Quicksilver Development
sclough
Quicksilver alive and well on SL and even improving the speed in the
process. I'm not a dev, but I greatly appreciate it. Those thanks
being offered, I wondered if there was any sort of roadmap or future
plans for QS. QSB seemed to be the successor of sorts, but it seems
like development and activity on QSB is stalled somewhat, though
several people use it. Alfred is getting some momentum, but it doesn't
show any signs of incorporating near the functionality that QS can
offer but seems focused around just search. Launchbar is fast, stable,
and has a lot of functionality though it is awkward to use in my
opinion when compared with QS.
All that leads me to wonder if QS has a long term future. I'm not
trying to be negative, I'm just wondering what's in the heads of the
developers or if anyone is putting any thought into QS's long term
future. Obviously a lot of the plugins are aging though the majority
still work well, and I wonder if QS will keep up with other solutions
in the long term.
Again, this is a post for curiousity's sake for someone that is very
grateful for the work that has been done. I'm just wondering if I need
to prepare my mind that this brilliant piece of software that I still
depend on every day won't be around forever :^)...
Patrick Robertson
jitsion
to like this)
I have switched to Launchbar but as sclough puts it, its awkward
(counter intuitive) to use, but there are things broken w QS in snow
leopard that's just crucial to me.
perhaps hiring a proper dev (or pay a freelance developer in the QS
community) to do this would be e best way to sustain QS.
On Jun 8, 7:00 am, Patrick Robertson <robertson.patr...@gmail.com>
wrote:
>
> I'm gonna try and keep QS going as long as I can (hopefully with the help of
> the other few who've worked on QS in the past few months - it's seemed to
> work pretty well).
>
> I've been watching QSB closely, and was thinking that I'd try and help
> maintain QS until QSB overtakes it. Alfred doesn't really look that good to
> me - just an app launcher.
>
> As selfish as it may sound, I'm probably going to try and keep QS updated
> and working for me. As everyone knows with QS - YMMV, and if it doesn't work
> 100% for other people I don't think I'm gonna be able to have the time to
> help out too much (it's time more than anything. There's plenty of QS <3)
>
> So all in all - I hope to use QS indefinitely until something better turns
> up, or Apple decide to do a major rewrite of Mac OS (e.g. move to a DOS
> system or something... :P)
>
Rob McBroom
> Is it possible to do a paid model for QS ? (some people is not going
> to like this)
Based on years of comments, I think a vast majority of users would support this idea, but I don’t know if it would even be possible. The original developer (Alcor) did most of the work to date, and he always refused to charge. I imagine we’d need his permission to make it a paid app, and I doubt we’d get it. Plus, who would we be paying? There’s a collection of volunteers that come and go and they contribute varying amounts. I’m sure donations would be acceptable, but an individual developer would have to get enough in donations (month after month after month) to safely quit his day job. I think the motivation is already there for a lot of developers, but the time isn’t. Money isn’t going to encourage what we already wish we could do. It would have to replace the thing that’s taking all of a dev’s time away.
Sorry to be such a Negative Nancy.
> I have switched to Launchbar but as sclough puts it, its awkward
> (counter intuitive) to use, but there are things broken w QS in snow
> leopard that's just crucial to me.
Like what? Which version are you using? I’m still on ß54 and everything works except scopes for triggers and the Preferences window. Scopes were broken in 10.5 so I’ve learned to live without them for the most part, and after 6 years, I don’t need to go tweak preferences.
--
Rob McBroom
<http://www.skurfer.com/>
Eris
who didn't support the idea didn't say anything.
To the previous poster:
> ... there are things broken w QS in snow leopard that's just crucial to me.
File a bug report at GitHub; the developers can't fix something they
aren't aware of.
danewb
and still use it more than any other software I own on a regular
basis. I have tried LaunchBar and Google and have always come back
home to QS. I have put up with and am still willing to put up with
things that no longer work... it's still one of the most valuable
tools I own. I would be willing to pay for it if it came to that. For
what my humble opinion is worth.
Ajay Goel
willing to pay for it if it wasn't free.
Tim
Patrick Robertson
sclough
see that as a viable solution. For those that have worked on it a bit,
every now and then I go to the source and see some issues listed and
enhancements requested. Is there any active dev work going on, even if
it's minor or is dev work just for when Apple does a major OS update
or something that breaks QS?
