Membranophonist’s Ramblings

Quicksilver is a great application for those who generally prefer the keyboard to the mouse. There are several applications (such as F10 Launch Studio and LaunchBar) that are similar to Quicksilver, but I don’t know of any that are free.

Cool Features

• Nice optional integration with Cocoatech’s Path Finder.
• The ability to choose to display the primary interface in a window, a bezel, or on top of the menu bar.
• The Shelf. I normally drop random links and text snippets to the desktop, but that results in a rather messy desktop. Similar to several other programs out there, it can also be used as a holding spot for files you want to copy between locations.
• The bargain price of $0.00.

Suggestions

• Since the Shelf’s hand-holding-several-cards icon doesn’t communicate anything other than the fact that there are multiple items in one group, replace it with the red number badge. Ideally, you could lay the number badge over a specific document type icon if two or more items of the same kind were dragged into the Shelf. The badge could be positioned over the upper-right or upper-left corner of the icon since most generic document icons display their type at the middle-bottom - PDF, GZip, MOV, etc.
• Allow the activation keystroke to act as a display/hide toggle.
• Turn off the shadow that appears when the Shelf is maximized and hidden above the menu bar.

See also

• Todd Dominey’s review
• Dan Dickinson’s “A Better OS X In Just 10 Minutes”