It’s on the prowl

A new Lion-friendly version of QS boasting more than 40 additions, fixes and changes.

It’s been a relatively long time coming (4 months – a catching of breath compared to the semi-conscious release cycle of QS pre–ß59), but it’s here – an officially Lion–compatible version of Quicksilver. Patrick Robertson, the lead developer, is back from his 2-month-long jaunt and has hooked up with the other devs, which include Rob McBroom and Etienne Samson, to release ß61 – a Quicksilver ready for Mac’s new cat.

Users of ß60 need to make sure ‘Check for updates’ is ticked in Preferences>Application; otherwise download the latest version from here. Click on the github hash tags at the end of most of the listed items for more technical information. This list is in an entirely subjective order of newsworthy-ness…

Quicksilver is now 10.6+ (Snow Leopard and above) only.

Let’s get this out of the way first. Sorry, Leopard users! The developers can devote their energies to optimising QS for Lion and Snow Leopard without worrying about backwards compatibility. ß60 is still the version for you.

New Quicksilver icon – #383

Thanks to Dan Deming-Henes for this! OK, this isn’t the most important change, but who doesn’t want to see the new icon up top in all its glory?

Auto-plugins – #491

This is massive. It’s no longer necessary to go to QSApp.com’s Plugin page to get the latest plugins. It also means faulty plugins that cause QS to crash will not be available for installation. In fact, plugins will update themselves when QS is running and updates are available. This will greatly improve Quicksilver’s ease of use – a major sticking point for new users getting to grips with its power. More descriptions for plugins will be added over time. If anybody would like to help out with their writing, then get in touch!

Outdated plugins no more

Small interface changes for Lion compatibility – #411 #391

Allows QS to appear when applications are in fullscreen mode, and stops QS hiding away when ‘Hide’ is checked on ‘Start at login’ items in System Preferences’ Users & Groups.

Fixed the Trigger (null) bug where Objects were not saved to the Catalog – #27

At last! One of Quicksilver’s most infuriating bugs squashed. In fact, there’s a whole raft of fixes for Triggers waiting to go into the next Quicksilver release (coming soon).

Null is void

Closing the command window in the Preferences>Triggers pane no longer causes sporadic behaviour – #89

Stops QS bugging out when adding ‘Action only’ Triggers.

Airport Module rewrite for Mac OS X 10.6+ (Snow Leopard and above)

This module was one of the top reasons for QS crashing. Another huge bug swatted from Quicksilver’s hide.

Turned on

Current Selection and Finder Selection proxies now works with multiple files – #210

Great for Triggers that need to be used on many files – ‘Current Selection>Save Image in Format…>png’, for example.

Multiple Objects within Current Selection

Bezel Interface displays on all Spaces – #358 #387

Menu Interface fix for Mac OS X Lion – #436

Doesn’t crash Lion anymore.

Paste as Plain Text Action – #230

The old Terminal command standby pbpaste | pbcopy is no longer necessary. This Action creates a new plain text clip from the clipboard contents and pastes it into the current document. Install the Clipboard Module to have access to both the original and plain clips.

All we want is the text, ma’am

Added the ability for AppleScripts to use indirect (3rd pane) objects - #366

Create Applescript Actions that can handle text and files as inputs. Lots of scope for creating virtual plugins with only a little programming knowledge needed.

Renamed the ‘Paste with Clipboard’ Action to simply ‘Paste’ – #439

Brevity.

New Current Document Proxy Object in the UI Access plugin – #62

Make sure the document has been saved at least once. (Not a problem in Lion?)

Acting on an app’s current document

Quicksilver now stores RTF and HTML data for URLs – #439

Allows pasting of URLs as clickable links in Rich Text Editors.

Improved the stringValue method to return more reliable info – #424

One benefit of this is email addresses stored in Address Book no longer have a ‘mailto:’ prefix when pasting.

Improvements to the Calculator plugin. Now displays the results in real time

Type ‘=’ in text mode first, and then type an equation.

Real-time calculator results

Docking window fix to stop it sporadically appearing – #321

The Clipboard window reacts more consistently when using mouse-over.

Split view fixes – #349

Specifies a (non-zero) default size to avoid confusion (meaning it’s visible when activated). Check ‘Show children in result list’ in Preferences>Command.

What in all that’s good is BubbaMonkey Studios? Curse you Mac App Store

Further improvements to the Latest Download Proxy Object – #377 #443

More reliable, and it displays packages now.

Allow Quicksilver’s built-in browser to browse more .php URL types – #379

Symlinks are correctly displayed and resolved – #288 – #351

Use Vim bindings in the command interface (⌃h, ⌃j, ⌃k, ⌃l) – #368

Alternatives to the arrow navigation keys.

Small fix for the Constellation Interface – #239

The Constellation menus are fun to play with, but not recommended for daily use! (They’re still buggy.)

Radial menus

Various 1Password plugin fixes

Fixes and improvements to the TextStart Ranker (née TextMate Ranker) – #359 #376

Terminal plugin fixes: only opens 1 Terminal window, and improved Actions

New Microsoft Office plugin. Allows arrowing into Office apps for recent documents

The rest of the changes can be found here, and in the changelog.

A lot of Quicksilver users, past and present, didn’t believe that Quicksilver would survive the transition to Lion. Their feelings? Surprise. Relief. Joy. And the developers? After all the effort they’ve put in, they’re surely feeling at least one emotion – Pride.

@LoveQuicksilver

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