NOT A DEBATE THREAD. I AM ONLY SHARING MY EXPERIENCE. Given some current issues with QuickSilver on Snow Leopard I decided to try LaunchBar and this is what I found:
1. The "Help" section is almost as good as Howard Melman's manual. You can see the online version here: http://www.obdev.at/resources/launchbar/help/index.html You can also refer: http://www.obdev.at/products/launchbar/switch.html 2. Most of the shortcuts are same as that of Quicksilver e.g. Cmd+G pulls "Finder" selection 3. You can have a really large catalog. It's true. It does not slow down things or consume noticeably more resources. 4. There are no triggers in LaunchBar. I am currently using a freeware called "Spark" for triggers because Butler is pretty much out of development. Though they are promising to release Butler 5 which will be a shareware, it is not on their priority list. 5. Instead of triggers, LaunchBar users use abbreviations for actions as well as objects. 6. One nice feature: To run actions or applescripts which involve working with text, you don't have to switch panes. Just bring up the script in first pane, press space (it turns the first pane into text mode) and type the text and press return. This is a big time saver which you will realize when you start using it. 7. Some of the really cool features: LaunchBar tries to eliminate unnecessary "tabbing" and tries to perform the tasks in the first pane itself. Bring up any file/folder and then a. Press Cmd+Shift+R to rename (this is not like Quicksilver's rename where "R" has to be default for "Rename" action). Also, there is no pane switching involved in renaming. b. Press Cmd+Option+A for assigning abbreviation (again, no pane switching involved) c. Press Cmd+Delete to delete (just like Finder) d. Press Space for Quicklook (just like Finder) e. Good support for Move to, Copy to etc (There is no third pane, there is a third menu instead for these actions) 8. There are many pre-configured web searches just like Quicksilver. 9. There are special categories in "Index"(called "Catalog" in Quicksilver) like "Applescripts", "RTF documents", "PNG Images" which are like Spotlight saved searches. 10. Coming to Text Manipulation, there is "Append Text" but no "Prepend Text". I have written applescripts for both append text and prepend text in this forum. However, one thing that will be hard to script is "Change line". 11. There are many "Mail" actions for sending emails and attachments and checking for new emails. 12. Finally something really cool for applescripters: In your applescripts, you can use absolutely any action/applescript that you use with Launchbar. e.g. Let us say you have an applescript/action that takes a screenshot of a window. And you have another applescript/action which renames selected file/folder in first pane. And you have a third applescript which moves the selection to Dropbox folder and returns the url. Now, sometimes, you only want to take a screenshot, at other times you only want to do a rename. That is why you had the separate scripts in first place. In Launchbar, you can use those three separate scripts in one script just by referring to them and then you can add more code to perform further manipulation. Also existing Quicksilver applescripts which work on files/folders do not require any modification whereas those which deal with text only require a small modification: -- you have to change "on process sometext" to "on handler_string(sometext)" One more cool thing to note is that unlike Quicksilver, LaunchBar understands a call from applescripts. e.g. If you run an applescript from Quicksilver's second pane which pipes text into Quicksilver like do shell script "echo " & "sometext | qs" , Quicksilver hangs because Quicksilver waits for the script to finish and the script cannot finish because it does not finish executing the command "echo what | qs". Differences/Drawbacks: 1. Interface------"functional", that's all. 2. Getting used to the navigation/browsing keyboard shortcuts causes unimaginable amount of pain. The shortcuts are friendly to "Emacs" and "vi" users. 3. Pressing "." does not start Text mode. (I had to write an applescript to assign it Control + .) 4. You have to love abbreviations to use Launchbar. 5. You have to love holding keys for instant execution. Pressing return slows things down in LaunchBar. 6. Perhaps the biggest drawback of Launchbar: No comma trick (I had to write applescripts to substitute it and I repeat you have to really love holding keys if you want to use LaunchBar) 7. There is a decent Clipboard but there is no "Shelf" as such but it should not be very difficult to write an applescript to emulate Shelf. Grab some ideas from here: http://forums.obdev.at/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=2014 8. Regarding Proxy objects, you can grab currently selected text with ease just like Quicksilver. As far as other proxy objects are concerned, you will have to write applescripts/services like the one I wrote in this forum for Safari Current URL. I will try to write applescripts to bring some of the nice LaunchBar features (not mentioned in this thread) into Quicksilver. Finally, you must know it is not easy to fully comprehend applications like Quicksilver and LaunchBar. I may have only compared about 5% of the features. There are so many different ways of performing the same task in these applications. And if you don't use some of the ways for some period of time then you forget them. Also, many features remain undiscovered even if you use these applications for over a year. Also, you have to adapt yourself with an application. While it may surprise many that there are no triggers in LaunchBar, after using abbreviations for a week and holding keys (something I never did in Quicksilver), you will have develop second thoughts. So don't jump to conclusions!!
