LoveQuicksilver - Quicksilver Blog

Quick Project

This tutorial will show you a simple way to make and use a great project manager - containing text snippets, files, folders, URLs and email addresses - using nothing more than Quicksilver and a text file.



Change these…



…into this


The task

On May 21st, a solar eclipse will be visible across parts of Asia and America, so I’ve decided to write an article on the subject. I’ve got a lot of ideas for the article in mind. It’ll contain images, and data culled from websites. I’ll edit it on my work Mac as well. A Mac-owning colleague from work might need to make changes, and I’ll need to email a draft to a friend for a read-through. I want a project manager to tie all the different pieces of information together.

The contenders

There are some excellent apps for collating and sharing different types of data, and for finding or creating text. Evernote can handle large sets of data, sortable in many different ways. Notational Velocity (NV) is great app for quickly finding or creating text snippets.

The problem

A drawback of these apps is the user needs to go into them to retrieve the data for use elsewhere. What if text could be searched for, or created, in much the same way as in NV, but with the ability to add files too? What if project files and text could be accessed from within any application, and used immediately in the way that’s needed? And all this from any Dropbox-enabled Mac, without the need to catalog all the various files?

The solution

I propose a powerful new combination: plain text files, Dropbox, and Quicksilver.

This video tutorial is a full course, so here’s the menu:

  • Creating and editing a plain text file - 0:23
  • Adding a file to Quicksilver’s catalog, and making a trigger - 4:39
  • Adding graphic images (no, not that kind) - 6:13
  • Searching and creating text snippets - 8:01
  • Adding URLs and email addresses - 10:10
  • Creating a document, and changing file paths in the text file - 11:43
  • Emailing a file from Quicksilver - 14:21
  • Making the project available on another Mac - 15:10

BREAKING: Improvements are coming to the Text Manipulation Actions plugin. No more ‘(UNSTABLE)’ for the delete action, text lines to be changed appear in pane 3, and files can be appended as text lines without getting the path first! Coming soon…



If I skipped too lightly over any particular item, feel free to ask a question in the comments.


@LoveQuicksilver

Comments

Quicksilver is what makes Mac OS X fun

Guys I just donated and the reason I bring is not blow my own horn, but I wanted to share why I did it, I’m sure a lot of people will agree 

- QuickSilver is such a fine piece of software, that I’m surprised Apple hasn’t purchased it and made it part of MacOS. 

- The quality of the software deserves a donation. It’s better than other pieces of software I’ve paid for in the past. 

- Once you become proficient using QS, you notice how much time it saves you. So it’s on your best interest to keep the project well founded so you keep enjoying the benefits. 

- Everybody has opinions and ways of seeing things. Even though QS is designed in a way that you, the user, can extend it. Donating gives you a sense of belonging to the project and (not that you can’t do this without helping, also donating doesn’t need to be money only) you can feel free to request features. 

Last, thank you for passionately keeping at this.

Comments

Quicksilver Gets Things Done

Better handling of old plugins, lots of new keyboard shortcuts, and improvements to the Shelf and Clipboard

The developers now have a far greater understanding of Quicksilver’s code, enabling them to incorporate new features and fixes at a far faster rate. Time to quantify their output.

Catalog

  • CHANGE: Improvements to the include/exclude options for files and folders in the catalog #865
    Typing ‘.jpg’ will resolve to ‘JPEG image’. Clearer, and more obvious that QS has recognised the file type to be excluded.


The string typed into the drawer text field above resolves to the label below:



    • NEW: Display the search modes Filter Catalog, Filter Results and Snap to Best in the results window #413, #786

    • NEW: Allow the search mode to be changed using ⌘→ and ⌘← toggle through all 3 states #67, #786
      More info on how sorting and search filters work can be found in QS’s manual (p13) and on this blog.



    • FIX: Reliably update the catalog entry item ‘count’ icon in Catalog preferences following rescans #817

    Preferences

    • CHANGE: Widen search bars in preference views and improve layout #785

    • FIX: Allow all preferences to be dismissed with ⎋ #718, #785

    • NEW: Add keyboard shortcuts to preferences buttons ⌘+, ⌘R, ⌘I for add, refresh and info #527, #785
      Mousing to the bottom of the preferences window is now only an occasional chore, and all panes can be closed with the escape key. Here’s hoping for future keyboard shortcuts for search and a plugin’s help window.

    • FIX: Exception when loading various icons in the preferences. DeMinimizer triggers now show correctly #687, #817


      Plugins

      • NEW: Better management of plugins. Automatic replacement and removal of obsolete plugins #764
        Not only the QS app, but also new plugins can police the viability of plugins already installed, leaving less opportunity for outdated plugins to crash Quicksilver.

