I ♥ appent to a text file. I’ve got a few in the notes folder in my iPod that are in the quicksilver catalogue (with a .txt extension so the iPod can read them) and just keep dumping everything I think of into them. And because they’ve got the .txt extension the iPod can read them as regular notes files… no paper wasted!

My problem is that Quicksilver appends a newline and then the text. Most of my text files end with a newline, so QS messes them up. Ideally it would check if the last character of the file is a newline and, in that case, append the text and then a newline.

I am still living in OS X 10.3.9, which means living with QS b36 (1C39). Even with Enable advanced features checked, and set to Beta, I am not finding the Text Manipulation Actions plugin on the Download More Plug-Ins web page. Is there an extra trick to finding/using this plug-in if you’re on the older version of QS?

As an alternative, if you use DEVONthink, is to enable the “Services Menu” support in QuickSilver, then do this:

1. Invoke QuickSilver
2. Type your text or whatever
3. DEVONthink / Take Plain Note

It might also be worth pointing out/reminding folk that you can bring up a file in Quicksilver, then select Append/Prepend Text, then tab to the next pane and enter your text (i.e. the other way around to the method detailed in the original hint).

A tiny and/or obvious point, maybe, but I only noticed Quicksilver could work this way recently, and have found it very useful, especially if I’ve just used the Create File action: the new file created appears when you next invoke QS, and I had been hitting ‘.’ to enter text, selecting Pre/Append Text and navigating to my new file, when I could’ve been adding to it immediately (I hope this is useful to someone and not just more evidence that I don’t tinker with QS as much as I should!)

Aha! Exactly, the post I’ve been waiting for. I had been trying out Quicksilver (b45) for about a week and couldn’t find the Text manipulation plug-in anywhere. After reading this post, I reinstalled everything, still no luck. Turns out I needed to ‘Get more plug-ins’ (select Quicksilver -> Get More Plug-ins… or cmd+~) from the Application menu. Suddenly I had a huge list of available plugins, including Text manipulation. Finally, I can append to my todo lists from QS!

“Ideally it would check if the last character of the file is a newline and, in that case, append the text and then a newline.”

Okey dokey.

Y’all are killing me. I keep trying to Invoike QS while at work (on my Windows machine!)

Now that I have it working I’m fiending for it at work….

Ctrl + Alt + Everyone buy Apple + Enter

Alcor said: Okey dokey.

Now that’s what I call service.

One small caveat that I have experienced is that the file to which you are appending must have been created by an application that “marks” the file as text. That is, if you were a unix geek in a previous life (like myself) and you’re still creating .txt files in vim and xemacs, Quicksilver’s append will not work for you. You need to be creating files in a Mac-aware text editor for this to work properly. (At least, it hasn’t worked for me—OS X 10.3.9 and whatever QS last runs on that.)

Merlin: Now that’s what I call service.

For sure. I guess I should have filed a bug report back in the bronze age instead of just forgetting about it for a year.

Thanks, Alcor.

[…] QuickSilver is an adaptive search application that can help getting things done by learning what you like to do. It can Launch programs and then learn which ones you open the most and give those to you first. The cool thing is that any type of object that you "Drag" into it can perform a series of "actions" and then learn from them. A great application of this adaptive searching can be found over at 43Folders where you can take any text you find or are typing and have it add that to a categorized TXT file. […]

Nathan — I haven’t noticed that to be true on my setup, currently 10.4.3, if that makes any difference. Which isn’t to say this isn’t an additional item for the list, with the extra rider that it may only apply to pre-Tiger systems. What I’d like to hear is if there are any other folks experiencing this particular issue and what their setup is.

I might just be stupid, but like Alderete I can’t find the plug-in. Exact same problem. Please help the uninitiated. I’m geeky enough to want to be able to do this, but nok geeky enough to figure out how…

Well the problem solved itself half-way, because the append command is there without the plugin (OS 10.3.9 and QS b36). However, nothing happens to the text file, so now it appears I have the same problem as Nathan? I used Textedit to create the file, and it has the right suffix (.txt).

Anja, my experience with b36 is that you can’t append to a file that’s currently open — are you creating a file and then trying to append to it right away? Note that your editor can be open, just not the file itself. I’m not sure if the same applies to the Tiger version, but it is consistent under Panther with several different editors.

Nathan, I’m not sure you’re right about Mac-aware editors. I’ve been creating files with touch and appending to them successfully, and I can’t think of a more plain-vanilla way to create a file than that. (In fact, since I haven’t been able to hunt down the elusive Create File QS functionality, my unseemly love for touch has been renewed.)

[…] Quicksilver%u2019s Append: An updated appreciation Robert%u2019s troubleshooter | 43 Folders […]

My TextEdit seems to add a .rtf extension instead of a .txt. The append feature doesn’t seem to work with an .rtf file. Does anyone know how to convert to an .rtf? It doesn’t seem to be an option under “save as”

Thanks, Steve

Steve — .rtf is TextEdit’s default format, but it can produce .txt plain-text files as well. You can convert a given .rtf file by going to Format menu and choosing ‘Make Plain Text’. This will convert the file and change it to an Untitled document that will need saving.

If you want to have TextEdit default to plain text format, you can switch it under Preferences.

Steve, you have two options. You can create plain text on a file by file basis using Format> Make Plain Text or you can set TextEdit to always create new files in plain text in Preferences> New Document> Format. This drove me crazy when I was still using TextEdit for my web designs. Thankfully, I discovered SubEthaEdit and TextWrangler.

Damn, Robert beat me to it.

Okay, I’m on B36 and CANNOT find a text plugin at the Blacktree page. And after trying several times, with a .txt file, I cannot append, though sometimes Quicksilver teases me by coming up with the word append.

What am I doing wrong? argggg

Amy — hmmm, interesting! I’ve tried using touch also, but it doesn’t work for me. I wonder what the difference between your setup and my setup is? OS X 10.3.9, QS beta36…my list of plugins and versions folllows:

• Apple Address Book, v82
• Bezel Interface, v82
• Camino, v0.5.0
• Clipboard, v90
• Dict Action, v1.1.4
• Extra Scripts, v82
• Finder, v0.5.0
• HotKey Triggers, v81
• iTunes, v176
• Primer, v183
• Safari, vE9
• Web Search, v65

The only other weird thing I might have done to my QS install is to change the hotkey; Ctrl-Option-Space triggers QS for me (the default interferes with Emacs).

Amy, I closed it - so (unfortunately) that’s not the problem. I’ll try again with different files, maybe it just needs some time to adjust (who knows?). But thanks anyway!

Okay, so I’m a relative QS newbie, but here’s a question: Why do I get only the option to search when I invoke my text file and then invoke the append to or prepend to command? Any ideas?

Thanks for the help converting an rtf to a .txt. Can you append to an open text edit file? It only seems to work for me if the file is closed.

?45. No Text Manipulation Actions (+) listed under More Plug ins. :(

It works! It’s great! Thank you.

I am not a Mac person, and hence do not know the first thing about how Macs work, let alone how Quicksilver works. But the idea of easily appending to files struck me as useful…then I noticed the comment:

“…and you’re still creating .txt files in vim and xemacs, Quicksilver’s append will not work for you.”

I had actually been wondering if XEmacs’ ChangeLog mode (C-x 4 a/add-change-log-entry) could be modified to do something along the same lines…

A quick scan of the docs says:

add-change-log-entry &optional WHOAMI FILE-NAME OTHER-WINDOW NEW-ENTRY

So I guess you’d just need to make some sort of binding to add-change-log-entry that prompted for your filename. Or even add a menu that listed you most popular todo-list files.

The advantage/disadvantages:

Changelog adds a username and date stamp (plus or minus?), and, as far as I can tell it always prepends.

The New-entry field is, unfortunately, just a boolean that determines whether to add the next entry as a separate record (complete with its own date stamp) or to add it to the existing text under the current date record.

…but since (X)Emacs is highly versatile and programmable, I’m sure these things could be worked around with some clever scripting.

P.S. I would love to see some more Windows- or *nix-oriented stuff on 43F - I keep reading about tools that sound immensely useful, then find that they are Mac-specific :}

[…] Don’t forget to look at 43folders for lots of Quicksilver tips. […]