As regular readers know, we here at TUAW are huge fans of Quicksilver from Blacktree. The great thing about Quicksilver is how much functionality it puts at your finger tips. Of course the main problem with Quicksilver is how much functionality it puts at your finger tips! Even those of us who having been using it for years regularly find new and interesting things. There's just so much in there (especially with third-party plugins), but the documentation has been, to be frank, somewhat lacking (though it is getting better). Well now Howard Melman has decided to do something about that, releasing this beautifully illustrated 89-page users guide as a free PDF (Creative Commons). Anybody remotely interested in Quicksilver should have a look, and a big TUAW 'attaboy to Mr. Melman![Via Lifehacker]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
1-18-2007 @ 9:54PM
Boris Shubinsky said...
I can't view PDFs at the current moment, but I've had a question that's been lingering for a while.
I set my hotkey to the default (ctrl+space) to bring up QS, but I can't for the life of me figure out how to change it. Anyone know how?
Reply
1-18-2007 @ 10:11PM
Mat Lu said...
Invoke QS, Preferences -> Command -> Hotkey Activation
Reply
1-18-2007 @ 10:32PM
Rob said...
Excellent guide. I use Quicksilver all the time and am constantly amazed how much else it can do. Thanks.
For Boris: go to Quicksilver Preferences, Command sub-tab (3rd down on the left). The first option is for Hotkey Activation.
Reply
1-18-2007 @ 10:33PM
Jonathan Williams said...
Quicksilver would be useful if it didn't suck more RAM than Firefox, iTunes, Azureus combined. Of course, if you *don't* index everything, it doesn't use that much RAM, but then all those file action plugins are useless.
Reply
1-19-2007 @ 6:13AM
WÏ??7?¥ said...
Where is Quicksilver taking too much Ram? I have 3000 - 4000 files in my catalog and it takes 50 MB real and 577 MB virtual Memory. Is this too much?
Reply
1-19-2007 @ 8:35AM
stainboy said...
a big THANK YOU to Melman. i've been wanting to play with QS but have been put off by the anemic documentation and overwhelming amount of customizability. this guide will make a QS user out of me yet!
Reply
1-19-2007 @ 10:32AM
slingshot said...
Jonathan, QS doesn't suck more RAM than Firefox, iTunes, and Azureus combined on my machine. Nothing like. That would be a lot of RAM. And I mean a LOT. Are you sure your problem isn't elsewhere?
Reply
1-19-2007 @ 2:53PM
Jon Williams said...
I think the screenshot here sums up my issues with it. That was with a somewhat reduced catalog, somewhat reduced plugin set, fairly fresh after a quicksilver restart. Triggering it would cause a huge amount of thrashing, to the point where using spotlight is faster as an application launcher.
Reply
1-19-2007 @ 3:07PM
John Lewis said...
I never realized how much I've underutilized this product! This thing supports the power user in many ways I never realized. And this doc is really well done.
Reply
1-19-2007 @ 3:08PM
Jon Williams said...
Oh bother, no html in comments:
http://wizardishungry.com/blog/archive/why_i_uninstalled_quicksilver_dashboard_and_spotlight
Reply
1-31-2007 @ 8:33PM
Eray said...
Excellent guide. very useful. I know its so powerful but I had no idea that it was THIS MUCH powerful. Thanks again for the great guide.
Reply