      • CHANGE: Call attention to plugins that do not load correctly #862

      Clipboard and Shelf

      • FIX: Docking windows Clipboard/Shelf correctly retain their state between launches #811, #824

      • CHANGE: Floating Clipboard and Shelf panes stay open until explicitly closed #824
        For the first time in a long time, the Clipboard and Shelf panes behave in a consistent way. Docked panes (that slide in and out of the display’s edge) slide out when moused over, and disappear after use. Floating panes disappear after use when ‘Hide after pasting’ is checked in Preferences>Clipboard. Panes that are visible remain visible until used or explicitly dismissed - even across relaunches.


      Stays visible until used

        Right-arrowing

        • FIX: Reliably show the most up to date recent documents when right arrowing into applications #392, #819

        • FIX: Show that → or / will work on URLs #859

        • FIX: Show that → or / will work on applications with recent documents #859

        • FIX: Do not make it appear that → or / will work on text #859
          The chevrons in the results window correctly show which objects can be arrowed into.

          Interface

          • FIX: Do not allow the creation of empty text objects e.g. when dismissing text mode with an empty editor #855

          • FIX: Do not allow focus to be lost from the 1st pane unless it contains an object #855

          • FIX: Update the list of actions when switching to text mode #277

          • FIX: Allow actions to return multiple results and change the results after the fact #804

          • FIX: Don’t require 3rd pane input if the action has it as optional #750, #806

          The rest

          • NEW: Much improved crash reporter. No longer displays on false positives and allows sending of information and crash reports to Quicksilver Developers #848
            Restarting a Mac should no longer result in a ‘Quicksilver crashed’ dialog. If QS does crash for some reason, it’s a matter of a couple of clicks to send a crash report.



          • NEW: Tools for doing Spotlight searches internally #778
            This is a work in progress. Spotlight search results for a file, folder or text string can be returned to pane 1 using the ‘Spotlight in Command’, ‘Spotlight Contents…’ or ‘Spotlight Filenames of Contents…’ actions. However, results can only be seen by using ↓↑ on the ‘Searching’ icon that appears in the first pane, and then only one at a time. Useful for very specific searches.



          • CHANGE: Reinstate the ‘load previews’ preference as a hidden preference #843
            If movie or image file previews are slowing QS down, type this command into Terminal:
            defaults write com.blacktree.quicksilver "QSLoadImagePreviews" NO

          • CHANGE: Move QuickTime specific features to a new QuickTime plugin to be released soon #819

          • CHANGE: Load web search icons asynchronously. Removes lag when getting website favicons #637, #805

          • CHANGE: Allow Quicksilver to load multiple file and web search icons at once #805

          • CHANGE: Add information for developers to the version number #829

          • FIX: Correctly set names of multiple items e.g. ‘6 Applications’ in /Applications’ #237, #793

          • FIX: Correctly get names of printers and other packages #475, #793

          • FIX: The ‘Create File’ action works and looks better #846, #847

          • FIX: Better handling of paths containing wildcards #814, #815

          • FIX: Various code optimisations and stability improvements #817, #834, #824, #870, #878, #880, #885

          • FIX: Typo in the setup routine #876

          • FIX: update the year in the About panel #881


          No mention here of the new Chrome, Networking and iTerm2 plugins. Coming soon: Quicksilver in 64-bit.


          @LoveQuicksilver

          Comments

          Unabashed Love…

          As the top Mac slapper in my social circles, I end up setting up/configuring many a new Mac. Quicksilver is one of the most important 3rd party apps that goes on these machines… can’t live without it.

          Thanks Sam!

          It’s users like yourself that keep us going. :)

          Comments

          Upload Screenshots to imgur

          Thought I would give back to the community.

          A few years ago, I had found the custom action for capturing screenshots http://metajack.wordpress.com/2007/03/29/faster-qa-with-screenshots/.

          In the same fashion, I made a custom action for capturing a screenshot and posting it to imgur, followed by a growl.

          Imgr.scpt is as follows (also has imgur.sh in the same paste which does the job of posting to imgur):

          http://pastebin.com/9yXhcPvh

          Thanks again for the wonderful QS and let me know if I can make improvements and/or answer questions (I’m a rookie QS and AppleScript programmer).

          Cheers,

          Haroon

          Thanks Haroon!

          Quicksilver can perform screenshots using the Screen Capture Actions plugin, but the screencapture command can be customized to a far greater degree (run man screencapture in Terminal to see its options).

          Here’s a screenshot variant that returns the file to QS:

          using terms from application "Quicksilver"
	on process text theString
		-- Change save_location to the directory you want to 
                -- store screenshots in.
                -- Make sure it ends with a '/' as below.
		set save_location to "/Users/phil/Desktop/"
		set theFile to (save_location & theString & ".png")
		set theFilename to quoted form of theFile
		set theCommand to "screencapture  -i " & theFilename
		do shell script theCommand
		set the selection to theFile
		return
	end process text
end using terms from

          @LoveQuicksilver

          Comments


          This search box is rubbish. Click this to search from Quicksilver instead.