Then, in the Actions column, enable Email Item (Send Directly). Click on Email Addresses in the Type column. Reopen the Preferences and click on Actions in the left-hand column. To enable this feature, you must first go to Quicksilver: Preferences and select the Enable Advanced Features option. With Quicksilver, you can press the program’s shortcut, type a few letters of the file’s name to select it, press tab, typeĮm to summon the Email To action, press tab, type a few letters to bring up the contact’s name, and then press return to send (see “Quick Send”). (Īttach Fastĝo you send a lot of attachments via e-mail? Don’t bother opening your e-mail program and going through the regular rigmarole. Now press the new hot key, and your browser should open. Click on the Hot Key field and then press the shortcut you’d like to open the browser (I use F1). Double-click on the word None in the Trigger column to open a drawer full of options. In the Action field, choose Open, and then click on Save. In the Item field, choose your favorite Web browser. To create a trigger that opens your favorite Web browser, you could select Quicksilver: Triggers and click on the plus-sign (+) button at the bottom of the window. So, for example, I could teach Quicksilver that when I draw a greater-than symbol with my mouse (>), I want to fire off the iTunes Next Track action. Use Quicksilver’s triggers to access a command-a keystroke, a click, or even a mouse gesture. Get Trigger-Happy If tapping a hot key and typ-ing the first few letters of a program’s name are too much work, Quicksilver gives you an addi-tional option for quick launching. Here are just a few great ways to use Quicksilver: Its features allow you to do many different tasks efficiently, and its nearly 100 plug-ins let you customize the program to fit the way you work. I like Quicksilver because it’s more than a launcher. Use LaunchBar’s configuration window to disable whatever you don’t need.- Dan Frakes Only the Essentials LaunchBar can do lots of cool things, but if you don’t want to do some of them, it’s easy to keep those features from getting in your way. For example, type ical tomorrow to tell Spotlight to find tomorrow’s iCal events. Soup Up Spotlight SearchingĚctivate LaunchBar and press Command-F to perform advanced Spotlight searches-no need for Spotlight’s awkward search syntax. If you’re ready to dial, press the return key to view the phone number on screen in large type.īrowse Files and Folders Whenever LaunchBar displays a folder or volume, you can press the right-arrow key to see its contents and then use the arrow keys to navigate through them. Once you’re there, press return to open the contact record, press shift-return to open a new e-mail message addressed to that person, or press the right-arrow key repeatedly to move through the contact’s information. The shortcuts work in any application, so I don’t have to go hunting for iTunes’ window or use iTunes’ Dock icon to access these functions.- Rob GriffithsĬruise Your Contacts If you keep all your contact information in OS X’s Address Book or Microsoft’s Entourage, typing the first few letters of a person’s name-or just his or her initials-will bring up the appropriate contact in LaunchBar. You can do this via the Butler entry in the menu bar, or (my preference) use hot keys that you define. Now you can open a Dashboard widget just by pressing control-spacebar and entering a few letters of the widget’s name (see “Fishing for Widgets”).Ĭontrol iTunes Using Butler’s iTunes Smart Items, you can start, stop, skip forward or backward, and even rate songs-all without ever activating iTunes. Launch Dashboard Widgets In the General section of Butler’s preferences, add two new folders for Butler to search for applications: /Library/Widgets and your user folder /Library/Widgets. If I press those keys along with W, I get a Wikipedia search box, or I can use G for a Google search or H for a Mac OS X Hints search. I use shift-option-control as the key combination for my Web searches. Add as many Web Search Smart Items to Butler’s configuration as you need, and assign them hot keys. Butler’s Web search tool lets you start searches without first loading the parent site in your browser. Search the Web I search many Web sites-Mac OS X Hints, Google, and Wikipedia, to name but three. You can even toggle between searching file contents and file names by pressing the up or down arrow before you press return. Press that hot key, enter your Spotlight search term, and press return when you’re ready for Spotlight to search. Just add a new Spotlight Search Smart Item to Butler’s configuration and assign a hot key to it. Speed Up Spotlight Searchesĝon’t you hate how Spotlight starts searching before you’ve even completed your search term? Use Butler to send your completed query to Spotlight.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |