Skip to Content

Lifehacker interview on the future of Quicksilver

by Michael Rose Dec 6th 2007 at 4:30PM



Today's Lifehacker interview with Quicksilver developer Nicholas Jitkoff (a.k.a. Alcor) has struck a note of gloom into the holiday spirits around TUAW's home office (currently located in an unoccupied storefront of the West Edmonton Mall). While Nicholas is still planning to do what he can to improve stability for the existing b54 branch of QS, the road is less clear for future feature development; he doesn't have the time in his off hours to advance the wildly popular launcher to the next level, and the existing version meets his needs (other than the problem of stability). His words: "that branch is condemned to a long slow death," and "I'm inclined to encourage users to move over to the more stable and well supported alternatives like LaunchBar." Ouch!

This, of course, means an opportunity for some eager young guns to show the world what they can do with the source code to QS, available to one and all. The open source version of QS might never attract the attention and plug-in support of the original, but in the right hands... well, you never know. Visit the Google Code page to get involved with the trunk version of QS, and check out Nicholas' Google Tech Talk video on QS for more behind-the-scenes info. Reader Martin also points to one programmer who is already diving in and cleaning up the b54 code.

View Tags

Related Stories

Today's Lifehacker interview with Quicksilver developer Nicholas Jitkoff (a.k.a. Alcor) has struck a note of gloom into the holiday spirits...
 

Add a Comment

Sign in »
*0 / 3000 Character Maximum

28 Comments

Filter by:
XIV

Where can I get my hands on quicksilver source code ?

December 16 2007 at 10:43 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
2 replies to XIV's comment
Michael Rose

http://code.google.com/p/blacktree-alchemy/

December 16 2007 at 11:02 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
XIV

Yeah that's the link I used. I was trying to open "Quicksilver.xcodeproj.zip", but it just wouldn't work. And now, I just tried it again and it worked... Oh well.

Thanks!

December 17 2007 at 7:50 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Paul

Hey Mr. Jitkoff,

Thanks for the awesome work and I hope your next endeavor is fruitful. It's obvious I'm not alone in that though this has been a great contribution to the Mac community, many of us would love to pay you for your work, so if you take it up again, I suggest you charge for it, because it is well deserved.

That being said, whoever can continue the QS development (well), I would gladly pay for this invaluable tool (I am not a launchbar fan, but have not used it in years, so only because of Nicholas's recommendation, I will try it again.).

If I was still coding, I would jump on this opportunity to create a commercial version (if the OSS license allows that...does it?) Hell, if I could code as well as Nicholas I'd probably want to do it just for fun, because you have made a lot of people happy, more efficient and help make the Mac a stand out platform for me.

Thanks Man,

p

December 07 2007 at 2:37 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
gragegrl

I'm way behind here...can someone point me to some info about what Quicksilver does? I see it mentioned time and time again here but I'm late to the party.

December 07 2007 at 1:44 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to gragegrl's comment
Michael Rose

Hi Gragegrl --

Basically, it's a launcher. Beyond that, it's literally anything you can do with your Mac, combining applications and services in new and unexpected ways, all in a few quick keystrokes.

It's engine oil for your UI. It makes everything happen effortlessly (well, after some practice). That's why QS addicts are concerned that it may not have a future.

http://www.tuaw.com/2007/01/18/melman-quicksilver-users-guide/
http://www.tuaw.com/2006/03/11/getting-started-with-quicksilver-understanding-the-basics/

December 07 2007 at 1:50 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Jonas

TUAW is in Edmonton???? What the?

December 07 2007 at 11:15 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Luigi193

I am happy with my Launchbar...

Does what I need of it, has never crashed once, and is constantly updated...

It may not have the "raw power" of Qs, and i may be more of a n00b, but its fine for me. And it does have a lot of features, you just have to read the guide!

December 07 2007 at 10:02 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Martin

Check out this dude who's cleaning up the the Quicksilver code: http://lipidity.com/apple/cleaning-up-quicksilver

December 07 2007 at 5:19 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to Martin's comment
Michael Rose

Thanks, Martin -- added to the post.

December 07 2007 at 9:17 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
starwxrwx

The current version works fine for me, what's the big deal? New useful scripts and plugins are probably more important from here on out.

Long live QS!

December 06 2007 at 11:41 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Sean Ouimet

As much as I love(d) quicksilver, at one point it was causing my system to be fairly unstable. As 90% of what I used it for was launching, spotlight (Leopard) has filled that gap for me. There will always be a soft spot in my heart for the app, so I'd like to see it stabilize and live on for a long time to come.

Also: kudos on the shout out to West Edmonton Mall. I hope Team TUAW is here on a secret mission to convince the owners of the mall to beg (and bribe?) Apple in to opening a store here soon.

So what's the deal, is it an ongoing joke to make TUAW headquarters somewhere random each time it is mentioned, or is one of the team (M. Rose) actually based in Edmonton now?

December 06 2007 at 11:08 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to Sean Ouimet's comment
Michael Rose

Snostorm -- yes, the wandering home office is my little gag, a tribute to David Letterman's movable Late Night home office. I've been to the WEM though -- an overwhelming retail experience and certainly deserving of an Apple store.

December 07 2007 at 9:18 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Manny

I would gladly pay as well. I hope someone picks this up and continues to develop it, the Mac community is indebted to this developer for such a useful app.

December 06 2007 at 8:38 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
windycitypoe

I'm not too worried. Quicksilver is very beloved, and it's now open source. It's not going to die from neglect.

December 06 2007 at 7:54 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Buy an ad here

Hot Apps on TUAW

Tweets

© 2012 AOL Inc. All Rights Reserved.