Is QuickSilver dead? [closed]

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After having read that QuickSilver was no longer supported by BlackTree and has since gone open source, I noticed more and more people switching to/suggesting other app launchers i.e. Buttler and LaunchBar.

Is QuickSilver still relevant? Has anyone experienced any instability since it's gone open source?

Johst answered 20/9, 2008 at 5:45 Comment(2)

Sorry to be pedantic, but this is not a programming-related question. – Lust 20/9, 2008 at 6:14

You're right! Questions about generating passwords are much more related to programming. – Johst 20/9, 2008 at 6:28

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Quicksilver is still alive and well. There are at least a couple of endeavours to keep it going, up to date and restructure and clean up the code base. Check out the code from Google Code.

As for launching apps, not even Spotlight comes close to how fast it is in Quicksilver.

Of course the real joy of Quicksilver is past just launching apps and using triggers, scripts and the many plugins. My workflow goes to a new level with Quicksilver. I'd be lost without it.

Update: Since posting this I switched and use LaunchBar for a while. This was during the time that QuickSilver seemed to be almost close to death. Loved LaunchBar and didn't need to switch back to QuickSilver. Recently though, I have left LaunchBar and have been using Alfred. I would highly recommend it. For me, LaunchBar and Alfred are pretty close. But, aesthetically and operationally, Alfred suits my tastes more than LaunchBar.

Jotunheim answered 20/9, 2008 at 12:16 Comment(4)

Unfortunately Quicksilver hangs and fails so often that it's not reliable enough to use it in my daily work anymore. – Sharpfreeze 5/8, 2009 at 23:26

I see that others in this thread don't have such problems, maybe it's just caused by some broken plugin... – Sharpfreeze 5/8, 2009 at 23:27

Yes, I noticed that it breks/quits sometime. But the productivity it brings in can't matched by any other application. – Mcmahon 22/10, 2009 at 10:5

code has been moved to github.com/quicksilver/quicksilver and a new home page is live qsapp.com – Aerobiosis 24/2, 2012 at 8:33

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It still runs stably for me. I would be miserable without it.

And yeah, I would recommend switching if you only use it for an "app launcher", but launching apps is like white belt Quicksilver. I don't know of any program that lets you simply tell your computer what to do in such a simple way. And even Spotlight won't remember the keys you usually type to identify an object or action.

Ubiquity for Firefox is pretty good, but it's locked inside a browser...

Bilateral answered 20/9, 2008 at 6:3 Comment(0)

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I haven't used OS X in a while, but the impression I get is that Spotlight has largely negated the reason for using a launcher in the first place. Quicksilver has some cool things like direct objects built in, but by and large it was mostly used for launching apps, and Spotlight can now do that just as fast.

Gallium answered 20/9, 2008 at 6:4 Comment(3)

Actually Quicksilver on my 1.4 GHz Mac Mini is faster than Spotlight Leopard an my Mac Pro with 4 Cores. – Heterogony 23/9, 2008 at 18:27

Actually both are complimentary in my opinion...to search files/mails I use Spotlight and for everything else I use QS – Mcmahon 22/10, 2009 at 10:6

Spotlight takes several seconds to find even common applications on my machine. Of course, having 1.8 million files doesn't help. Quicksilver meanwhile gets me where I'm going in a half a second or less most of the time. – Dismember 1/4, 2010 at 3:4

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I also gave up on QuickSilver for a while when Leopard came out. I tried Spotlight. I gave up on that and returned. QuickSilver is much faster, and it does so much more that I missed.

I have not noticed any instability (Leopard) running B54 (3815) - it looks like the open-source version is B56A3 though.

QuickSilver is awesome when integrated with Parallels/VMWare Fusion to launch Windows apps too. You don't get the deep integration as with the various OSX plugins, but it definitely helps the dual-OS usability.

Martines answered 20/9, 2008 at 6:51 Comment(0)

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I love QS and agree that it is so productive that I am willing to put up with its flaws. I usually have to launch it several times before it gets up and running, though. To fix that issue I created a little quicksilver launcher app.

Hoenack answered 21/4, 2011 at 16:5 Comment(0)

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I use quicksilver all day (on latest version of OSX); and no spotlight doesn't negate it... quicksilver is still much faster for launching applications.

Jonathanjonathon answered 20/9, 2008 at 6:31 Comment(0)

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After Quicksilver stopped being updated for a while, I migrated to LaunchBar. Quicksilver had some occasional crashes and could be very resource intensive. LaunchBar has largely the same functionality without these problems. It is not free though.

Lingo answered 22/9, 2008 at 12:46 Comment(0)

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I didn't know Quicksilver wasn't being as actively supported. It does all I need it to do at the moment though.

Just installed LaunchBar but I can't set it to be Option + Space to "launch", I can't deal with it not using that, I'm too use to Spotlight on Command + Space and Ctrl + Space is for VS 2008 :P

Electrolyse answered 22/9, 2008 at 13:6 Comment(0)

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The one thing I do miss was using QS to quickly send attachments via email to people in my address book. Highlighting the file, activate QS, Current Selection tab Mail to.. tab Person's name was just awesome.

After the 10.5.5 update, I find Spotlight to solve 99% of the things I originally used Quicksilver for and the speed is nearly identical now. Spotlight is invaluable for finding information you may not remember where or when you last saw it. Unless a major rewrite of QS causes me to reevaluate it again, I suspect Spotlight will be all I need and use.

Labradorite answered 22/9, 2008 at 22:9 Comment(1)

Well, you never have really used Quicksilver then. Tell me: How do you tell spotlight to take the selected folder in Finder, make a ZIP file of it, then mount a server and finally move the file there - and this all WITHOUT even touching your mouse? – Heterogony 24/9, 2008 at 11:45

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There are a couple branches out there that are active, I think I'm currently running B56 and loving it. I have too many scripts, triggers, objects that I rely on daily...I would be lost without it.

Winder answered 26/9, 2008 at 18:35 Comment(0)

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It's 201 and it's still running strong!

Acclamation answered 10/9, 2010 at 8:28 Comment(0)

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QuickSilver is still alive, and well.

You can find the hub-website for all activities at http://qsapp.com/
GitHub (used for source code and issues tracking) is at https://github.com/quicksilver/Quicksilver

The latest version, B58 (3841) is quite stable on Snow Leopard (10.6.6).

Vidovic answered 7/3, 2011 at 17:14 Comment(0)

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No. It's back, baby.

Lemons answered 16/11, 2011 at 22:54 Comment(0)

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