Hack Attack: A beginner’s guide to Quicksilver - Lifehacker

Adam Pash has written a terrific introduction to Quicksilver that I recommend for folks who are still scratching their heads about what all the fuss is about.

Part of the challenge is the “layers of the onion” problem. There’s no explanation of what Quicksilver does that’s at once brief, accurate, exhaustive, and easy for new users to immediately grok; it really does reveal its delights over time, through repeated usage, and in proportion to your willingness to learn and experiment. Adam does a good job of acquainting new folks with the basic idea and the setup, then he walks through a few of the many bits of fu that have made this app the phenomenon that it is.

Quicksilver can be used to launch files and applications, manipulate data, and seamlessly plug into almost any application on your Mac so that you can perform actions as soon as you think of them in a few short keystrokes.

Also from our own archives, here are a few popular Quicksilver items from the extended 43 Folders family (including 4 video tutorials). And seriously: if you really still don’t see why QS is different, do watch the videos; writing about Quicksilver is like singing about a magic trick.

Popular 43 Folders posts on Quicksilver

Some of these could use a good tech edit, given their age and the evolving nature of QS, but they contain plenty of information to point you in the right direction.

• Quicksilver: Grab a copy and play along at home - “[At] the heart of it, all launchers do at least one similar thing: they provide a single, intelligent interface for intuitively accessing nested information and functionality.”
• Quicksilver: Setup & Troubleshooting - “Since there’s new folks moving to Quicksilver all the time, I thought I’d post some more starter tips if you’re following along here.”
• Quicksilver’s Append: An updated appreciation + Robert’s troubleshooter - “To review, for you new kids, Quicksilver, when properly configured (more on that in a minute), will let you add a line of text to any text file on your Mac.”
• 5 handy Quicksilver triggers - “Simply put, triggers let you associate a custom key combination or mouse gesture with any command you’d otherwise access via conventional methods…”
• Six cool Quicksilver plugins you might not know - “Just a quickie to bubble up some novel Quicksilver plugins that are new-ish or even a bit esoteric.”

Merlin’s Quicksilver Video Tutorials

• MacBreak 12: Quicksilver - “Leo Laporte and Merlin Mann show you how to turbocharge your interactions with your data and applications using Quicksilver.”
• MacBreak 17: Quicksilver Tips - “Merlin Mann’s back sharing more productivity tips with Leo using Quicksilver.” This segment focuses on how to control iTunes via Quicksilver.
• 006: HOWTO: Quicksilver: The Comma Trick - “Learn how to create a temporary stack in Quicksilver, so you can do stuff to (or with) a big pile of objects all at one time.”
• 008: HOWTO: Quicksilver: Application Menus - “Learn how to access drop-down menus in every application via Quicksilver.”

Our favorite Quicksilver resources from elsewhere

• quicksilver:tutorials [docs] - This is the mother lode. The best Quicksilver meta-resource anywhere.
• A Better OS X In Just 10 Minutes - Dan’s post is what got me to try Quicksilver
• Howard Melman’s ‘Quicksilver User’s Guide’ - A wonderful piece of PDF documentation. As far as I know, this is the closest thing there is to an end-user Quicksilver manual, all in one place.
• Howard Melman’s ‘Quicksilver Quick Reference’ - An unbelievably useful PDF cheat sheet of most all the Quicksilver commands in one place. Print. Post. Refer. Learn.
• Quicksilver Changes Everything at The Apple Blog - Another good entry point