One cool thing that QuickSilver does (as you can see in http://docs.blacktree.com/quicksilver/what_is_quicksilver) is that it "stacks" every selection that the user does, from left to right, which shows very clearly what the user is doing and what the outcome of the action will be.

For instance, if you look at this:

you can see how the user selected a zip file, then selected the action "Move To..." and then it selected the folder called "Archive". After pressing ENTER the zip file will be moved to the "Archive" folder. All of this without using the mouse at all. I don't think that it can get more intuitive than that! :D

This interface is extremely cool because it shows VERY clearly the current selections and actions (as they are shown with bigger icons). The results of the search will be shown below, smaller, and only when the user selects something it gets added to the action "stack". This is shown in this other picture:



Mouser, you may want to have a look at http://docs.blacktree.com/quicksilver/quickstart_guide which explains the general principle of actions in QuickSilver and also at http://www.theappleblog.com/2005/02/18/quicksilver-changes-everything/ which has several pictures and a good explanation as well.

I already said that I don't think that Mercury Runner ( :D ) should become QuickSilver for windows, but there are many good ideas to take from how QuickSilver does things (and it looks very good too!  :-[).

As Mouser said, this is a difficult but interesting interface puzzle. But I think that QuickSilver found a pretty good solution for the puzzle. What Mercury Runner can do is add its own things, like aliases, super-configurable search procedure and expand that basic interface concept.

Cheers!

Amadawn

I tried the MSN one, and actually it's quite nice, and you don't need the Toolbar anymore either.  If only you could have it check gmail instead of hotmail...

-m_s (February 02, 2006, 01:18 PM)

I think that it is possible to set an RSS feed to your Gmail account...

Angel

If you want a launcher (something that is as good or better than RocketDock, for instance), you need to be able to access it without using the keyboard. Otherwise, what would be the point? You'd first need to access the keyboard and then use the mouse to select the button that you want...

At least that's what I think!

Also, I hope mouser does not get distracted by this idea (which I think has merits and it is very woth considering! :) ) and does not delay the release of the next version of FARR. And I hope that even with these new features FARR stays as small and fast as it is right now.

What I like about your idea is that basically FARR is already almost launcher, as you can add apps to its toolbar. The only thing that is missing is the ability of having "submenus" and the dock/autohide capabilities. But for that very reason (that you can already configure the toolbar) I think that things like the already discussed frequency sorting, QuickSilver-like program controls, task management, control panel indexing and search optimization should be addressed first, in my opinion.

Cheers!

Angel