Yeah I’m also a huge QS fan, although I tend to use it more for launching than anything else (the text appending looks coo, but I’m not sure when I’d use it, any examples?).

For mac users you should consider a comparison between QS, Butler, and LaunchBar.

Oh, and there’s a similar app for the palm:

http://www.hobbyistsoftware.com/Initiate_more.htm

I use it on my treo 650, it’s called Initiate, it rocks..!

As to your AW questions, I have AW set up so that I invoke the Action Pad with a double shift. From there I can enter my activeword and hit enter to fire it. Alternately, I use space-space rather than one of the function keys if I’m not first invoking the action pad.

Are you possibly thinking of LaunchBar? LB predates QS going back to the Pre OSX days. It was quite nice, but I gave it up for QS some time ago.

The one thing that bothers me about AW is the limited number of action keys. I may be mistaken (and PLEASE, if there is a way around this, someone let me know), but you can only choose between F1 thru F12. Being a Windows program developer, many of my tools use each and every one of those keys, so assigning one of them to AW means I am without some function in my development tool (unless I resort to going to the toolbar or menu to do it). As an alternative to “other” active keys, it would be nice to just tell AW to not be active when I am in certain programs.

Thanks for the comparison. Like you, I have used both, but not to their full extent. BTW: 43folders.com is where I pick up most of my QS tricks and tips.

I have been playing around with AutoHotKey a lot recently and I’ld like to point out that there is a sort of connection between “timewasters” and AutoHotKey. If you create ActiveWords using the wizard or the auto suggest, then ActiveWords is the way to go. But if you like to get yours hands dirty with code or scripts, my experience is that AutoHotKey is a whole lot more powerful and inituative in its syntax and behaviour.

Overall, for the average user, ActiveWords is still the better choice.

Sorry, I have nothing on QuickSilver, but hopefully, Santa will bring me a Mac this Christmas if I am a good boy ;)

Bren at Slacker Manager is finally switching to Mac. He’s a longtime ActiveWords user, and expressed hope that Quicksilver would be a decent replacement. I commented that Quicksilver eats ActiveWords’ lunch:

I almost never use [Active…