gtuhl: startup IT and software development

I first started using OSX right as Leopard was coming out so I’ve only known Spotlight as a great utility. It was very fast and did a great job of launching documents and applications. With a little more digging (like using command-enter on a selection to open its location in Finder) it became even more useful.

Unfortunately over the last several months Spotlight has blown away its index for absolutely no reason when I had to reboot my computer. Twice it was a reboot related to an update and once it was just a plain vanilla restart. In either case, there is absolutely no excuse for the index needing to be blown away. I depended on Spotlight pretty heavily and the 2 hours or so that it took to rebuild the index was excruciating. After the third time this happened I gave up on Spotlight and installed this Quicksilver thing people talk about. I’ve heard that the Leopard Spotlight largely lessens Quicksilver’s advantages but I have still found it to be pretty powerful and it hasn’t blown away its index yet. I’ve additionally started leaning heavily on some of its many capabilities that Spotlight does not possess.

Why Care About Quicksilver?

• You would like a Spotlightish application that does more.
• You hate having to use the mouse if you can help it.
• Spotlight appears to be forgetting to persist its index to disk or losing its index for some other weird reason.

Installation

First download the latest version. At the time of this post it is available here. Then I recommend following the quick tutorial here. There are some minor differences in the tutorial from the linked version of Quicksilver but it is largely still relevant. During the installation I had to select plugins one at a time else the installer froze. I also had to refresh the plugin screen several times for the bulk of the many plugins available to show up.

Next you will want to neuter Spotlight so it isn’t churning on your machine in addition to Quicksilver. Go into System Preferences -> Spotlight, then uncheck everything under Search Results and also uncheck both shortcuts.

I recommend setting Quicksilver’s shortcut to command-space now that Spotlight is effectively disabled and doesn’t need that combo.

In the Quicksilver settings under Catalog I couldn’t figure out how to increase the depth of the User catalogs that were already setup and Quicksilver was only indexing the first directory of my Documents folder. To get around this I unchecked the Documents folder that was already setup under User and added a new one to Custom with infinite depth. I did the same for my home directory Applications folder and was all set after that.

The way Quicksilver works is you launch it and start typing something. Pressing down or right will trigger a context menu of possible matches or files that you can navigate through. Once you are happy with the thing you have selected you can either hit enter to execute the default action listed or press tab and down to navigate through a list of actions. When searching through the list of items or actions you can type to jump to another option that you know is in the list. In most cases Quicksilver just seems to do the right thing so often the action doesn’t need to be selected. If you get lost in your selections just press escape and start typing again.

Usage

Though I have no concrete numbers to back it up, Quicksilver is every bit as fast during usage and seems to build and maintain its index more quickly as well. It also can do a whole ton more than application and document launching. I’ve barely scratched the surface of what it can do as my usage is still solely within the available plugins and I am finding it more and more irreplaceable as I go.

I’ve only been using it for about a week and find all of the following extremely useful (most of this was recommended by the tutorial linked above):

• The standard launch behavior. Command-space and start typing the application or document, press enter to launch/open.
• The clipboard plugin. Command-space, command-L, press 0 - 9 to paste any of the last 10 things I have copied into my current cursor position. My preferences for this plugin are 10 items (so I can always paste with 1 keystroke) and hide after pasting. This function is incredibly helpful.
• Emailing. Command-space, start typing the name of a contact in my Address Book, right-arrow, enter on an email. Opens an Apple Mail compose window with that person in the TO line.
• Definitions. Command-space, period (this enters a free-form text mode), type a word, tab, type define, enter.
• Calculations. Command-space, period, type math to crank, tab, type calc, enter.
• File navigation. This is a HUGE feature and in many cases for me has eliminated the need to use the finder. Just do Command-space and then press and hold for a second either ~ (for your home directory) or / (for root) then press down and use the arrow keys to navigate through your computer very quickly. At any time while navigating you can type the first few characters of a folder or file you know is in your current directory and it will jump there.
• Opening links in FireFox. Command-space, period, type URL, enter.
• iTunes. Command-space, type Browse Artists, Browse Albums, etc then press right and start navigating through your music with only the keyboard like the file navigation. Press enter on an album, artist, genre, or song to fire it up in iTunes.

Those are just the things I have found myself using multiple times each day. Though some actions require what seems like a lot of keystrokes for me if it saves reaching for and using the mouse it is far faster. Quicksilver can do an enormous amount more than that and I am looking forward to using it more and more to make myself more efficient.