Google's Quick Search BarA few weeks ago, on the day it was released, I installed Snow Leopard on my Macbook Pro.  Installation was simple and after a few hours of play, I made an attempt at getting back to work.  I hit my "alt-space" key combo to bring up my trusted Quicksilver application, but alas nothing happened except for the lonely system beep of my MBP telling me it was confused and didn't know what to do next.

Immediately I went into panic mode!  If you, like me, are a hardcore Quicksilver user, you know that working on a Mac without Quicksilver is the equivalent of working on a Mac without a keyboard: It's possible, but it sure ain't easy.

After a half-hearted attempt to find a solution, downgrading Quicksilver, reinstalling and rebooting (some of had success with the downgrade), I decided to try out something that I've had my eye on for some time now.  Nicholas Jitkoff, creator of the beloved Quicksilver, open sourced the project a while back and has since moved on over to Google where he created the open source project, Quick Search Box (QSB) for Mac.

Google Quick Search Box for MacDeciding to make the best of the situation, I removed Quicksilver from my system and installed QSB.  After three weeks of use, I wanted to share my impressions:

The Pros...

First, QSB for Mac is fast, just as fast Quicksilver.  Once installed, I setup "alt-space" as the default key combo to open QSB and was immediately able to dive right in.

Twitter Integration with QSBQSB also has some nifty integration options, such as integration with your Google and Twitter accounts.

Gmail integration is a little weak right now as you have some basic options available, but can't actually search messages.  But with your Google Account integration, you do have the ability to search Google Docs and Picasa Web Albums, which I have actually found to be quite useful.

Twitter integration on the other hand is pretty cool.  Upon opening QSB, hit the space bar, type some text, hit tab, and then you can immediately send that text as a Twitter status update.

If you are an die-hard Google user, you will really appreciate QSB's ability to recognize your instructions.  For example, type "Define Apple" and QSB will open the dictionary with the "Apple" definition.  Type "Weather 49417" and QSB will open a Google page with the weather for Grand Haven, MI.  Type "5+5" and QSB returns the calculated answer.  It reminds me of using Google's text messaging service where you text Google a question, and they text back the answer.

Another option that I have started to appreciate with Quick Search Box is the ability to define search types.  For example, open QSB, type "Goldendoodle", hit "Command-0" and QSB will open an Google Image Search using the "Goldendoodle" keyword.  Type "Command-6" instead, and you will have searched YouTube.

One last pro, QSB has a "Quickview" option available which is something that I desperately craved in Quicksilver.  Sometimes, I don't want to completely open a PDF, I just want a quick and dirty view to retrieve a small piece of information.  QSB adds this option and I use it just as much as I thought I would.

Cons...

Goodbye "Comma Trick", you will be missed!  Avid Quicksilver users have grown accustomed to using the "comma trick" to add multiple files into a list, and then performing a single action with those files, such as email, move, or trash.  QSB has no such trick.

There are also some basic file operations that appear to be missing.  For example, in Quicksilver, I could drill down to a file, then have the option to email it to a person in my Address Book, or move it another folder.  With QSB, I can open it, move it the trash and except for a few other oddities, that's about it.  It seems strange to me that I can trash a file, but can't move or copy it, but I'm holding my breath that this will be in a future release.

And while not being able to copy or move a file was pretty tough, I really started to miss Quicksilver when I discovered the lack of "Open With...".  My only option now is "Open" and my default application for the file in question is what I'm going to get.  Example: Preview is my default application for JPG files, but sometimes I want to edit the image with Pixelmator.  With QSB, I don't have that option. 

However it should be noted that if Pixelmator is already open, you do have the option to access the menu.  I can drill down to Pixelmator > File > Open in which case QSB will deliver the "Open File" dialog within Pixelmator.  It's not perfect, but it's something.

Quicksilver users should also note the lack of plugins available for QSB.  Quick Search Box has a list of "Searchable Items" that can be checked or unchecked, but it would appear as of this point that new items cannot be added as plugins.  With Quicksilver, I had plugins for such things as kGTD and Evernote.

In the end...

The main problem I had with QSB was getting my fingers to cooperate.  For example, in Quicksilver, the drill-down experience involves typing a folder name, hitting '/', then typing the next folder or file within that directory.  In QSB, it took me a while to remember not to hit the slash, but the 'tab' key.

But other than that, I must say that I've enjoyed the experience.  So much so in fact that I'm going to stick with it for a while despite the fact that Nicholas Jitkoff has recently released a new version of Quicksilver that is said to work with Snow Leopard.

The pros have outweighed the cons when it comes to the transition from Quicksilver to QSB, and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that we are going to see some awesome updates and improvements over the next year.