Stamp: 06 November 2008 | 19 Comments | Back to Previous Page
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Many have tasted the increase in productivity by using Quicksilver as their Application launcher. Some even built more Quicksilver skins to make it look nicer. But only a few realized that there are still more Quicksilver actions available for them to use.
As one of the Quicksilver's big fans, here I am with full enthusiastic, presenting default actions and cool tricks that you can do with Quicksilver.
Default Actions
Listed below, 40 default Quicksilver actions.
Files
| 1 | Open | Open Selected Item |
| 2 | Open With… | Open Selected File with Selectable Application |
| 3 | Always Open Type With | Assign Default Quicksilver Application for Selected File Type |
| 4 | Reveal | Open File's Enclosing Folder |
| 5 | Rename… | Rename File |
| 6 | Copy To… | Copy File to Selected Destination |
| 7 | Move to Trash | Delete Selected Files |
| 8 | Move To… | Move Selected File to Designated Folder |
| 9 | Delete (Erase) | Permanently Delete Selected File |
| 10 | Get Info | Show Get Info Pane of Selected File |
| 11 | Get File URL | Get Complete URL to the Selected File |
| 12 | Get File Path | Get Finder Path to the Selected File |
| 13 | Get File Location | Get Location of Selected File |
| 14 | Make Link In… | Create Link of Selected File in Selectable Place |
| 15 | Make Alias In… | Create Alias of Selected File in Selectable Place |
Applications
| 16 | Relaunch | Quit and Open Application Again |
| 17 | Toggle Application | Hide/Unhide Selected Application |
| 18 | Activate | Bring Selected Application to Front Window |
| 19 | Quit Others | Quit Other Applications |
| 20 | Hide Others | Hide Other Applications |
| 21 | Quit | Quit Selected Application |
| 22 | Hide | Hide Selected Application |
| 23 | Open at Login | Add Application to Start Up Item |
| 24 | Do Not Open at Login | Remove Application from Start Up Item |
Disk
| 25 | Eject | Eject Selected Disk |
Folders
| 26 | New Folder… | Create New Folder Inside Selected Folder |
| 27 | Make New… | Clone Item on Selected Folder |
| 28 | Get Info | Show Get Info Pane of Selected Folder |
Text
| 29 | Large Type | Display the Huge Text |
| 30 | Speak Text (Say) | Echo Words in the Text |
| 31 | Create File… | Create File from the Text |
| 32 | Type Text | Type Text on Current Working Place |
| 33 | Run as AppleScript | Run Text as AppleScript Command |
| 34 | Display Dialog | Display Text as Quicksilver Dialog |
URLs
| 35 | Open URL | Open Defined URL with Default Web Browser |
| 36 | Open URL With… | Open Defined URL with Selectable Web Browser |
| 37 | Run Javascript | Run Selected Javascript |
| 38 | Compose New Message to Defined Recipient (mailto:xxx@xxx.com) |
Catalog
| 39 | Show Entry in Catalog | Show Selected Item in Quicksilver Catalog |
| 40 | Rescan Catalog Entry | Rescan Quicksilver Searchable Items |
Grab All Links
If you're one of the web addicts out there, you will find this trick very useful, which you can grab all the links on the designated site url by only typing several letters.
Here's how to do it:
- Open Quicksilver
- Type . [dot] followed by the site url, e.g. www.usingmac.com
- Press Escape and you will see a big blue globe is selected
- Hit the → and wait a while for Quicksilver to generate all the links
- Use ↓ to see all the links
The Comma Tricks: Select Multiple Items
Some Quicksilver Skins, such as Bezel and Primer, support selection of multiple items. After selecting one item, you can press Comma and you will be able to select other item. This will help you batch process several items at the same time.
Universal Trigger
For shortcut fans, there is a module inside Quicksilver to help you assign universal shortcut to perform your Quicksilver action with single keystrokes. Usually, I use this to trigger my Application, e.g. Command-Control-Option-P to open Photoshop.
Here's how to do it:
- Open Quicksilver
- Go to Quicksilver Preferences Pane by using keystrokes Command-Comma
- Select Triggers section
- Choose Custom Triggers
- Find the add (+) button near the bottom pane
- Add Hotkey and assign new trigger for it
- Your new trigger should now appear on the Custom Triggers Pane
Browse Hidden Items
When you're browsing with Quicksilver, you can hold down Option key to reveal all hidden items.
With these many Quicksilver tricks, I am pretty much sure that you will get a productivity boost in the very near future.
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19 Comments
Alex
Thaaaaaaaanks Wendy! This was very useful! The "Grab all links" trick is preatty neat.. and the comma one is veeery useful! hm.. I'm having a problem with a command though: The "Speak Text (Say)". There isn't this option in the actions menu.. even for txt files. How do I do it?
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Wendy
You're welcome, Alex. The Speak Text one can be used only with typed text (put . (dot) and type text to Quicksilver).
It's really fun to let your Mac speak the text, especially when you're inside public library. He he…
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Alex
Hm.. I still can't get it to work! I tried typing a random word (by putting dot before tping), then pressed TAB to go to the actions menu, and in that menu there isn't the Speak Text option... I'm thinking maybe it's a QuickSilver plug-in I'm missing... do you happen to know which one?
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Wendy
You need to activate it first by going to Quicksilver Preferences Pane, under Preferences section and then choose Actions from the sidebar followed by selecting Text as the type.
Then search for Speak Text (Say) and activate it. Hope this will work now :)
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Matt
My two favorite custom triggers (I think they require plugins for File Compression and Mail.app) are Command-Option-Z: Create ZIP archive Command-Option-M: Direct mail to someone in the Address Book
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jason
Matt, how do you get the Direct Mail one set up? I can't get it to work, it keeps wanting to mail Mail.app to my recipient...
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Howard
Great list. Check out the Quicksilver Quick Reference for more. The next version will list the Run Javascript action. The Quicksilver User Manual has lots of tips. The Make New... action listed above works with templates and takes a little to set it up, search for it in the manual
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Michael Wilde
If you want to see some of the power of Quicksilver and many of the features Wendy is talking about, I did a cool video on "Mac Productivity with Quicksilver".. and to all your friends who don't know what quicksilver is.. people have told me this is a pretty effective tutorial.
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Jay
I love Quicksilver. It's like Photoshop in that you can use it for a long time and learn something new about using it everyday. My only complaint is that it crashes so dang often.
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Alex
It worked! Thanks Wendy!
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Am
How do I use these commands? I write "Open" but nothing happens.
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ntopics
These tips are great. I will start trying them out soon. Love to get tips from the best! Thanks from tony
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jonz
isn't the 1-40 list sorta useless? you can figure it all out by right clicking in QS. makes me think this is all just SEO-bait.
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Matt
Jason, you have to use proxies. Set up a trigger that is set for the current object selected and use the direct mail action. It should use Mail.app by default.
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Mark
Thanks for sharing! :)
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chad
How about the colour combo for your QS interface? It's slick, and I'd love to bite your style.
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chris
I have heard lots about Quicklsilver's stability/instability in Leopard. It was running really slow for me when I upgraded and so I have been hesitant to reinstall it on my new Intel Mac with Leopard although I certainly miss the functionality! What is the most stable way to run Quicksilver on an Intel Mac with Leopard? Would you recommend it?
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Chris Cairns
use B54 version build 3815 not as stable as a software should be but its the most stable on leopard
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andy
how come i don't have the delete option on my quicksilver i only have move to trash. i'm using B54 3815 on a leopard macbook pro
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