Quicksilver

Quicksilver is a must have for any Mac user. If you’re like me, you enjoy a clean looking desktop and dock. My dock has only the applications I use on a day to day basis and my Desktop has my Hard disk and iDisk, nothing more. My screen now looks great. However, I’m stuck having to launch the Finder and navigate to the Applications directory every time I need to launch an application I use less often.

Quicksilver races in to the rescue. It looks great and is very useful too. When you aren’t using it, Quicksilver stays hidden. When you need it, hit Control + Space. (This is Configurable.) Up pops the nifty little Quicksilver display.Now you have the ability to type in the first few letters of the Application you would like to launch. It also remembers the last application you launched. As you can see here, the last application I launched with Quicksilver was iTunes.

One of the amazing things about this little program is you don’t need to type the entire application name, only enough letters to make that application unique. Using Itunes as an example, just type “itu” and then hit enter. Because I don’t have any other applications with “itu” in the first three letter, Quicksilver knows to launch iTunes.

Not only does Quicksilver launch applications, it can manage applications without ever having to bring them to the front of the screen. Rather than hitting the return key to launch the application wait a second or so to bring up additional options about the application, for example after selecting iTunes you are presented with many options.The most relevant being…

• Browse Genres
• Browse Artist
• Browse Albums

Now you can use the arrow keys to navigate around. After selecting browse artist, you’re able to type an artist name. Once the artist pops up, hit the right arrow key to move on to the albums by this artist. You can drill all the way down to a single song or you can continue to your play options at the album or artist level.

Once you find your selection, hit tab to select what you want to do. You can then choose to ether play the song (or album) immediately, or choose to play this song next in your party shuffle play list. I like this option because it marks your song to play next, without interrupting your current song.

Even if you don’t use all the features built into this application, you’ll love the ability to launch any application on your Mac with a few quick keystrokes. I don’t know what I would have done without it, other than clutter up my desktop.

As you can see from my first screen shot my desktop is very clean. It makes my iMac look that much more appealing. I love the clean look while maintaining the usability and functionality.

Note: When you install Quicksilver, remember to install all the plug ins for the applications you want to be able to select like I described in iTunes. Here’s a link so you can download Quicksilver and give it a shot. Keep in mind I only scratched the surface of what this application is capable of. I encourage you to explore this application further. You’ll be amazed at this application’s abilities.

• http://www.blacktree.com/?quicksilver – Additional information.