As a die-hard Quicksilver fanboy, I think it's absolutely fantastic. So far I've found it quite stable for an alpha, and it hasn't caused Firefox to crash. I agree with Gina that it's probably going to require a "button" for launching in order to get widespread adoption w/ the non-power users (dozens of my co-workers have no idea there are keyboard shortcuts beyond ctrl-c & ctrl-v).

ross.m

Looks interesting! I'll have to give this some time and attention soon.

gawyn210

Command line stuff is all about productivity. Admittedly it takes a lot more work to do, but I always find I get things done sooo much quicker with a nice command line then some slow, mouse-driven GUI.

That said, nobody enjoys being a n00b with a new technology, so this innovation might be a hard sell.

Storkme

This looks very interesting. A bit strange in the beginning, but I've no doubt it'll become natural to use in a little bit.

And love the reference to Xkcd! ([xkcd.com])

Michael A. Plikk

ouzoWTF: can your program mash up data within the web browser though? This, I think, is the most useful feature. If anybody has ever done something like what is demonstrated in the video on Craigslist, then they know how powerful this feature is. Loading each of those links in a tab and then mapping them individually and keeping track of all of them takes an enormous amount of time. How useful that you can take data and then turn it into whatever you want, all through a natural language interface. Sign me up!

mherlihy

Wow, it is amazing though

Lifehacker, please can you update us on a stable realease or such, shall want to try it then

the_boffin

and why should I limit myself by using this "tool"? I mean if I understood it right, then I can only use these features while using firefox. with executor for example I can start a google or wiki search while my browser (I'm not even using firefox as my standard browser) is closed. I do not have to start my browser before to do this.

ouzoWTF

Hmm..

A bit of name confusion is imminent here

Ubiquity - Ubuntu & Debian Installer
Ubiquity - Firefox extension that adds a command panel to any web page

the_boffin

@the_boffin: Actually it's already pretty stable as it is. Go ahead and try it if you like.

schmappel

after playing around for it with the past 15 minutes i must say I see this having a lot of promise. The e-mail thing is nice for quick messages. Twittering is quick and simple. I think it works and looks nice when using firefox in fullscreen mode and need to do google or wikipedia searches and don't want to hassle with bringing down the toolbar.

kilde

I think that is a really clever idea, would like to see it in practice. Although, commanding all of this from the desktop and not from within Firefox would be a bit nicer.

shamalama

Downloading now. I only hope it doesn't crash Firefox like Mozilla Labs' Weave plugin has been doing, or like the Facebook plugin has been doing to Pidgin. Why must such glorious productivity so often be a double edged sword of crasheyness?

Darren W.

seems sweet

metalmarious

@mherlihy: dont know what exactly you mean with mashing up data within the web browser. but if I had an example where I understood what you mean, then I maybe can give you an clear answer to that.

ouzoWTF

cool!!!! and it automatically used growl when I asked what my last email was...

soon enough I will really never have to rwach for the mouse again :D

navigator99

looks promising, but to an i-love-my mouse person,i agree its a hardsell, tho can anyone provide details bout the interface etc??..and i'm waiting to see if it causes crashes or not,but i'm looking forward to using it.

karan10489

just Great!

afolex

In a word....AMAZING. Best Firefox addon I've seen in a long time. I can almost get rid of some of my other addons.

shoverbj

This is an incredible start. I can't wait to watch this get better.

xxdesmus

@ouzoWTF: I can't speak for mherlihy, but I think this is just an integration point. It seems Ubiquity might be more integrated into the browsing experience than that of a feature rich app launcher. Though, you make a great point. IMO, a future that ties and external Quicksilver style-app to the browser experience, so it works in and out of the browser, would provide the best innovation. I'm sure that's the direction things are headed anyways.

jonny6pak

Two words: Freaking awesome!
I've been playing around with it, works nicely, fast, easy, and as others have said - no crashing (so far).

Now the real question - Should I insert a map here? - now that I can.

Duane

I'm amazed by what this extension offers.
I use Linux, and I only had to change the default shortcut (Alt-Spacebar) which would open the window menu, to Ctrl-Spacebar.

Linux integration is a bit behind Windows' end Mac's, but it already rocks!

I hope it'll be internationalized soon: temperature in Celsius without hacking the code like I did, keywords in locale language (French would be good for me!!)

Very promising!

Poussah

If they could make this like Launchy/Quicksilver but with web-based functions in mind. Wow.

Of course, the ultimate goal would be a single desktop/web hybrid that could work contextually. I smell an Adobe AIR app cooking...

the_Sleepwalker

I must say in the 30 mins I played around with it this morning I have found it to be simply amazing. However I do wish it was truly more "ubiquitious" if you will and was more of a standalone app and browser independent. As well as supported Outlook so I could use this more at work where sometimes you are limited with what you can work with.

techguy

I'm excited by this but I hit a stumbling block when using email. I can't get the "email this" command to work. It sends me to gmail's 400 error page (malformed command error).

When I try email "XYZ" to a named contact it still parses the details of the page I did it from and then just appends the XYZ text to the end. I would prefer it to just populate an email with the text I write since I may have just remembered to send a particular message rather than specifically wanting to send info about the page I'm on.

It;s ealry days yet but this looks like it could be a very useful app.

stripeymonkey

Simply put, ubiquity puts the web at your mercy; it allows you to actually do what you want to do without the internet getting in the way, and it does this as simply as possible. Integration of services like this is a huge step in the right direction as far as productivity is concerned.

