With so many people asking, I just can’t procrastinate any longer. You win. Here it is.
It’s most definitely not the finished thing yet. Yes, I have been taking a while. No, there is nothing you can do about it (short of asking for the source and developing it, which you may do by sending me a polite email).
The Fumo Quicksilver Interface
Firstly, there’s the smoking version. In other words, smoke pores out of it when it’s active. It does take a few seconds for the smoke to start and is only supported by more recent Macs. This is obviously courtesy of Disco. Instructions are in the package, but essentially you need to copy the Smoke.framework (included in the .zip file) to /Library/Frameworks/ for the interface to work. Download the entire thing from this wonderful hyperlink. And if you’re worried about performance and what-not, the smoke gets deactivated or ‘cooled’ when the interface is hidden. See? Of course you don’t, you haven’t downloaded it yet.
For those who’d prefer to leave out the smoke, there’s also a non-smoking version, again with another grand hyperlink. There are no installation instructions. Just double-click the .qsplugin bundle (because technically it’s more of a folder than a file) and choose Fumo under the “appearance” section of the Quicksilver preferences. Easy!
Fumo’s undergone major updates recently. You can always find the latest version here.
Still in the works
I think I should just reiterate that this is still not finished. There’s a lot of work to be done (still). To see where development is heading, see Pavel’s original mock-ups.
Now, here’s the part of the post where I kindly ask for feedback. Feedback anyone?
Major update to Fumo: comma trick, fixed up smoke, preference pane, and more
45 Comments so far
Leave a commentOoooh….very hot!
recorded by Michael on April 5, 2007 8:47 pm | Permalink
Ankur,
I love you, in the non-gay way only a QS user can.
Great stuff, don’t stop now.
HP
written by highpass on April 6, 2007 1:57 am | Permalink
Afraid it’s not smoking for me, also needs a way of accessing QS prefs if you have menubar/dock disabled.
Looking good though I’d prefer the item preview didn’t have the gey background behind it.
Great job, looking forward to the finished item.
professed by Sei on April 7, 2007 2:09 am | Permalink
Thanks all!
Sei, you can access the preferences by pressing Cmd-Comma, but I’ll add in the menu button onto the interface as well.
declared by Ankur on April 7, 2007 2:18 pm | Permalink
Thanks for the pb, but the smoke on mine show really off center. Like in the upper left corner of my mac. I have a pb G4, don’t know if that is the cause, but disco seems to smoke well. Just a heads up. Thanks for sharing
announced by aashish13 on April 8, 2007 2:25 am | Permalink
I might have missed it, but is the final version of Fumo going to be open source?
published by sphynx on April 8, 2007 7:05 pm | Permalink
Aashish, the smoke is a fixed size, but I’ve put off centering it for now. It’s more of a novelty so I’ll polish it up later. Thanks for letting me know.
Sphynx, I’m not actually sure at this stage, but the source may be floating around somewhere… I guess it’s up to Pavel (the guy who created the mockups and the concept) and Alcor (since he’s provided so much source code). Although, if the rumours are correct and Quicksilver goes open source (yay!) then Fumo will most likely follow suit.
revealed by Ankur on April 8, 2007 8:45 pm | Permalink
Here’s my 2 cents:
I’m excited to see a new way of using QS, and this one looks really good. Could see it becoming my favorite interface.
My initial impression was that the window is placed a bit weird on my screen. It’s up and left from center. I don’t see a way to change this so I’m guessing it’s part of the plugin intself … ?
I like the look and design of the window but I wish it was bigger. Maybe not a lot, but maybe the inside window could be as big as the outside window is now. Doing this and centering it would make it perfect.
The smoke effect has some odd behavior. For example the width of the smoke is much greater than the width of the window, resulting in shoot of smoke off to the right of the window. Other than that it’s pretty cool. Don’t see myself every having the window open long enough to see it, so it might be cool if it could get going a little faster.
Great work - I will be looking forward to future releases.
written by Sam on April 9, 2007 7:36 am | Permalink
Great plugin! However, I’m using the non-smoke version -MacBook user-.
I don’t know if the default position of the window is at the left side of the screen -mine appears like that-, but I would prefer it to be completely centered.
Thanks!
disclosed by Crateman on April 9, 2007 7:48 am | Permalink
It looks great but the “comma trick” aint working in it for me..
uttered by xekc on April 9, 2007 8:03 am | Permalink
wonderful ! I love it
posted by Nusku on April 9, 2007 8:16 am | Permalink
Thanks all for the feedback.
Sam, I am making it bigger. I’ve found it’s a little small myself, and it requires enlargement to meet the interface concepts anyway. About the location of the interface, you can change it! It’s not fixed like the bezel or cube, so you can drag it by the side of the main selector (or at the bottom when the indirect selector is hidden) and position it where-ever you like! I’ll be playing with the smoke later to see if I can get it to fit better, but as I said before somewhere, it’s a novelty so I wont be assigning it top priority (and I much prefer the non-smoking, health conscious version anyway).
Crateman, as I said to Sam, drag the interface around and put it where you like. The interface can be dragged from the side of the direct selector (the big one in the middle).
Xekc, the comma trick doesn’t work with Fumo yet. I will be adding this in as Alcor has kindly given me some juicy source code. You’ll see this feature debut pretty soon.
Nusku, thanks!
published by Ankur on April 9, 2007 9:04 am | Permalink
To be quite honest, it doesn’t look much like the mockup, but it’s nice anyway. The mockup is more glass/plastic-y looking. I’m currently using the non-smoking version only because the smoke is longer than the window, and it looks funny. Also, I don’t think that the “cube” effect when you dismiss the window is fitting. Something like the dissolving when you close the Preferences window would probably look better. I’ll be looking forward to future releases!
posted by Jason on April 9, 2007 9:11 am | Permalink
Also, to remove the smoke, can we just delete “smoke.framework” or do we have to reinstall the entire thing?
declared by Jason on April 9, 2007 9:12 am | Permalink
Sorry about the triple-post, but I fixed the smoke width issue, for my screen resolution (1440×900) at least. It might work for others too.
The new smoke.framework is available for download off my site, if the author of the plugin wants to include it in the .zip, that would be great. It goes in the same place as the old one (/Library/Frameworks).
Just go to the downloads page of my web site, and the link is at the bottom.
written by Jason on April 9, 2007 9:30 am | Permalink
Thanks Jason,
I’ll change the deactivate effect for the next download.
The smoking version of the interface requires Smoke.framework, but if you want to remove the smoke, you can just download the non-smoking version. When you use the non-smoking version, it doesn’t matter if you have Smoke.framework installed or not.
What did you change in the Smoke framework to make it work? I’m trying it out now, and if it works for me, I’ll definitely include it in the download.
Thanks!
reported by Ankur on April 9, 2007 11:14 am | Permalink
Ah, I see, you changed the boundary. Smart.
proclaimed by Ankur on April 9, 2007 11:52 am | Permalink
There’s no smoke on my Mac Pro with the standard grahics card GeForce 7300 either if Im using the smorke.Framework within the zip or the new one from Jason.
declared by Thomas on April 9, 2007 10:25 pm | Permalink
Mac Pros seem to have a problem with smoke. I may have to ask Austin Sarner about this. It may be because I’m using an older smoke framework (the new one isn’t working outside Disco).
reasonded by Ankur on April 9, 2007 10:36 pm | Permalink
Looks great! Keep up the good work!
spoken by lowe on April 9, 2007 10:59 pm | Permalink
Thanks Lowe
A few updates have happened already thanks to all the people that have provided feedback. I may post another update soon…
posted by Ankur on April 9, 2007 11:17 pm | Permalink
I like how this looks a lot, even without the smoke. And the cube transition is slick. But for some reason this seems to be interfering with Virtue Desktops’ animations? No idea.
recorded by Kale on April 10, 2007 1:15 am | Permalink
Mac Pro user chiming in to let you know I’m not getting any smoke. I know you know this, but I thought you wouldn’t mind another person testing!
recorded by Brian Moore on April 10, 2007 1:43 am | Permalink
I’m wondering if the smoke framework has troubles on two-monitor setups? I’m getting disconnected smoke in my setup!
stated by Chris Messina on April 10, 2007 11:15 am | Permalink
Didn’t work. Installed as instructed. Switched the interface and activated. No smoke. Then it told me it couldn’t connect to my bluetooth headset and closed the QS window. Tried it multiple times with not luck. Switched back to Bezel and it works fine.
disclosed by Ethan on April 10, 2007 1:26 pm | Permalink
Thanks Brian. I guess it’s just about confirmed now.
I haven’t done any tested with multiple monitors or with many different models of Macs, but in general, if the Disco smokes and Fumo doesn’t, there’s a problem.
All the other problems should be fixed now as I’ve ditched the Core Graphics deactivate transition in favor of Quicksilver’s standard fade / scale out.
More information about the update here.
mentioned by Ankur on April 10, 2007 7:11 pm | Permalink
I think Fumo is causing my QS some issues, and now QS won’t relaunch (yes, I restarted OSX).
I clicked the install on the smoke-package w/o first installing the smoke-framework. Could this be the issue? How can I right this? I’m “slapping at the missing limb” right now…HELP!
(Also, I couldn’t find the ‘Library/Frameworks’ folder. Is it hidden? How can I go about installing the smoke-fw?
Thanks.
uttered by byrnegreen on April 13, 2007 5:19 am | Permalink
Go to “Macintosh HD”. There’s a “Library” folder inside that, and inside the “Library” folder is a “Frameworks” folder. Drag Smoke.framework to the Frameworks folder and everything should be ok.
Otherwise, you can use the non-smoking version.
Hope that helps!
posted by Ankur on April 13, 2007 10:17 am | Permalink
Hey, this Fumo looks good. A friend of mine mentioned it to me and went ahead and uploaded it. (two thumbs up!!!) I also found out that my friend has an earlier version (version 18c) which has a nice transition to it. It not only fades but flips at the same time. Can this be incorportated into the current version (at least mine is version 2B3)
Thanks guys.
proclaimed by Radu on April 16, 2007 5:06 am | Permalink
I think I just found the answer to why the fade/flip is not there anymore. Was there a problem with that transition?
declared by Radu on April 16, 2007 5:11 am | Permalink
Open new Finder window,
Press Cmd+Shit+C to jump to Computer window, double-click Macintosh HD (or whatever it is called), goto Library, and begin typing Fram (as soon as you type, the folder Frameworks will become highlighted, or also called brought into focus). Doubleclick the folder Frameworks to open.
Now, switch windows to the Finder window where you have your Fumo folder downloaded. To make sure that permissions are correct it is recommended that you copy the Smoke.framework folder to Frameworks folder and not simply move the folder over. However you feel comfortable, do the copying and restart QuickSilver.
That’s all there is to it.
written by Radu on April 16, 2007 5:19 am | Permalink
Radu, some people were having a problem with the flipping over. It caused some controls in other applications to momentarily turn black. Removing that transition seems to have fixed the problem.
mentioned by Ankur on April 16, 2007 8:14 am | Permalink
Thanks Ankur for the info. I tried the “flipping” copy without any problems. But decided instead to move to the newer copy.
Cheers.
spoken by Radu on April 17, 2007 11:18 pm | Permalink
Speaking of new, here’s Fumo’s new download site.
I’m not a professional designer, so you may have to excuse the un-pro-ness.
Any comments / suggestions are welcome.
recorded by Ankur on April 17, 2007 11:32 pm | Permalink
hi Ankur,
fumo is nice. but i seem to be having a problem…when i invoke the fumo interface, i don’t get/see any option/link/dropdown button to open QS preferences. I’m not able to do this after i installed fumo-smoking. with other QS interfaces, this was possible, where a small triangle (or similar) would be visible in the interface window.
Do let me know how i can get to QS prefences?
cheers
recorded by ravi on June 26, 2007 5:41 am | Permalink
addendum to my previous comment: well i went and trashed fumo plugin in the QS folder in App support.got back the original interface. but wanted to know if fumo doesn’t have this option to get to the preferences or did i miss it somehow?
bye
stated by ravi on June 26, 2007 5:50 am | Permalink
Ravi: Cmd-comma is the standard way to reach the preferences. Much easier than clicking through a menu, but the menu button is present in Fumo (top right of the direct selector). I’ll have to make it more pronounced and also in front of the selector so it works properly.
mentioned by Ankur on June 26, 2007 3:48 pm | Permalink
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