Julius Eckert’s Stunning Quicksilver Skins
Since I started using it, Quicksilver seems to have gained almost cult status in the world of Mac users. Certainly, I feel quite lost (albeit temporarily) on a Mac without the application launcher installed (Spotlight’s Leopard menu bar behavior has slightly decreased this feeling, though), and it’s the first application that I install on any new Mac.
By default, however, Quicksilver’s interface isn’t the most beautiful among Mac applications.
As a utilitarian application, I suppose that looks are not nearly as important as functionality (which Quicksilver has in spades), and thus development emphasis was lain elsewhere. But aesthetics are one of the major factors in both buying a Mac and a strong criteria (for me, at least) for installing applications. And even though I would still use Quicksilver if the default interface was the only option, thankfully it is not.
Here are three beautiful Quicksilver skins from Julius Eckert.
Bezel HUD
Building on Quicksilver’s included Bezel interface, Bezel HUD fits so well with the general feel of Leopard that if feels like an Apple application:
In all honesty, seeing this video of Bezel HUD this was one of the small but numerous reasons that I finally installed Leopard.
Showcase
Again, beautiful Leopard integration and tons of polish:
For me, Showcase feels a little too big. Nevertheless, it was the first to really fit perfectly into the Leopard aesthetic.
Silverflow
The ‘Cover Flow’ version of Quicksilver, this one is still in public beta and doesn’t yet include the stylized list results of Bezel HUD. But the main window looks beautiful and, I think, cover flow is well used in this context.
Quicksilver will change the way you work with your computer. Bezel HUD, Showcase and Silverflow are all available from Julius Eckert for free.
