Quicksilver for Windows?

Not quite. Enso is a new product in its own right. It was never meant to be a clone of Blacktree's Quicksilver; it is an extension of Jef Raskin's ideas. But if you're familiar with Quicksilver, you'll know roughly what Enso Launcher can do. And if you're stuck using Windows, and give Enso a try, you might be pleasantly surprised by the advantages that Enso offers.

The Similarities

Both Enso and Quicksilver provide a rapid and pleasant way to use your keyboard to control your computer. Both products give you an instantly-accessible overlay in which you can type. And, unlike many "search" programs on the market, they are both designed to show the best match as fast as you can type it.

Enso Launcher, like Quicksilver, lets you rapidly access your applications just by typing parts of their names. Enso looks through your Start Menu and Favorites folder to find your applications and bookmarked web pages. Simply press the Caps Lock key, type "open" and the name of the application or bookmark, and Enso will launch the appropriate application or web page. Both programs can guess your meaning from partial input, so they don't require you to type everything out.

The Obvious Differences

The first new thing you'll notice about Enso is that, by default, it is "quasimodal." This means that you hold down the activation key while you type the name of a command, and release the key to execute the command. The difference between modal and quasimodal is the difference between Caps Lock and Shift. Why quasimodal? Because substantial evidence suggests that (a) modes cause errors, (b) mode errors cause user frustration, and (c) tactile feedback (e.g. holding a key) avoids almost all mode errors. Plus, it just feels faster.

Don't glower at us! You can make Enso sticky/modal if you want to by using the "preferences" command. But you should give Enso's quasimodal way a try. You might be surprised by how much it grows on you after a week or two.

The second major difference between Enso and Quicksilver is Enso Launcher's "go" command. In addition to providing access to your applications and bookmarks, Enso Launcher gives you an elegant and universal method of navigating your Windows desktop. "Go" allows you to jump to any open window by typing part of its name, or switch to a specific open tab in Firefox or Internet Explorer. Commands such as "close," "minimize," "maximize," and "open with..." let you navigate your desktop and control your windows without ever having to take your hands off the home row of the keyboard.

The One Big Difference

The most important difference between Enso and Quicksilver is that Enso is a command system, not a search program.

Most people use Quicksilver as a "search-and-launch" program. That is, they type to find the object they're interested in, and then press return to "launch" the object. Quicksilver has an awesome feature that enables you to search for an object, search for the verb you want to apply to that object, then perform the action. For instance, you can search for a document, then press tab and select "reveal." Rather than opening the document in its default application, you have just told Quicksilver to reveal the document's location in the Finder.

Enso doesn't provide the search interface, but it does provide a completely transparent and incredibly powerful mechanism for choosing commands. Best of all, these commands can operate on any selected text. Therefore, you can use Enso's "learn as open..." command in a "Save" dialogue, or on the Windows desktop. You can even select a URL in your browser's address bar and "learn as open my favorite website."

Quicksilver developer Nicholas Jitkoff said this about Enso: While I've been trying to explore similar techniques in Quicksilver for quite a while, few people were able to grasp anything beyond search-and-launch. Your minimalist design is beautiful, flexible, and will undoubtedly encourage people to avoid modal application-centric interfaces. Quicksilver's focus is on high-performance search, and providing the best set of verbs to go with each object that can be indexed. Enso's focus is on providing a transparent system of issuing commands that can operate on anything, anywhere on your computer.

Of course, sometimes this difference is irrelevant. Both Quicksilver and Enso allow you to transparently open applications and websites simply by typing part of the name. Quicksilver is a "locate-app-and-open" syntax, while Enso uses an "open-app" syntax that follows the natural word order of English. In the end, with both programs, you simply type what you want to be open, and it opens.

But as you'll soon see, Enso's "one big difference" opens up a world of context-sensitive commands that are not naturally part of Quicksilver's design.

Operating on Selections

Enso has many commands that operate on your selection. If you can make a selection, Enso's commands are likely to work with it. Whether you're typing in the name of a file, or editing a document in Microsoft Word, Enso's "calculate" command will compute an expression. Although we take away your Caps Lock key, we give you the "upper case" command, which allows you to transform any selection into all capital letters. Better, we add the "lower case" command to transform other people's shouted IMs into less dramatic text. You can "word count" text in Notepad and Microsoft Word, all with the same command interface.

And that's just the beginning. Imagine being able to select an address in an email to a friend, issue an "add map" command, and have the map appear in your email right where you are. Or imagine being able to select an equation and say, "typeset." While "add map" and "typeset" aren't available yet, they are two examples of the type of selection-dependent commands we are developing for future versions of Enso.

What's Missing

Enso is not as mature as Quicksilver, which—although it is a self-proclaimed Beta product—has been around for years. Because it is older and more mature, Quicksilver has some features that Enso still lacks.

First, Quicksilver indexes many more files on your computer, and adds more of your files, music, and other information to its search namespace. We plan on adding these features to Enso, but for now, Enso is restricted to (a) what's in the Start Menu, (b) what's in your Favorites folder, and (c) whatever you tell Enso to remember with the "learn as open..." command. Think of Enso's "open" command as the fastest and most memorable universal bookmark system; it's not yet searching your hard drive like Quicksilver does, but you can use it to open all those things that you use regularly, and to remember all those things you use occasionally.

Second, Quicksilver's developer API (what third-party programmers can use to add their own plugins or their own commands) is more mature than Enso's. Enso has a developer API accessible through the Enso Developer Prototype beta product. But as the name implies, it's still in beta, which means it's still harder to use than it should be, and the way it works is subject to change as we revise and improve it.