts)
"da [right arrow]" (to show entries for Dave)
"hoem [right arrow]" (for Dave's Home Email address)
"[tab]" (to perform an action with Dave's Home Email address)
"em [return]" (to Email Dave at his Home address)

This whole process might take around 5 seconds. It's so quick when you get used to it, and there is no need to make the abbreviations the same each time. In this example I have avoided opening the Address Book Application, as well as several mouse clicks and movements. Wowee I hear you cry, but try it, its just MUCH faster. I shunned all third-party application launchers (er... why don't you just click the frickin' icon???!) until I tried one. Now I think they're awesome. (Can you tell?)



Now I only use the dock to store folders and minimised window—the left-hand-side only holds open apps since I can access all apps more quickly using Quicksilver.

But putting aside my fanboyism, what I am most excited about is what Tiger's Spotlight technology will herald...

> Will spotlight make or break apps like Quicksilver, LaunchBar and Butler that rely on indexing and meta-data, or will it provide a magnificently responsive and comprehensive live indexing system (this is where Quicksilver falls down) that could give users access to every function of their computer with a few well chosen keyboard inputs? Is Spotlight even a technology that third-party developers can build on, or is it closed and protected by Apple? Will Spotlight offer the features that Quicksilver now does, or would you not want it to?

>As a final throwing-it-out-there-in-the-hope-of-some-intelligent-discussion-this-close-to-MWSF thing (breathe), do you think we are moving full circle as regards human-computer interface—from text input to GUI and back to text input? Although successive versions of Mac OSX as well as Windows have added more and more eye candy, isn't the current focus (by Apple, MS, Google and others) on web/desktop searching leading to a greater dependence on words and descriptions rather than spatial orientation within the whole desktop metaphor?


bouncy bouncy

Last edited by SonOfSylvanus : 2005-01-09 at 15:49.
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MCQ
Veteran Member
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: NY
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2005-01-09, 16:37

Quote:
Originally Posted by SonOfSylvanus
> Will spotlight make or break apps like Quicksilver, LaunchBar and Butler that rely on indexing and meta-data, or will it provide a magnificently responsive and comprehensive live indexing system (this is where Quicksilver falls down) that could give users access to every function of their computer with a few well chosen keyboard inputs? Is Spotlight even a technology that third-party developers can build on, or is it closed and protected by Apple? Will Spotlight offer the features that Quicksilver now does, or would you not want it to?
You should've just tried one instead of missing out on it.

Spotlight will not break the apps in question. I believe they can take advantage of the Spotlight metadata store if they choose to via queries that Apple has provided APIs for.

With Spotlight, developers can define importers for the metadata in their specific files, and Spotlight will index files created in that app for those attributes. This is something that the current launch apps are unable to (at least not to my knowledge).

Spotlight and launch apps are complementary IMO - The launch apps do certain things very well, while Spotlight will do other things very well. Typically, I'd use Spotlight in a workflow where I needed to see a group of results for a specific category (i.e. e-mails, documents, contacts) and sort it on a criteria (via the show all results window). It also has other uses, i.e. smart folders.

Launch apps are great at starting out with a group of files (either from a search or file group), and then refine by traversing down hierarchies to get to a specific file.
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madmaxmedia
Member
 
Join Date: Oct 2004
 
2005-01-10, 17:42

1. Quicksilver is really awesome, and I don't even use all its features. I primarily use it as a launcher. It's faster for me to launch apps with Quicksilver than even applications in the Dock.

2. There are 2 parts to Spotlight for 3rd-party apps, and I think the news is good for both. First, there is an API so that developers can make their program's data 'Spotlightable'. Second, there is an API so that developers can incorporate Spotlight functions into their own programs.
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SonOfSylvanus
Fro Productions(tm)
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: London Town
 
2005-01-10, 19:35

Quote:
Originally Posted by madmaxmedia
2. There are 2 parts to Spotlight for 3rd-party apps, and I think the news is good for both. First, there is an API so that developers can make their program's data 'Spotlightable'. Second, there is an API so that developers can incorporate Spotlight functions into their own programs.
Great, that's exactly what I wanted to hear! Thanks for putting it in simple terms, I don't understand developer speak.
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Moogs
Hates the Infotainment
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: NSA Archives
 
2005-01-10, 22:22

Quicksilver is just a different take on LaunchBar, which is also pretty neat. Either way, I don't believe that on average, typing in a few letters and clicking return is a faster way to launch applications that is using a nicely stowed dock from DragThing. DragThing rules.

...into the light of a dark black night.
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torifile
Less than Stellar Member
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Durham, NC
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2005-01-10, 23:07

Quote:
Originally Posted by Moogs
Quicksilver is just a different take on LaunchBar, which is also pretty neat. Either way, I don't believe that on average, typing in a few letters and clicking return is a faster way to launch applications that is using a nicely stowed dock from DragThing. DragThing rules.
But Dragthing is a pain in the ass to configure and is butt ugly. I've tried DT many times and could never get something I was happy with.
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Moogs
Hates the Infotainment
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: NSA Archives
 
2005-01-11, 00:27

Butt ugly?? You can make the thing look any way you want, quite literally. There are hundreds of combinations of color, texture and bevel type you can apply, including custom colors and textures. It's only as ugly as you make it.

I will grant you the initial configuration is a little complex, but then so is Photoshop and everyone loves that tool. Once you tinker around with the different styles of Dock and switching methods, most people really like it. But you're right in the sense that it's not a 10 second setup type deal. You have to actually put some thought into how you want things arranged on your screen. Not a bad thing ™*IMHO.

...into the light of a dark black night.
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