Quicksilver releases new beta 57

Macworld notes that my absolute favorite application, and one of the reasons I became a Mac user in the first place, is not quite as dead and gone as many people suspected. Quicksilver has released their first new stable version in two years, besides the developer leaving for greener pastures and setting the project completely open source. Unfortunately, there aren't many new features, but as Macworld says, let's be honest: you don't understand everything that's in there already. No seriously. No, seriously, you don't.

What is new is compatibility with Snow Leopard (mostly -- some plugins are still lagging behind), and a host of background changes. Clang is being used as the default compiler, which the change notes say should speed up runtime significantly. Localization has been tweaked, and lots of previously buggy actions (mouse tracking on triggers, for one) have supposedly been smoothed out and improved. Not necessarily a marquee release, but at this point, any Quicksilver release is a good one.

And if you've never actually used Quicksilver, well, now's a great time to start. Ostensibly, it's a app/file launcher, but the more you learn and use it, the more it becomes a "connector" for everything on your Mac. Your mind is connected to your fingers, and your fingers connect to the keyboard to invoke Quicksilver, but Quicksilver is connected to everything else.

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Source: http://www.macworld.com/article/144653/2009/12/quicksilver_b…

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Macworld notes that my absolute favorite application, and one of the reasons I became a Mac user in the first place, is not quite as dead...

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Nick B

hello, does anyone use the google quick search web function whereby you (only the first time) create a favourite of the result of searching '***" in google? then you simply launch QS, type in the name of the favourite (QSG as the tutorial i used suggests), then hit TAB twice to put in your search term, hit enter and a safari window opens with your results. voila!

it might seem longwinded when writing it down but it really takes just a second or two. the reason i write is that i can't get this to work anymore either with the previous SL buggy version, or this new one.

anybody else experienced this?

December 05 2009 at 8:10 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

phalkunz

Quicksilver rocks! I tried QSB for a while but didn't like it.

December 03 2009 at 5:43 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

case

Does anyone else have the problem where shortcut key triggers don't "catch" on the first few presses?

I have it set to show the icon when fired - and the icon shows, but nothing else happens for the first few attempts. Usually on the fourth or fifth try the triggered app icon will show in the dock and start loading...

December 03 2009 at 4:08 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Frank

I'm just curious. Why is it that these 3rd party sites like the link above to MacUpdate.com have 1.0b57, but if you go directly to the QuickSilver site, the newest version you can find is b56a7 (which I'm guessing is 1.0b56 to keep version numbering the same)? I have a habit of verifying a new version from the source, so it sets off flags when the source doesn't mention this new version.

Is this a case of the latest version not being available on the blacktree.com site? I know QuickSilver was open-sourced, but not sure if the website/domain went with it, or if there's a fork in play here, where the new dev doesn't yet have a proper website/distribution setup in place. Just trying to understand the discrepancy.

December 03 2009 at 12:42 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Jamie Densmore

Nicholas Jitkoff, the original developer of Quicksilver, is one of the developers behind Google Quick Search Box

December 02 2009 at 4:46 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

philster

This makes me happy. I can change my QS settings and preferences again!

December 02 2009 at 3:20 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

bobm

I was really hoping that Apple would *steal* the Quicksilver functionality and put it into the OS, between QuickLook (and the additional plugins) and Quicksilver OS X is amazing.

I use Launchy on XP and it's just not as smooth.

December 02 2009 at 1:05 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Ian

If you want to make sure you are keeping up-to-date, make sure you are following the github code repository, as this is where the real development is happening now (google code repository is not current)

http://github.com/tiennou/blacktree-alchemy/

December 02 2009 at 12:41 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Don Parr

Quicksilver is the bomb. Google's Quick Search Box is OK, especially with Alcor on-board but, in my opinion, Quicksilver is "it!" @Mike: I'm running SL 10.6.2 and QS b57 (3840) on an '06 24-inch Intel iMac, and QS prefs open and close just fine :).

December 02 2009 at 12:24 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Zack Feirer

So is there a reason that this new version isn't registering with my current versions updater? It keeps saying I have the most recent version (B54 on 10.5).

December 02 2009 at 12:18 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

1 reply to Zack Feirer's comment

Ian

Yes, the auto-update doesn't work for the new open-source versions. tiennou the new main developer has plans for moving over to sparkle, but until then auto-update won't work.

Note for anyone that has XCode - quicksilver compiles effortlessly so you can always roll your own :-)

December 02 2009 at 12:38 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply