Humanized's "Enso"

[Shacklebolt]

A small company called Humanized (www.humanized.com) just put out what I think is a rather phenomenal program called "Enso", which has been featured recently in the Wall Street Journal and the Chicago Tribune. The company is headed by the son of Jef Raskin (guy who invented the Mac). Enso is basically a way to cut mouse usage down to a minimum and, so it appears, make a computer as fast as possible, user-wise. I'm curious as to what everyone thinks of it.

My major gripe, of course, is that it's not out on OSX yet, but I figure it's only a matter of time.

 

[Palad1]

http://quicksilver.blacktree.com/

To be fair, Enso is the nicest Quicksilver port I've ever seen on the win32 platform.

Thanks for us stuck on windows at the office

 

[Shacklebolt]

Hmmm... looking over Quicksilver quickly, they do seem rather similar. I think Enso looks a bit more elegant, and a bit simpler - it doesn't bring up any windows, for example. Plus, they've been addressing some of the issues people are griping about already - like, you can change the key away from capslock.

I would have enjoyed a damn OSX port though - probably going to be years before it makes it onto mac.

 

[Palad1]

Just use the 'Spotlight' presentation plugin.

I assigned spotlight the control - - up keybinding and quicksilver is ctrl - - down. Spotlight sits in the upper right corner and quicksilver in the upper left. It really integrates seamlessly with the system.

You still have to tweak it yourself and customize the actions, but that's the price you have to pay for flexibility.

 

[mkrishnan]

Just use the 'Spotlight' presentation plugin.

Is that a Spotlight plugin for QuickSilver or a plugin for Spotlight?

 

[Project]

Quicksilver is far more powerful and extensible, and free.

They are similar at a most basic level. Quicksilver can do a million times more things than Enso.

 

[Bluefusion]

It's hardly a Quicksilver port. Let's see... it does... dictionary lookup, and calculations! And type-to-launch, which a billion other apps already do. And maybe more... at some point.

The video they made is funny, but (even coming from a die-hard Mac fan), you could just put the Calculator into the Windows quick-launch bar and have it be basically the same thing as the OS X dock... (no need to bury it in a bunch of menus unless you're really trying to make life difficult)

That being said, Quicksilver is a systemwide "pipe" command. It lets you perform verbs (actions) on any item you select. <file>-->Co for Compose To... --> <person> . Enter. Done. It's a way of circumventing the file system as well as the GUI in the interests of direct object manipulation. Using QS only to open programs is barely scratching the surface!

This is a funny little word tool. Ironically, if you get IceCoffee (which puts the Mac OS X services menu in the right-click contextual menus), you have these features already. Services already does what Enzo does, just in a menu form that no one ever remembers to use.

Now, a Quicksilver port to Windows would be quite a cool thing... (again, I hate Windows, but they deserve some cool software once in a while)

 

[Shacklebolt]

Alright, I think one of us has to pay for the full version of Enso and report on its functionality.

NOT IT!

 

[Project]

It's hardly a Quicksilver port. Let's see... it does... dictionary lookup, and calculations! And type-to-launch, which a billion other apps already do. And maybe more... at some point.

The video they made is funny, but (even coming from a die-hard Mac fan), you could just put the Calculator into the Windows quick-launch bar and have it be basically the same thing as the OS X dock... (no need to bury it in a bunch of menus unless you're really trying to make life difficult)

That being said, Quicksilver is a systemwide "pipe" command. It lets you perform verbs (actions) on any item you select. <file>-->Co for Compose To... --> <person> . Enter. Done. It's a way of circumventing the file system as well as the GUI in the interests of direct object manipulation. Using QS only to open programs is barely scratching the surface!

This is a funny little word tool. Ironically, if you get IceCoffee (which puts the Mac OS X services menu in the right-click contextual menus), you have these features already. Services already does what Enzo does, just in a menu form that no one ever remembers to use.

Now, a Quicksilver port to Windows would be quite a cool thing... (again, I hate Windows, but they deserve some cool software once in a while)

Remember you can get all the functionality of Services in Quicksilver too.

 

[Bluefusion]

Remember you can get all the functionality of Services in Quicksilver too.

Nope. Looking at my QS actions, I see the following that have no counterparts:

- Contact : phone number - Display as Large Type, Compose SMS, Skype Call
- Text - Process Text, Run as Text Command in Terminal, Get Password, Save Password, APPEND TO FILE (!!!!!!!!!)
- Files - Tag with..., Show Files Matching Tag (!!), Move To/Copy To, Compress Using... , send to Flickr, Upload to FTP
- Programs - Run After Delay, Run at Time...

... and about 20-30 others I'm not going to bother to count

(this doesn't even take into account the ease with which a complex action like appending text to a file is performed in QS vs Services)

 

[Project]

Nope. Looking at my QS actions, I see the following that have no counterparts:

- Contact : phone number - Display as Large Type, Compose SMS, Skype Call
- Text - Process Text, Run as Text Command in Terminal, Get Password, Save Password, APPEND TO FILE (!!!!!!!!!)
- Files - Tag with..., Show Files Matching Tag (!!), Move To/Copy To, Compress Using... , send to Flickr, Upload to FTP
- Programs - Run After Delay, Run at Time...

... and about 20-30 others I'm not going to bother to count

(this doesn't even take into account the ease with which a complex action like appending text to a file is performed in QS vs Services)

Dude, you can do ALL of those.

etc etc

 

[Bluefusion]

I KNOW! Hahahaha that's what I was SAYING! Those are actions specific to Quicksilver and that don't exist in Services -- which is why I quoted your post, about services, in responding!

Dude, you can do ALL of those.

etc etc

 

[Project]

I KNOW! Hahahaha that's what I was SAYING! Those are actions specific to Quicksilver and that don't exist in Services -- which is why I quoted your post, about services, in responding!

rofl, I thought you meant the other way round.

 

[Palad1]

I love it when everyone Aggressively agrees.

Ah, the internets