Sokusei is a keyboard-based launcher for OS X — like Quicksilver, Launchbar and so many others, but with its own twist on the command workflow.
The defining characteristic of Sokusei is that you always start by typing some text, and then you choose either what to do with it — whether it's to search Google, use the input as an URL, use it to search a matching application on your drive, or more.
You don't have to think ahead: just type what you want to act on. And you can then easily apply several different actions (e.g., different site searches) to the same query.
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Download Sokusei 0.2.8 Mac OS X 10.5+ — PPC / Intel |
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Follow the app on Twitter: @sokusei |
You invoke the Sokusei window by pressing Control-Space. (Choose “Preferences…” in the menu to change the shortcut.) Then type some text, and press Enter. There you go, a browser window opens with a Google search for the text you entered — unless you typed a valid URL, in which case that address opens instead of Google. (If you want to send a URL to Google, you can add a space at the end of it, so that it isn't a valid URL anymore.)
So that's basically the input area of Google Chrome, just a keyboard shortcut away.
While you type, though, Sokusei also compares your text with a catalog of every application on your Mac, and your Safari bookmarks; everything that matches is listed below the input area, and you can use the up and down arrows to select an entry you want to launch. (Like Quicksilver, Sokusei searches for names that contain the letters you've typed, not the words — so typing “PS” for instance will show Photoshop in the list, or “SYP” will show System Preferences.) You can also press Command-Enter to launch immediately the first item on the list, just like in the Spotlight menu.
Of course, Sokusei remembers which item you chose to launch after you typed a given string of letters, and that item will be listed higher in the list the next time you enter those exact letters — so that you're transparently defining custom abbreviations for the apps and links you use most.
Note that the list of local search results will disappear as soon as you add a space to your input (because the search ignores spaces anyway, so if you're entering spaces you must be intentionally typing some text for another use).
But that's just the basic, most accessible functionality.
Sokusei goes beyond launching apps and sites: if you press Tab after you've typed some text, you enter extended mode, which lets you apply various customizable actions to the text that you entered. You select an action the same way you select an item to launch: by typing a few letters from its name.
You're familiar with those if you've been using Quicksilver: any of your Safari bookmarks that contains three asterisks (***) is considered a search URL instead of a bookmark. It becomes an action that will be executed by opening the URL after the asterisks have been replaced with the text you entered. For instance, if you have a Wikipedia quicksearch (i.e., a bookmark in Safari to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search?search=***), then you can search Wikipedia easily at any time by opening Sokusei, typing your search terms, pressing Tab and selecting Wikipedia (by typing “WP” for instance) from the list of actions.
Here are a few examples of quicksearches than you can add to your bookmarks. (Make sure to reload Sokusei after you've added them so that it takes them into account.)
Google Images; Google Maps; Google Define; Wikipedia; IMDb; Amazon; Facebook; Post to Twitter (which doesn't actually post, but opens the Twitter homepage with your text pre-entered).
Any AppleScript file that is placed in ~/Library/Application Support/Sokusei/Actions will appear as an action in extended mode, and will receive your text input as a parameter when it is executed.
When you first launch Sokusei, it installs the default actions: “Make Text Note” creates a text file on your desktop containing what you've typed, as a quick memo to yourself; “Make iCal To-Do” adds the text to iCal's to-do database.
You can find both of those scripts in Application Support and modify them or use them as a base for more elaborate actions. (If you've never played with AppleScript before, it's exceedingly simple.)
Currently Sokusei only looks at Safari's bookmarks file, and only at launch. If you add bookmarks while Sokusei is running, you'll have to relaunch it. If you're using another browser than Safari, you'll have to define your bookmarks in Safari once, or find a way to synchronize bookmarks between your browsers.
Quicksearches are just regular bookmarks that contain three asterisks (***) where you want the search keywords to go.
The list of folders that Sokusei scans is defined by aliases placed in ~/Library/Application Support/Sokusei/Folders; when you first launch it (or whenever that folder is empty), Sokusei places default aliases to all standard application locations. To add a file or folder that you want Sokusei to make available in search results, make an alias to it in the Finder (choose “Make Alias” in the file/folder's context menu, or drag-and-drop it while pressing Command and Alt simultaneously).
There's no particular incompatibility with Quicksilver or anything else; all you have to do is open Sokusei's Preferences window to change the default shortcut if it conflicts with another application. If you're interested in testing Sokusei, though, you should give it a few days of solo time — its workflow is different enough from Quicksilver's that switching back and forth every few minutes will prevent you from falling into the rhythm of using Sokusei.
Sokusei is freeware (and will probably be forever), closed source, and uses Gus Mueller's FMDB classes and ShortcutRecorder.
Yes, it's here.