It’s here! My highlights of the changes in Quicksilver ß59:

Auto Update of Application using QSApp.com
(this is the last time you’ll ever have to go looking for a new release!)
Automatic updates. No-one will be waiting a year or more for the next version…

‘Open Url in Background action’. Also set as alternate action to ‘Open URL’ (hit ⌘⏎)
Great for opening links for later reading.

Speed improvements through the use of ‘fast enumeration’ in Leopard and Snow Leopard
Enumerates, er… fastly.

PPC build support removed
Sorry, Power users. ß54 still works great in Tiger, and is very usable in Leopard. A lot of the current changes are fixes for features that broke after that.

‘Latest Download’ proxy, corresponding to the latest file in the ~/Downloads folder
Pull this up in the first pane and the relevant file is automatically displayed. No need for a rescan of the catalog first. Rename it, move it, and open it before even leaving the browser.

Framework and source code tidy up
Important work that might encourage other devs to get stuck in.

Disabled items in catalog are now ignored
Make sure only the stuff you want shows up in QS.

AppleScript ‘Process Text’ fix*
This innocuous sounding fix happens to be one of my favourites. User Actions are custom scripts that act on text or files selected in QS. Infinitely versatile, but in ß58 only able to receive text from the first pane - a form of Command Quicksilver is unable to use as a Trigger.

‘Process Text’ allows the user to pull up the script in pane 1, have ‘Process Text’ in pane 2, and text entry in pane 3. A Trigger in this form will be very happy indeed. Example:
SuperTweet.scpt > Process Text > [text]
⇧⌃T > [text] > enter (from any app)
Boom.

*EDIT: This isn’t working for me! I’ll post again when it does :(

*EDIT EDIT: It’s working now, thanks to Rob McBroom. I had a ‘Core Support’ plugin in Quicksilver’s Plugins folder. It doesn’t live there - it’s supposed to stay inside the app bundle. Deleting it from Plugins solved the issue. More Triggers to come.

New menu bar icon
Looks just like the app icon!

Proxy Objects now work again as previously
This is massive. Proxy Objects are what Triggers were invented for. A selection:

Current Selection > Find With… > [search URL]
- instant search on selected text
Finder Selection > Move to… > [folder]
- cut and paste!
Current Web Page > Open With… > [browser]
- quickly try a URL in another browser
Quicksilver Selection > Put on Shelf
- save whatever’s in pane 1 to the Shelf
Mouse Trigger Dragged Object > Set Desktop Picture
- with the Mouse Triggers plugin checked, set the Desktop image by dragging a file to a screen corner
Quicksilver Selection > Move To… > Trash
- even quicker delete than before
Current Application > Show Menu Items
- search the app’s menubar items in Quicksilver; never have to remember where an obscure item is!
Current Application > Relaunch
- Safari, I’m looking at you

There are at least a couple of dozen more Proxy Objects out there (the number depends on the plugins installed). The possibilities are almost endless…

With all the great stuff that’s been going on in QS, there’ll surely be some new problems along the way. Using ninja kung-fu to get the ‘Quicksilver Selection > Move To… > Trash Trigger’ to stick, and the Current Selection proxy not grabbing text outside of a Trigger spring readily to mind.

But with the amount of talent, enthusiasm and hard work that continues to go on behind QSApp.com there’s surely a lot of life left in Quicksilver. Looking forward to ß60.

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My thanks to Alcor for creating an app that so many people continue to be enthused about. A lot of people have put even more time into keeping Quicksilver alive. Here are the acknowledgements from the changelog.

Developement from:

Patrick Robertson, Rob McBroom, Etienne Samson, Qiushi (Billy) He, Matt Beshara, Henning Jungkurth, Michael Guntsche, Paul Kohut, Yiwen Wu, Florian Heckl.

Also, special thanks to:

‘scotnery’ for the new Menu Bar icon.
Jeff Cox for his support for the development team.
Philip Dooher for setting up @LoveQuicksilver & lovequicksilver.com.
Patrick Robertson for initiating QSApp.com.
Rob McBroom for his Plugin Development documentation.
All contributors to the Wiki at http://qsapp.com/wiki.
GitHub for hosting the source and downloads.

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@LoveQuicksilver

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