I recently switched back from Safari to Firefox 3, something I do from time to time just to keep life interesting.

Even though I enabled the Firefox plugin in Quicksilver it didn’t index the Firefox bookmarks, because Firefox 3 stores the bookmarks in a format that Quicksilver can’t read. Fortunately the solution is simple:

First go to the “about:config”-page in your browser bar:

In the resulting page enter “bookmarks.autoExportHTML” to find the entry for “browser.bookmarks.autoExportHTML”.

Now all you need to do is set the value for this preference to “true”.

From now on Firefox will, every time Firefox quits, write the bookmarks in html format in your preferences folder. Quicksilver will index this file (as long as the Firefox plugin in Quicksilver is enabled). You’re done!

The only problem is, that you can still hear all the system sounds. Pretty annoying if you are in a meeting or sitting in a class.

My workaround was to write an Apple Script to control the system volume:

This script will mute the system volume, or set it back to 50% if it’s already muted (the value for “set volume” is a percentage value from 0 to 100).

That’s it, I created a keyboard trigger to execute this script (I used Shift-Ctrl-Command + M) and I can mute my system without having to use the mouse or trackpad.

Fortunately swapping the keys so that the “Command” and “Option”-keys are in the same location like on an Apple keyboard is very simple:

1. Open your “System Preferences”
2. Select “Keyboard & Mouse”
3. Select the “Keyboard”-tab
4. Click on “Modifier Keys…”

In the resulting dialog map the Option Key to “Command” and vice versa. This is a screenshot made with Tiger, the dialog in Leopard looks a little bit different:

Voila – that’s it. Now the Microsoft keyboard should behave just like an Apple keyboard.

Now, for one additional problem (if you are still using Tiger or before):

I am using my MacBook Pro in my office, so I’m frequently connecting and disconnecting my keyboard. Since my external keyboard is an ergonomic keyboard with Microsoft keys I would have to change those settings each and every time I connect or disconnect the keyboard. This is only the case if you’re still using Tiger or before, because in Leopard you can set the keys for each keyboard type as shown in this screenshot: Keyboard settings in Leopard

One solution is an AppleScript, which I found on the following website:

Change keyboard modifier keys automatically on OSX with Applescript

Now I have a Quicksilver Trigger to execute this Applescript, which makes the swapping of the “Command” and “Option”-keys quick and painless!

There are two kinds of triggers: Keyboard and Mouse triggers. The mouse trigger is very similar to the keyboard trigger, only that you click a mouse button along with some function keys instead of just a key.

Here is how to create a trigger in Quicksilver to do something very basic, for example launch Apples “Mail” application:

First select “Triggers” from the Quicksilver menu in your toolbar at the top of your screen:

In the dialog that appears Click on the little plus-sign at the bottom and select “HotKey” for a keyboard trigger or “Mouse” for a mouse trigger. In my example I am selecting “HotKey” for a keyboard trigger:

Quicksilver will show a dialog very similar to the normal Quicksilver interface. Define the trigger exactly the same way you would ususally use Quicksilver to do something. So in this example I select “Mail” as item and “Open” as the action:

You should now have a new trigger to open the mail application, so the only thing left is to define which key combination will invoke the trigger. To do that select your new trigger and click the little “i”-button at the bottom right of the dialog:

A drawer will open with the details of the trigger:

Click on the “Edit” button for the hot key. Enter the key combination you would like to use for the trigger.

I always use the combination “Shift-Control-Command” along with a defining key for all my Quicksilver triggers. This key combination may feel odd at first, but it didn’t take long for me to get used to it. The advantage of this combination is that it only very seldom causes any conflict with keyboard shortcuts in other applications.

This concludes the creation of a keyboard trigger. Mouse triggers are created similar, only that the drawer to define the Hot Key looks a bit different to cater for the options you have when using a mouse.

43 Folders: Quicksilver demo by Nicholas Jitkoff

It’s a must-see for every Quicksilver fan!

The probably most common way is to define a “Hot Corner” (under System Preferences -> Desktop & Screensaver -> Screen Saver -> Hot Corners) to launch the screen saver. After doing so a quick move of the mouse into the specified corner will engage the screen saver.

My problem with this method is that I rarely use the track pad on my Mac Book Pro, so decided to use a Quicksilver keyboard trigger to engage the screen saver.

First Step: How can we launch the screen saver with Quicksilver? All we need to do is open the Screen Saver Engine, which is located here:

Therefore, we launch Quicksilver, enter Text Mode by typing a period and enter the path to the engine. Quicksilver should look something like this:

The only thing left to do is to define a keyboard trigger. I’m using “Shift/Control/Command-L” as my trigger.

This key combination may sound a bit awkward at first, but I’m using “Shift/Control/Command” for all my Quicksilver trigger. The nice thing about this combination is that it rarely cause conflicts with other keyboard shortcuts, and once you are used to this combination it’s really not this bad. So in this case I combined it with the letter “L”, for “Lock”.

This “night vision mode” is more than just a toy – there are situations when it comes in very handy! I like to use it in meetings and presentations where the light in the room are dimmed down. In those situations, the “night vision display” makes the display more comfortable for my eyes and reduces the annoyance of the bright laptop display for other people in the room.

The only drawback to Nocturne is that (to my knowledge) it doesn’t have an easy way to toggle between night vision and normal display with Quicksilver – so here is my solution:

Once Nocturne is set to “night vision” it will remember this setting and switch the display immediately when invoked. So all I needed was an application that would start Nocturne if it’s not running and quit Nocturne otherwise. A short apple script does this job for me:

You can download this script here: toggleNocturne

That’s it. Save this script as an application and define a keyboard trigger in Quicksilver (I used Shift-Control-Command-N) to invoke it.