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This looks really, really nice. But I think a problem for adoption is that on a Mac Spotlight can already do most of the calculations this does that I'd actual

This looks really, really nice. But I think a problem for adoption is that on a Mac Spotlight can already do most of the calculations this does that I'd actually want to do on a regular basis (for me, that's currency conversion and some basic arithmetic). I can imagine downloading this, being impressed by its slickness, and then routinely forgetting to use it in favour of Spotlight.

coldtea 11y ago
>But I think a problem for adoption is that on a Mac Spotlight can already do most of the calculations this does that I'd actually want to do on a regular basis Not all, only in one single line, and without memory of previous calculations (I'm sure this has "variables" -- if not Soulver, which is similar, does). Not the same at all. Similar apps already there: Soulver, Calca.
alialkhatib 11y ago
Agreed. I barely use Alfred that much and that's mapped to the similar-but-different option+space (Spotlight is mapped to command+space by default). If this kind of functionality could extend Alfred (or Quicksilver?), there would be no question that this would see relatively regular use from me. If I need to open something, I'm much more likely to open another tab of my browser and dump queries (especially things like exchange/conversion rates) into Google. It's a shame, too, because the demo here is really persuasively showing that this can automatically do stuff I previously assumed necessarily takes an extra brain cycle or two.
- bshimmin 11y ago
  I use Alfred too, almost entirely just to do "Sleep" and "Lock", which Spotlight - for no very good reason - doesn't let you do. If Spotlight could do those, I'd uninstall Alfred: even though it does many wondrous things, I just never remember to use it to do them. I'm certain this app would fall into the same category for me.
  - wingerlang 11y ago
    You could try removing your spotlight shortcut.
  - alialkhatib 11y ago
    I also use Alfred for a quick definition if I'm pretty sure the system dictionary can handle the word (otherwise I ask Google), but I agree that a vanishingly small number of additions to Spotlight would render Alfred defunct for me. For 90+% of the things Alfred does, I find myself thinking "oh that's pretty neat", but I simply can't make it go into my workflow.
anarchitect 11y ago
It's the area between spotlight and a spreadsheet where this is useful for me. I've used Soulver in the past but rarely open it these days. For instance, this morning I was calculating the % uplifts of a recent sale and it quickly became annoying to do it all in spotlight but equally annoying to move all the numbers to Google Sheets once I was part way through. This would have filled the gap perfectly.
- scott_s 11y ago
  For such calculations, consider opening the REPL of your favorite dynamic language in a shell. I use Python.
  - anentropic 11y ago
    same here! I'll be using Spotlight more for basic calculator stuff now though, never knew it could do that :)

coldtea 11y ago

>But I think a problem for adoption is that on a Mac Spotlight can already do most of the calculations this does that I'd actually want to do on a regular basis Not all, only in one single line, and without memory of previous calculations (I'm sure this has "variables" -- if not Soulver, which is similar, does). Not the same at all. Similar apps already there: Soulver, Calca.

alialkhatib 11y ago

Agreed. I barely use Alfred that much and that's mapped to the similar-but-different option+space (Spotlight is mapped to command+space by default). If this kind of functionality could extend Alfred (or Quicksilver?), there would be no question that this would see relatively regular use from me. If I need to open something, I'm much more likely to open another tab of my browser and dump queries (especially things like exchange/conversion rates) into Google. It's a shame, too, because the demo here is really persuasively showing that this can automatically do stuff I previously assumed necessarily takes an extra brain cycle or two.

bshimmin 11y ago
I use Alfred too, almost entirely just to do "Sleep" and "Lock", which Spotlight - for no very good reason - doesn't let you do. If Spotlight could do those, I'd uninstall Alfred: even though it does many wondrous things, I just never remember to use it to do them. I'm certain this app would fall into the same category for me.
- wingerlang 11y ago
  You could try removing your spotlight shortcut.
- alialkhatib 11y ago
  I also use Alfred for a quick definition if I'm pretty sure the system dictionary can handle the word (otherwise I ask Google), but I agree that a vanishingly small number of additions to Spotlight would render Alfred defunct for me. For 90+% of the things Alfred does, I find myself thinking "oh that's pretty neat", but I simply can't make it go into my workflow.

anarchitect 11y ago

It's the area between spotlight and a spreadsheet where this is useful for me. I've used Soulver in the past but rarely open it these days. For instance, this morning I was calculating the % uplifts of a recent sale and it quickly became annoying to do it all in spotlight but equally annoying to move all the numbers to Google Sheets once I was part way through. This would have filled the gap perfectly.

scott_s 11y ago
For such calculations, consider opening the REPL of your favorite dynamic language in a shell. I use Python.
- anentropic 11y ago
  same here! I'll be using Spotlight more for basic calculator stuff now though, never knew it could do that :)