Quicksilver — LoveQuicksilver Blog

Quick Project

Thu, 24 May 2012 07:37:00 +0900

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

Quicksilver is what makes Mac OS X fun

Sun, 20 May 2012 10:27:00 +0900

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.

Quicksilver Gets Things Done

Thu, 17 May 2012 05:39:00 +0900

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

Unabashed Love…

Wed, 18 Apr 2012 06:49:37 +0900

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. :)

Upload Screenshots to imgur

Wed, 18 Apr 2012 05:56:00 +0900

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

Quicksilver Makes Itself Clear

Tue, 17 Apr 2012 05:33:00 +0900

A large number of changes that include simpler preferences, object history browsing, and speed improvements

Anyone who is more than a casual user of Quicksilver is going to find themselves saying ‘Yeah!’ to a lot of these changes. Anyone who is not, might find themselves becoming more than a casual user.

Let’s get this straight.

NEW: Simplification of preferences and addition of section titles #788
Quicksilver’s preferences are confusing; very few people understand every option. ‘Alternate Services Menu Key’ anyone? In ß67 this has been removed, helpful section titles have been added (including a brief explanation of how the Actions list works), and options that catered for older Macs have been expunged. All explained in the clear tones of the Queen’s English. (Apart from ‘Catalog’, that is…)
NEW: Icons for preferences items #788
A new Plug-ins icon is still being discussed.

Before and after
Click here to see all the changes

NEW: Allow browsing of Quicksilver’s objects using ⌘[ and ⌘] #573
This is a great new feature for Quicksilver. Act on or dismiss any object in pane 1 and it will be added to QS’s object history. This history can now be browsed in the same way as a window’s history in Chrome or Safari. Any of the last 20 objects can be called back into the first pane.

Handy if a folder that’s not in the catalog has to be accessed a lot, a URL is needed that Quicksilver opened a short while ago, or a text snippet that isn’t on the clipboard is required again. The history is cleared when QS is relaunched.

NEW: Running applications and processes are monitored in real time (improves use of ‘Quit’ actions and application proxy objects) #575
To see background processes, make sure ‘Include background applications’ is checked in Preferences>Catalog>Running Applications & Processes>ⓘ.
CHANGE: Improve speed of action loading for objects #340 #782
When typing, the default time for QS to start searching is now 0.05 seconds. Users on modern machines can gain a small speed boost by setting this to 0.00 seconds in Preferences.
CHANGE: Improve speed of catalog searches #758 #780 #782
Quicksilver is a far less likely to miss keystrokes.
FIX: Do not prepend ‘http://’ to URLs copied and pasted to the Quicksilver clipboard #775 #776
Great when pasting URLs for shared web content such as tweets and blog posts.
FIX: Correctly scan for new plugins when checking for updates #803
More accurately finds new or updated plugins to install.
FIX: Do not duplicate objects in the catalog when adding them to the object history #573
If ‘Recent Objects’ was checked Preferences>Catalog>Quicksilver, an object would often be shown in the results list twice, once for its standard catalog entry and once for its aforementioned catalog’s entry. No longer.
CHANGE: Do not clear the 1st pane object after 10 minutes #399 #782
Leave an object in pane 1 for as long as necessary.
FIX: Odd behaviour when grabbing multiple items from Finder #753 #755
FIX: ‘Current Selection’ proxy object in Sandboxed apps in OS X Lion #710
FIX: Consistently honour the ‘focus action when returning results to Quicksilver’ setting #283 #784
FIX: Do not lose focus of the selected Quicksilver pane when the results window displays #325
FIX: Correctly resolve wildcards in paths #633 #713
FIX: Crash when getting display names (for Displays Module) #789 #790
FIX: Correctly obtain localised names of connected displays (for Displays Module) #790
Display names other than French.

FIX: Correctly restore docked panels when Quicksilver starts #691 #692
My docked Shelf and Clipboard panels stay hidden on launch, don’t pop out when moused over, and toggle in and out on the press of a shortcut. They have done so for at least the last 3 updates (including this one), and I like it this way. What do you see and/or expect from these panels?
FIX: Correctly display multi-line ‘Large Type’ text #733
Multiple lines of short text will be formatted to show as many lines on the screen as possible. A display 900 pixels high can accommodate 29 lines of text.

FIX: Only scan catalog items once when the rescan entry button is pressed #765
CHANGE: Improved handling of plugin actions within Quicksilver #773
CHANGE: Removal of deprecated methods and use 10.6+ methods only #648 #781
CHANGE: Make the ‘Unsure Quit’ dialogue a hidden preference #788
When QS is quit using the ⌘Q shortcut, a dialog appears instructing users to hold ⌘Q to continue the quit command. A second quick press of ⌘Q while the dialog is visible will suffice, however.

