What Is Quicksilver?
From the manufacturer’s web site: At first glance, Quicksilver is a launcher or a command window interface. When opened, it will create a catalog of applications and some frequently used folders and documents. Activate it, and you can search for and open anything in its catalog instantly. The search is adaptive, so Quicksilver will recognize which items you are searching for based on previous experience. It also supports abbreviations, so you can type entire words, or just fragments of each. When not in use, Quicksilver vanishes, waiting for the next time you summon it. Quicksilver’s greatest strength, however, is not search. Any item you are able to find, drag, or otherwise pull into its universe is endowed with many potential uses. Hitting
You’ve seen quicksilver many times without knowing it. The thermometer you use to take your temperature contains a drop of quicksilver, for quicksilver is just another name for mercury! The quick in quicksilver came from an old word that meant “living.” In earlier times, mercury was called “living silver,” because of the odd way
A quick answer isn’t easy and that may account for why I haven’t given it a due spin. Now it’s time to spin. It’s actually easier to describe Quicksilver by telling you what it’s not. It’s not a file or application launcher, though it does that. It’s not a search utility like Spotlight (integrated into OS X Tiger), though Quicksilver’s search functions are unique. It’s not the Finder, though similar functions are built in. What Quicksilver is is a new way, and an effcient way at that, to get to things on your Mac. Quicksilver lets you find (search) files, find applications, manipulate the former, quickly access the latter, without leaving the keyboard (mostly). Quicksilver lets you get to what you want on your Mac; quickly, easily. It just does it differently than traditional file or application launchers, and it’s different than Spotlight. First, let me give you a gripe I have about some Mac applications. Keyboard shortcuts. Rather, the lack of keyboard shortcuts. It’s hit or miss. So
Quicksilver is act without doing, work without effort, do your work then step back; it is empty yet infinitely capable; the more you use it, the more it produces; the more you talk of it, the less you understand. More accessible information on this absolutely kick-ass productivity tool can be found in the Quicksilver User Guide in the Quicksilver Google Group and/or in a beginner’s tutorial post by Lifehacker’s Adam Pash, MacBreak’s Quicksilver screencast and the AppleBlog’s screencast on using Quicksilver to send quick-fire emails. Tags: alpha builds, getting things done, not apple mail, not mail.
