Nifty. If you’ve got more QS tips, I’m all for ‘em.

This just doesn’t work for my installation of quicksilver… the “append text to…” action doesn’t exist. Is it specific to bbedit or something? I don’t have bbedit installed.

Searching for “append” on quicksilver’s (kinda thin) documentation server only brings up one entry for iTunes… You’re a great salesman for this nifty product… i hope all these tips get rolled into the final version!

Let me double-check my install, Ryan, and make sure I’m not accessing something “after-market.”

This function is being accessed as an OSX Service, AFAIK, so make sure you grab the Services module from here:

http://quicksilver.blacktree.com/plugins.php?feature=Hatter

Does that help?

I’m having the same problem as Ryan and the services module doesn’t seem to help. I’m not seeing this functionality on the latest version even if I enable the beta feature set. It would be super cool if I could find it as well! :-D

Oh hey it looks like the append feature might have been dropped in the latest beta: http://forums.blacktree.com/viewtopic.php?t=295&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=15 I wonder why…

Thanks, Lloyd, I’ll poke around and report back. Thanks for the heads-up. (I promise it works :) )

Ha! Foiled by my own comment.

Yeah, actually, Lloyd, I’m on b28 and it’s working fine.

I’m asking the forum what might be up:
http://forums.blacktree.com/viewtopic.php?p=4817#4817

I’m sure we’ll get it figured out. Thanks again.

The “Append Text To…” functionality is apparently an alpha-only feature at this moment (I begged my way onto the bleeding edge a few months ago).

The great news is that (the very responsive developer says that) it will be rolled into the next release, Beta29. At that point you’ll just need enable “Beta” functionality in the control panel (which most of you probably have already anyway).

http://forums.blacktree.com/viewtopic.php?p=4827#4827

Updated post to indicate Alpha requirement in B28.

Awesome! I’ll be on the lookout. Thanks!

FYI: As of beta 29 it DOES work in beta mode.

Thanks, Steven. I had amended the post the other day to reflect that. :)

I need to revisit this post with a sort-of head scratcher: since B29 came out, I’ve been trying this demo you posted. couldn’t get it to work.
invoke QS “.” [type something here] tab and “app” tab and [filename to append to] enter BEEP! nothing happens to the text file

i’d been creating my todo file in textedit. the .rtf didn’t take it, so I renamed to .txt still no dice. so based on your screen shot, and your most recent post (mentioned your todos open in bbedit), i opened the text file in SubEthaEdit (my favorite code editor) and saced it from w/in SubEthaEdit.
tried your process again and it works now!

so not sure why that happens the way it does, but for all those out there possibly trying it in textedit as I had, there’s your fix.

Nick: make sure you have selected “Beta” mode in the preferences and relaunch QS. Email if that doesn’t work for you and we’ll fix you up, cool?

I’m also seeing the same issue as Nick - running B29 with Beta mode set in prefs, the Append Text action appears in the drop down, but only succeeds in appending text to certain files. So far, I’ve noticed that files created in BBEdit, or simply with ‘touch’ at the command line work fine - but it won’t add text to files created in TextEdit or sync’d from my handheld using NoteTaker.

Its sort of fun when it works, but for now I’m sticking with CMD-Tab.

As a LaunchBar user I got all envious after reading this post. In case anybody besides me cares, you can do something similar in LB, though it’s less slick:

1. invoke LB (cmd-space)
2. locate your textfile (as if you were going to open it)
3. press cmd-shift-T (“Run Terminal Command with…”)
4. type echo “coffee” >> and hit return

Is there any reason why I can’t type in the name of a Word doc, say, in the basic QS window and have that document appear immediately in QS results window? I realize I can get to it eventually by right arrowing through folders, but why can’t I do it directly? Moreover, although I can get QS to get to other file types immediately—html files that I’ve saved to my desktop—it doesn’t seem to want to look for Word documents on the desktop, or anywhere else. Any thoughts?

Where do things stand with this now? I don’t have SubEthaEdit, and I’m trying to get this to happen. We’re now at Beta 35, and it still won’t append. What gives?

(Confidential to Merlin: would you please email me when you reply?)

Yeah, it absolutely works, Molly; I use it a hundred times a day. :) Not sure why no worky for you. It’s independent of the editor you use.

At what point is this not working in your setup?

I’m having the problem Nick describes above:

invoke QS “.” [type something here] tab and “app” tab and [filename to append to] enter BEEP! nothing happens to the text file

I’d like to be using rich text mode in text edit. I just get “beep” and nothing else.

@Molly:

Is the file a .txt file or a .rtf or .rtfd file in TextEdit?

Not on a mac right now, but I think you can only append to plain text. That could be causing your problem.

hey, thank you! that worked. yay.

I’m having the same problem that Molly was having, but it still doesn’t work for files that are .txt and associated with Subethaedit - I just get the BEEP!

I’ve been trying to use this with Remind, but the files are named .reminders-other and .reminders-birthday in ~/. Created and edited using CLI Vi in the terminal.

No go.

Adam-Yeah, it seems like some folks are having trouble with files that don’t have suffixes.

I’ll see what I can find out.

Just wanted to note that the same thing was happening here. I’m trying to use it with reminder, also - I have a couple of live reminder files (with .txt extensions) in a non-hidden directory, but appending text gives me the same beep that the above folks get.

The same problem happens with several other files, including ones not associated with smultron (as my reminder files are) - however, touching a blank .txt file DOES work.

Re-associating the files with textedit does in fact make them accessible again. So it apparently still does have something to do with file associations. Best of luck.

Has there been any progress on this issue? I too am gettign the beep. I have beta enabled but no luck.

Seems like it’s usually because…

1. it’s not a plain text file, or
2. the text file lacks a .txt suffix

Either of those help at all?

Yeah it think I got it. I had to save a text file from Word and then open and save it in TextEdit. Now it seems to be working fine.

I noticed on the screenshot of your todo list that you prioritize tasks and organize them accordingly. Is there a way to tell QS where to append to within a text file? Or do you just add it to the file and then organize it manually?

Thanks for the help. This site has been fantastically useful and entertaining.

for you remind users:

ln .reminders reminders.txt

This is creating a hardlink to your .reminders file - you now have two ways to get at the same data, and any change to one will be reflected in the other.

Do this and you can append to reminders.txt and remind will work accordingly since it will find the same changes in .reminders (since it is the same exact file).

(For all you UNIX geeks (like myself) who ask “why not a symlink?” - Quicksilver doesn’t seem to like them and doesn’t register them in its catalog)