This feature will reduce the likelihood of trying to launch Quicksilver with Quicksilver, but it could be contentious for people who expect Mac apps’ usual quit behaviour. The standard system method can be restored by running the following command in Terminal:

defaults write com.blacktree.quicksilver "Delay Before Quitting" NO

Are we on the same page? If not, or if you have any thoughts on the behaviour of the Clipboard pane or QS’s quit shortcut, feel free to bend our ears in the comments.

More Quicksilver love coming in the near future.

@LoveQuicksilver

Browse Photo Stream from Quicksilver

Sat, 07 Apr 2012 09:53:00 +0900

The Iconmaster has posted a great way to view iOS screenshots in Photo Stream using Finder. To view photos instead, simply change the search string from ‘png’ to ‘jpg’.

Quicksilver can browse Finder’s saved searches in much the same way as a standard folder. Find the saved search in ~/Library/Saved Searches/ and drag the search folder icon to the list in Preferences>Catalog>Custom.

Dragging is much easier than using the file browser behind the ‘+’ icon

Call up the saved search in pane 1 and right-arrow in to see the photos. The latest ones should appear at the top of the list.

After right-arrowing, type to search or down-arrow through the photos

In a scientific test on one image, it took 7 minutes for the taken photo to appear in Finder.

@LoveQuicksilver

Quicksilver Looks Good

Mon, 26 Mar 2012 06:55:00 +0900

Observe: Quick Look support and updated plugin information

Also in ß66, trigger fixes and consistent behaviour for objects returned to the first pane. Let’s take a butchers:

NEW: Quick Look support. Quick Look files or URLs (inc. proxy objects) from Quicksilver using ⌘Y, ⌘⌥Y or spacebar (set in Preferences) #23 #115 #660 #715

Large as its preview icons are, Quicksilver’s lack of Quick Look support was an issue for many users. Now that it’s included, it’s got cards up its sleeve that trump even Quick Look in Finder.

With any number of file objects selected in pane 1, press one of the shortcuts and the files are displayed in a native Quick Look window that has all the expected features, such as grid view and ‘Open in Preview’.

There’s more. Type a URL into pane 1 and Quick Look its contents - including YouTube videos. The preview displays clickable links that open in the default browser. Proxy objects can be Quick Looked too. For example, make and use the trigger ‘Current iTunes Selection⇥Select in Command Window’ and hit ⌘Y to preview the track without losing the current playlist.

In order to use the space bar: ␣ shortcut to activate Quicklook, go into Quicksilver’s “Preferences”, click the “Command” tab and set the “Spacebar Behaviour” from the drop down list.

NEW: Updated Plug-in Preferences sidebar and ‘Extended Documentation’ window #697
The date and version information for plugins is now accurate, and the info drawer (click the ‘i’ icon) has been streamlined to leave the version dates, a function summary and the categories the plugin belongs to.

A plugin’s documentation can be viewed in a separate window by clicking the ‘?’ icon in the drawer. There’s lots of extra information for the iTunes, Firefox, Remote Hosts and Unit Conversion Modules, among others. Also, the sidebar items on the left of the Plug-in panel now display the correct plugins!

Click the circled ‘?’ icon in the drawer to view the plugin’s documentation

CHANGE: Improved wording for the Application Updater #662 #682

FIX: ‘Show Entry in Catalog’ and ‘Show Source in Catalog’ actions crash #714 #716
FIX: Clear Quicksilver’s 1st pane when objects are passed to it #670 #699
If objects were selected in QS using the comma trick, commands and scripts that passed objects back to pane 1 would often create a mishmash of old and new items. In ß66 the following AppleScript will return just the file in _file:
tell application "Quicksilver" to set selection to _file
FIX: Triggers now work for actions that display a result #623 #699
Commands that return objects to pane 1 didn’t used to work as triggers. Here’s a couple of now-working trigger ideas lifted from Rob McBroom:

FIX: Prevent Quicksilver from freezing and ignoring input on login #580

Early reports indicate that Quicksilver will look good on Mountain Lion, too.

@LoveQuicksilver

So, how can I make a trigger to display the Shelf? If I add a new Hotkey, I can't enter the keyboard action for displaying the Shelf (Option-Cmd-S), and there's no "Show Shelf" action that I can find in the Catalog.

Thu, 23 Feb 2012 07:30:44 +0900

‘Shelf⇥Show’ should work as a Command that can be triggered. I prefer ‘Shelf⇥Show Contents’, which provides a searchable version. Make sure both the Shelf and Clipboard Modules are installed, as there’s some overlap in features.

I want to use quicksilver to aid in my remote machine management, specially connecting to windows servers. From what I understand this should be possible using the Remote Hosts Module in conjunction with Cord.app. I cannot figure out how to make this work, it's driving me nuts and i'm hoping you can help. I want to be able to bring up cord in quicksilver then type the name / ip of my server. It then launches quicksilver with the default connection settings to the requested server. Thanks!

Thu, 23 Feb 2012 07:26:40 +0900

Any suggestions? This is way beyond my ken.

Quicksilver Gets Comfortable

Sun, 19 Feb 2012 20:34:00 +0900

It puts its feet under the table

A lot of fixes to make Quicksilver more welcome on your Mac. Quick Look integration is coming round next!

FIX: Honour the ‘Jump to action…’ preference when grabbing objects using the ‘Get Selection’ Service #643

FIX: Disable editing of tab names in the Plug-ins preference pane #644

FIX: Resolve proxy objects consistently #652 #621

FIX: Make the 3rd pane visible for AppleScript actions that expect a file #661 #603

on open _file

FIX: ‘Show Entry in Catalog’ action only shows for objects in the catalog #678

CHANGE: Allow non-admin users to set the Dock icon preference #690 #686 #689

CHANGE: Only allow disabling of the Catalog (by holding ⌥ on launch) in Debug builds

CHANGE: When using the ‘Move To…’ and ‘Copy To…’ actions, display the file’s parent folder in the 3rd pane #665

CHANGE: Allow Quicksilver to set URLs as ‘remote host’ types #497

CHANGE: Development settings and CHANGELOG creation method #599 #658

@LoveQuicksilver

QuickReminder

Sat, 11 Feb 2012 20:17:00 +0900

Make a reminder for iOS devices using Quicksilver

Disclosure: I got this idea from a blog post at dirtdon.com about an Alfred extension. The AppleScript is all my own work though. The Action is only for users of Lion, iCloud and iOS 5.

Reminders on iOS is a great app for making and receiving todos and reminders wherever you are. If you’re on a Mac at the time though, the number of steps to make a reminder with an alarm becomes more apparent:
swipe, tap, tap, tap, tap, type, tap, tap, tap, tap, scroll, scroll, tap, tap.

9 steps to get here

Reminders can be added and synced to an iOS device using iCal, but I find its interface to be cumbersome and counter-intuitive (I’m not a regular iCal user).

Fortunately iCal is scriptable, allowing for this custom Action for Quicksilver: QuickReminder. Put the script in ~/Library/Application Support/Quicksilver/Actions/ and relaunch Quicksilver. Activate QS in text mode and type in a reminder using this form:

Shopping_2/9/12 10:00am_eggs

The date sets both the due date and a message alarm. Find the QuickReminder Action in the pane 2 to complete the command. For confirmation, the Action will return to Quicksilver the values of the created reminder.

Skip to 1:31 if you know how to install Actions

The two underscores in the reminder text separate the title, date and notes. The Action will also except Shopping_eggs and Shopping_2/9/12 as valid inputs.

The latter example will set an alarm for 9am - which seemed a better choice than AppleScript’s midnight default! The variable _defaultTime in the script holds the 9am value. Be careful with the time string - most variations that don’t follow to the ‘10:00am’ form will fail to be recognised.

The Action requires iCal for the creation and sync of reminders to iOS, and will launch iCal in the background if it’s not already running. The calendar named in the Action needs to match one used by iCloud:

I’m no iCal expert, so if you have any ideas for improvements, please leave a comment!

@LoveQuicksilver

Quicksilver Drops By

Sat, 04 Feb 2012 16:53:00 +0900

ß64 says hello

No major changes this time - an indication of how far Quicksilver’s release cycle has come since ß59 - but lots of fixes and changes to make using Quicksilver that little bit smoother.

CHANGE: Update the QSDroplet icon to reflect the new style - #615

Great! What’s a Droplet? See here.

CHANGE: Show available details for objects and actions - #624

Some objects and actions have further information that QS now displays in the bezel.

FIX: Latest Download proxy works with a symlinked Downloads folder - #596 #616

FIX: Correctly display dynamically generated details for objects and actions - #591

FIX: Prevent all plugins from being deleted on launch - #636

FIX: Better handling of Dock icon preferences and crash protection - #587

The crash dialog should no longer appear on relaunch or system restart.