I, for one, would love to see Quick Look integration. The ability to
use quick look before selecting something is one of the few Launchbar
features that I really liked that is not in QS. Speed improvements
would also be welcome as, every now and then, QS hesitates or seems
stuck when I'm typing something new.
I'm assuming full Spotlight integration (like QSB) was pretty much
dropped and that the Spotlight module is the only QS - Spotlight
integration planned.
On Jun 11, 2:05 pm, Patrick Robertson <robertson.patr...@gmail.com>
wrote:
> the current 'voluntary' developers out to develop and maintain the app
> outright.
>
> The only alternative is to find someone new who may be willing to take up
> the app for the money - but then this is no easy task.
>
> The biggest problem with Quicksilver is its complexity and lack of
> documentation. Those of us who've been trying to develop it recently now all
> have a fair idea of what going on (most probably each in a different area)
> but getting someone new to figure it out is going to take a great deal of
> time anyway.
>
> Probably the best solution I could make is to learn Cocoa and help out
> yourself - Quicksilver was probably the first 'real' application I started
> developing for and I've been learning the whole way. There's no reason why
> anyone else can't do it and help out as well :)
>
> Patrick
>
Rob McBroom
> Is there any active dev work going on, even if it's minor or is dev work just for when Apple does a major OS update or something that breaks QS?
My sense is that there are a few devs out there that are planning to look at this or that as soon as they have time, but none of them currently have time. I’ll let you decide whether or not that’s “active”. :)
> I, for one, would love to see Quick Look integration.
There is a Quick Look action someone wrote a while back (it’s just an AppleScript), but I agree that true integration would be nice. Specifically:
* Being able to call up and dismiss Quick Look using the space bar (and I guess ⌘Y too for consistency)
* Being able to leave Quick Look active as you select different items (as you can in the Finder)
> I'm assuming full Spotlight integration (like QSB) was pretty much dropped and that the Spotlight module is the only QS - Spotlight integration planned.
Other than being able to add things to the catalog using a Spotlight query and launch Spotlight searches from Quicksilver (which are already there), what sort of integration are you looking for?
sclough
I've just noticed the newer projects like QSB use spotlight for their
index. I'm assuming this overall reduces resources since QSB doesn't
have to maintain indexes and can just rely on spotlight. My
understanding is that QS will use spotlight to gather the data if you
use the plugin and set up sources, but it still has to manage it's own
index, thus providing a place where spotlight would add some
efficiency. Of course, I'm talking a little out of my league and
guessing how the software really works, so this could be a non-issue.
Q.P.
do is rely even more on Google (QSB). I already have so many services
with Google, including my mobile phone that I refuse to add any more
-- especially anything that involves indexing or sharing indexes on my
personal computer with Google. That's my two cents.
Rob McBroom
> My understanding is that QS will use spotlight to gather the data if you
> use the plugin and set up sources, but it still has to manage it's own
> index, thus providing a place where spotlight would add some
> efficiency. Of course, I'm talking a little out of my league and
> guessing how the software really works, so this could be a non-issue.
It might be nice if the Spotlight plug-in used NSMetadataQuery instead of just calling the `mdfind` command in the background (which seems hacky), but that's internal stuff that isn't likely to affect the user experience much.
As for how the index is kept, trust me, we want to keep the internal Quicksilver copy. It allows things to have more than one “type”. Plus a lot of plug-ins have a need to index things that Spotlight wouldn't show (such as individual lines in a file, Cyberduck bookmarks, FireFox bookmarks, etc). Most importantly, it doesn't include everything like Spotlight does, which allows it to be more responsive.
jitsion
I am not a developer so appreciate all the insights/comments regarding
the difficulties in the QS code structure and documentation.
Is there anyway / anything that the average non-coder believer can do
to help more ?
Rob McBroom
> Is there anyway / anything that the average non-coder believer can do
> to help more ?
All I can think of is to keep filing problems and feature requests and be as detailed as possible.
http://github.com/tiennou/blacktree-alchemy/issues
Include things like:
* OS version
* Quicksilver version
* Expected behavior
* Observed behavior
Check the list of existing issues before you post and if you have any more detail that might help identify where the problem is, post it on the existing issue.
The main drawback is that you have to have a GitHub account, which non-developers might not be interested in, but it’s better than nothing.