Quicksilver for efficiency on a Mac
Quicksilver is an efficiency tool for MacOSX. We find it improves flow when creating and manipulating files on the computer. Here we discuss how we currently use the β59 version (for OSX 10.6 Snow Leopard).
Quicksilver does not replace Spotlight. Quicksilver does not search within files, Spotlight does. I still use Spotlight for searches within contents of files.
I've set Quicksilver to rescan its catalog manually (Cmd-R) rather than automatically, to save on disk wear. I am actually using double–caps–lock to activate quicksilver, but use the default activation sequence (control–space) in the recipes here.
Clipboard history list enable the plugin, use Cmd–L to see and paste old items.
Pull foreground item into quicksilver (e.g. copies text): Cmd–Esc
Queue a stack of items for action (e.g. open, copy, move lots of things at same time): Comma (,)
Open folder containing the file search for the file in quicksilver, but then press Cmd–enter instead of plain enter.
Append text to an existing file useful for quick notes, especially if you organise special files to receive this data (e.g. todo, shoppinglist). Adapted from Robert Daeley's qsredux
In the Quicksilver Preferences Application pane, turn on 'Enable advanced features'
In the Plug-ins pane, 'Text Manipulation Actions (+)' must be installed and turned on.
Check that the actions|files and folders|prepend to and append to are selected (not prepend text!)
targets must be in the following categories:
Must be a plain text file.
Must be a member of a QS Catalog you've added and indexed to the proper depth.
Must have .txt extension.
Dotfiles (e.g., '.reminders' or '.vimrc') cannot be selected
now type control–space to activate quicksilver
type "." (period) to activate text input
type your text to append/prepend
hit "tab" to move to next field
type "append to" or "prepend to" or just "a" or "p" to activate append/append to command
hit "tab" to move to next field
start typing the filename of the file you want to append/prepend to
select the file and hit return
the text is appended/prepended automatically
Create a new text file containing some text you want to type in straight away:
control–space to activate quicksilver
type "." (period) to activate text input
hit "tab" to move to next field
type "create new" or just "c" to activate create new file command
hit "return" to open a dialog to choose where to place the new file
quicksilver will make the file and then suggest to open it for editing
Make new file based on a template useful if you have complex templates
create a template in the directory ~/Library/Application Support/Quicksilver/Templates e.g. empty text file
control–space to activate quicksilver
choose a directory in which to place the file
hit "tab" to move to next field
type "make new" or just "m" to activate make new file command
it will choose the default template
Timers we use this instead of the clock
enable the quicksilver catalog proxy objects
type "delay" or "at time"
Move or copy file can be quicker than mouse-drag-and-drop
type "move to" or "copy to"
Terminal open at the location of a folder are using this for commandline sips image alterations still!
invoke quicksilver (control–space)
select a folder (a file will not work)
type "go to directory in terminal" or "terminal"
Broken catalog fix sometimes the catalog is munged by third-party plugins, and Quicksilver won't start properly. To wipe the settings entirely:
Quit Quicksilver, navigate to ~/Library/Caches/ and delete the Quicksilver com.blacktree. and the Quicksilver folders, then relaunch and rescan the catalog using cmd–r
NB NOT WORKING: Airport plugin appears to crash the program.
User interface access download the latest module (it works) from qsapp.com/plugins and then you can use quicksilver to activate an application's menu items. (current application, tab, type "menu items", tab, search for items)
Dropbox publicLink applescript we use Dropbox Public Links on our blogs, this is a handy way to copy the links. Adapted from Malt Igloo's code and process.
You will need two pieces of information to input into the script, your public folder and your dropbox ID. You can find your dropboxID using the ordinary procedure: secondary click on file in Dropbox Public folder, choose menu item Dropbox Copy Public Link. Paste the data into a text editor, the number after the "u" is your dropboxID.
To find your public dropbox folder location, locate it in the finder then get info and on the General tab it says "Where" copy that string and add "/Public/"
Now open applescript editor, copy and paste the script (below) into the editor, and insert the two pieces of data into the first two lines at the appropriate places.
Save the script file to ~/Library/Application Support/Quicksilver/Actions with the name "publicLink.scpt". Note you may need to create the Actions folder if one does not already exist.
Run by choosing a file in your public folder using QuickSilver (to start with you can search for Public and then / down into the directory) then tab, then type "publicLink".
When you paste the data, it gives you the Dropbox Public Link of the file.
The script works currently with β59 and the comma trick to select multiple files, but does not appear to work if you use the alternate method of selecting two files in finder using cmd–esc.
The script code is below:
property ifolder : "/Users/maki/Documents/Dropbox/Public/" property dropboxID : 123456 on findAndReplace2(toFind, toReplace, theText) set astid to AppleScript's text item delimiters set AppleScript's text item delimiters to toFind set textItems to theText's text items set AppleScript's text item delimiters to toReplace tell textItems to set editedText to beginning & toReplace & rest set AppleScript's text item delimiters to astid return editedText end findAndReplace2 using terms from application "Quicksilver" on open theseitems if application "Dropbox" is not running then launch application "Dropbox" repeat with aitem in theseitems tell application "Finder" set r to POSIX path of (aitem as text) set completePath to r as text set docName to my findAndReplace2(ifolder, "", completePath) set theurl to "http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/" & dropboxID & "/" & docName set the clipboard to theurl end tell end repeat end open end using terms from
As well as the wiki, we found Howard Melman's Quicksilver Quick Reference useful.
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