Quicksilver is slick

A previous post showed how to use Apple's Automator to create a workflow for taking a screenshot and sending it to iPhoto. Wouldn't it be great if you could associate a hotkey to run this work flow? Enter Quicksilver.

First you must setup QS to catalog your Scripts folder. Go to the catalog preferences for QS and select Custom on the left side panel.

Now you can create a new Folder scanner. QS does not scan your entire hard disk as a default. Personally this can be good and bad. Speed of searching is greatly increased with a smaller catalog, but you may miss finding things that are not in the documents or application folders.

After you've created a new File and Folder Scanner, examine the info for this new catalog. Set the path to include ~/Library/Scripts and set the depth to infinite. Now you can access any scripts or Automator workflows that are in your script menu. While running scripts from within Quicksilver can really be a boon to your productivity, the exciting opportunity is assign Triggers within QS. Triggers are just like Quickeys (I loved it in the old OS 7-9 days) but who needs another application running when Quicksilver is such a Swiss Army Knife.

Go to the Triggers preference in QS and select Custom Triggers. And a new trigger and name it something descriptive. You'll get the standard QS interface. Select your script or workflow in the first pane and "Execute Workflow" in the second. Save the trigger.

Get info on this new trigger. Edit the Hot Key setting. I've chosen something easy to use and remember (and that doesn't conflict with any other Hot Key). What's even nicer is that QS allows you to choose which application have access to this new Hot key trigger. This is convenient if an application already uses that particular key combination or if you only want the shortcut available under certain circumstances.

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