FIX: Correctly notify the user when there’s no internet connection - #640

FIX: Prevent a crash that could occur when the path to an AppleScript was invalid

CHANGE: Simplified the wording in the Setup Assistant

CHANGE: If the name and details of objects are identical, don’t show both - #613

FIX: The plugin download progress bar works

FIX: Accented characters no longer wipe out the search string - #539

FIX: Prevent some interfaces from showing ‘QSCommand 0xffff’ as the command

Coming soon: Quick Look in Quicksilver. Stay tuned…

@LoveQuicksilver

Thank You

Sat, 04 Feb 2012 12:50:24 +0900

Dear Creators of Quicksilver,

I manage IT support for surgeons. I introduced your product today to one of our pediatric general surgeons on his brand new, first mac, an 11” Air. I walked him through your beautiful install routine and then showed him how to set the call. I used the command+1 as the launch because it’s where my hands fell and it didn’t overwrite another common command. For him, the natural command was command+space. Then he used it to call the app launch for our EMR. He had spent 30 seconds fishing it out of Finder. He turned to me and was incredulous. This is a man that deals with, every day, situations I can’t fathom. He was amazed that with a few natural keystrokes, he was where he needed to be. You should work with him.

Many thanks for your message! I’m sure it makes the developers very proud that QS is helping make a pediatric surgeon’s job that little bit easier. :)

Creating Custom Catalog Entries to Rename Items

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 03:32:38 +0900

Today, we received a tweet from a Quicksilver user asking:

The Tweet

@LoveQuicksilver can you help me? I want “M” to default to Sparrow.app - my mail app without changing the name of Sparrow.

One feature of Quicksilver is that you can only search for letters in a name, so the user’s problem here is that there is no ‘M’ in the word ‘Sparrow’, so it was not possible to find it.

The Failed Solution

After a quick Twitter exchange, I’d come up with a couple of suggestions. One being to create a trigger with the letter ‘M’. This definitely isn’t the best solution. Clearly habits had got the best of this one user so he wanted a way of typing ‘M’ in Quicksilver’s search pane and getting Sparrow.

Surely it’s possible with Quicksilver, no?

The Brain Wave

After some brain storming, the idea of custom catalogs came to me. Custom Catalog Entries can contain any file or ‘object’ that you want, with the benefit of you being able to name them however you like.

The Custom Catalog Entry

First, head into the Catalog Preference Pane and create a new ‘File & Folder Scanner’ catalog entry:

Creating a File & Folder Scanner custom catalog entry

The next steps are fairly self explanatory. Find Sparrow.app from the file browser that pops up, and click ‘Open’. Next, the catalog entry’s sidebar should pop out:

Out pops the sidebar!

We only want to include ‘Sparrow.app’ in this entry, and none of its contents (‘Sparrow.app’ is actually a folder pretending to be a file - called a package), so we can leave this first pane as is. What we want to do is change the Catalog Entry’s name to include the letter ‘M’. By heading over to the ‘Attributes’ tab, this is possible:

Rename the catalog entry to whatever you want

With this done, it’s just a matter of reloading Quicksilver’s catalog (⌘R from within the Quicksilver interface) and getting Quicksilver to learn your new preference:

Assigning the catalog entry to whatever abbreviation you like

Hey, presto! Renaming items in Quicksilver without actually renaming them!

Relaunching Apps Quicksilver Style

Thu, 26 Jan 2012 06:52:00 +0900

Ever since I upgraded to Lion 10.7, my 4½-year-old Mac hasn’t been holding up all that well.
From time to time, I’m having to relaunch apps that just aren’t quite working, and what better way to do it than with Quicksilver?

If you’re not already aware, Quicksilver has its own internal keyboard shortcut to relaunch itself. If you’ve updated plugins, changed some preferences or done anything else that requires a restart, you can bring up Quicksilver and press ⌘⌃Q to restart the app.

Often, installing updates to plugins requires you to relaunch Quicksilver

With proxy objects and triggers, I’ve brought this handy shortcut to every app.

The Proxy Object

The proxy object I use is one called ‘Current Application’. This object can determine which application is front and foremost at the current time, letting you manipulate it at whim.

If you can’t find this proxy object in the 1st pane of Quicksilver, make sure you have it enabled in the ‘Catalog’ preference pane. Within the side tab called ‘Quicksilver’ there should be an entry titled ‘Proxy Objects’.
You can bring out the drawer to check if it’s enabled.

The Trigger

With the proxy object found, the next step is to create the trigger. Head over to the ‘Triggers’ preference pane, and create a new one. You’ll want to put ‘Current Application’ as the object in the first pane and ‘Relaunch’ as the action in the 2nd pane.

Set up the trigger shortcut as ⌘⌃Q and you’re ready to go!

If you’re having more problems with your applications - crashing or freezing - like I unfortunately do, you can also use the ‘Current Application’ proxy object along with the ‘Kill Process’ action* to force quit any application.

Have any other favourite triggers or uses for the ‘Current Application’ proxy? Let us know!

* In order to use this action, you need to install the ‘Process Manipulation’ plugin and make sure you have the ‘Kill Process’ action enabled in the ‘Action’ Preferences. Go into the Main preferences, click the ‘Preferences’ tab, then on the left hand side click ‘Actions’. From here you can search for ‘Kill Process’ to enable it.

Update: This trigger may interfere with Quicksilver’s own ⌘⌃Q shortcut to restart itself. In order to avoid this, open the Info panel for the new trigger you have created (click the ‘i’ in the Triggers preferences, and go to the ‘Scope’ tab. Change the scope so that the trigger is “Disabled” in for the app “Quicksilver”

Thanks again to Patrick for this post.

@LoveQuicksilver

Getting the Time and Date

Thu, 19 Jan 2012 07:25:00 +0900

There are often times when I find myself wanting to know the time when in Lion’s Full Screen mode, as well as the date (I don’t have it displayed in my menubar).

With a few tricks from Quicksilver, you can easily set up a trigger to show the current time and date.

Creating the Trigger

Head into Quicksilver’s trigger preferences, and create a new trigger. Within the first pane, type in*:

show large type (current date)'s time 
string & " — " & (current date)'s date string

and add ‘Run as Applescript’ as the action. Set yourself a hotkey, and you’re ready to go.

Then, whenever you want to see the time or date, just press your keyboard shortcut, and up it pops.

Pasting the Time and Date

Today, a user asked about modifying this script to paste the current time and date into the active application. By using the following Applescript*, this can be achieved

set the clipboard to (current date)'s time 
string & " — " & (current date)'s date string

tell application "System Events"
	keystroke "v" using {command down}
end tell

If using this second script, be sure to enter the same keyboard shortcut on the second to last line to reflect your paste shortcut (typically ⌘V).

If you’d like to alter the way the time and date setting is displayed, then alter the first line of both bits of code. You can add in your own hyphens, commas or remove the time entirely if you like.

*If copying and pasting, be sure to remove the 1st line break between

time

and

string

Thanks to Patrick, Quicksilver’s lead developer, for this post!

@LoveQuicksilver

Quick Quick Look

Wed, 18 Jan 2012 07:41:00 +0900

Quick Look files from different folders without using Finder

I’m going to keep banging on about this until someone notices its usefulness (or writes a Quick Look plugin). Quicksilver can’t preview files in Quick Look, but most of Quick Look’s functionality can be accessed with a bit of shell scripting bundled into an AppleScript Action.

Stick the ‘Quick Quick Look’ script in:
~/Library/Application Support/Quicksilver/Actions/
and relaunch QS. Grab a bunch of files from any folders in pane 1, tab over to pane 2, find the Action (‘qq’ is pretty easy to type in), and hit return. Instant Quick Look in Quicksilver!

As of Lion, the qlmanage process this Action uses to invoke Quick Look runs as a foreground app with a Dock icon. A bit in your face, but happily now with the ability to accept keystrokes to flick through multiple files, and dismiss the window via the escape key (which also quits the process). Quicksilver’s bezel should pop back up with the selection for further manipulation.

The window can’t be made fullscreen, and there’s a non-negotiable ‘[DEBUG]’ message in the title bar. It also has an aversion to fullscreen apps in Lion, though QS appears back in the place it was invoked.

Assign ⇧u to ‘Quick Quick Look’ to enable the ⌘⇧u internal Trigger

Bonus feature: the Action will Quick Look the contents of a single folder selected in pane 1. Expect to wait several seconds if it contains thousands of files though!

The qlmanage process is a Quick Look debugging tool that can preview files using the following command in Terminal:
qlmanage -p 'file1.png' 'file2.png'

Here’s some background reading on the subject from Macworld.com.

@LoveQuicksilver

Realize the truth.

Sun, 15 Jan 2012 22:09:22 +0900

Realize the truth.

Volume Control

Wed, 04 Jan 2012 17:08:17 +0900

Quickly eject volumes, and handle disk images without Finder

Also in this 13 minute screencast, a first look at adding items to the Custom Catalog and creating Hotkey Triggers.

Pithy comment about ‘volume’ here

For the best picture, hit the full screen icon, press play and select 720p in Youtube’s quality menu.

@LoveQuicksilver