DSP720

@ouzoWTF: The craigslist example is a pretty good explanation. You'd select the address information of several people and envoke map this and then get a google map inline that you can then embed into any page or email it to someone straight from Ubiquity.

skyhopper88

I found Ubiquity this morning. I really like the idea and hope that they continue working on this.

Gakusei

@ouzoWTF: "dont know what exactly you mean with mashing up data within the web browser. but if I had an example where I understood what you mean, then I maybe can give you an clear answer to that."

Check out the video accompanying this post. The 'mashup' comment refers to the ability to do things like embed maps and reviews within emails, instantly map a list of addresses on craigslist, or post to twitter without navigating to the twitter site. In other words, by 'mashup' they mean that the user can access web services without visiting web pages.

It is more than a simple application/search/wiki launcher. It allows the user to interface with different internet services in a more integrated way.

Rhayader

This looks incredible.

I can't wait until it hits 1.0, but providing it doesn't crash, It ain't getting deleted
;)

Phoshi

@the_boffin:

Confusing to you maybe, but most people never heard of Ubiquity Ubuntua installer let alone Ubuntua...lol :P

monkeyboy

Really, really awesome.

My only problem is that it only works with GMail, and not Google Apps. I hope that when they add support for Outlook et al they'll add support for Google Apps as well (which should just be a simple case of changing the URL, I imagine).

I'm especially looking forward to the map function.

jonheller

What can I say?
i can do everything the man does in the video just using FARR, with a little help of AutoHotKey. The only thing this so called "Ubiquity" does while other launchers don't is the ability to directly control Firefox, which can be done easily with AutoHotKey.

anguschou

ouzoWTF, if you dont like it, dont use it.

Sheesh. Complainers everywhere.

monkeyboy

This is an increddible app

johnsonsteel

just installed it, its pretty slick!

Would be nice to have this available anywhere in Windows though.

monkeyboy

This is simply amazing and will be a big thing!

tristan_bethe

wow this is cool, its not exactly the simplest for me, but im working on a few things here

Steeldrumhero

OK, I guess I didn't add enough spaces but you get the idea. The Ubiquity tool autonatically populates the subject line with the title of the page you were on when you initiated the email and is supposed to provide a clickable link in the href format with your cstome text after that. However, gmail and/or hotmail does not render the link properly. Any ideas?

Another command I would like to see (not a programmer so don't look to me!):
Rate [movie] that pulls a preview from imdb of the user rating for that movie

stripeymonkey

downloaded, and learning

metaslugx

This is beautiful. I do think Ubiquity's features would be even more powerful if combined with a universal utility like Launchy. I'd only be worried about sacrificing speed - because Ubiquity is ridiculously fast. Probably because it doesn't have to load the whole page for things like weather and maps.

At any rate, this is a keeper. I've given it a hotkey right next to Launchy's, and I'm really looking forward to seeing what I can do with it.

Kaelri

Let me try again as lifehacker did render the html! I have added a couple of spaces in the text below just so it shows the raw command which is how it arrived in my inbox

From the page Ubiquity Commands:hello

stripeymonkey

Is anybody having success with the email function? I sent an email to myself with just the text "Hello" and this is what I got emailed to me (actual text ie the html did not render a clickable link):

From the page Ubiquity Commands:hello

stripeymonkey

yeah it looks really great, but I think the source should be implemented in os wide command line tools--like my dash command. I'm going to link this article to their forum to see what they think of it. in this way I could have the same interface for both sets of commands (the ones native to my operating system (Dash) and the ones native to ubiquity)

aidan_cage

I'm using Ubiquity on Ubuntu Hardy Heron 8.04, running the most up-to-date version of Firefox available... is it just me, or does Firefox now crash every 15 minutes? Not sure if it's conflicting with another addon, or if it's just using too many resources, but it's not very functional at this stage.

It is only a beta though, so I have to give Mozilla some cred. I can't wait for the done deal to be released (hopefully with better Linux integration).

Cheers!

srinidhiv123

@anguschou: tell me more! I get a good vibe from that program

aidan_cage

@srinidhiv123:
Problem is, it doesn't fully support Linux yet. Says so on the download page.

metaslugx

WOW, used it for 5 minutes, writing emails, checking weather, inserting maps..this is in no way a 0.1 release..it feels more like a near complete beta. Also the whole ability to find pages that have commands associated with them is amazing. They really thought this one out. I can see why people want this on the rest of windows. I would love it if a launcher did this, currently I use ENSO which offers some cool tricks, but nothing even close to this.

Wassupdoc

So far as I can tell the email function only works properly when you already have a gmail tab open otherwise it is very spotty in actually loading gmail...and even when it does it doesn't always generate a new mail nor does it populate the email text properly.

Oh well, it's release 0.1. I'm sticking with it for now if only for the map, translate and define functions

stripeymonkey

@the_boffin: Not to mention their logo is very similar to Ubisoft's.

+ Watch video

Nikongmer

If you look really close when he presents the straight to calender the corner of the screen pops up and says "error occurred"

nick

@srinidhiv123: I'm using 3.0.1 on Kubuntu 8.04, and I haven't had a problem. Firefox has been up since I installed Ubiquity. The only thing I had to do was change the hotkey sequence to Ctrl + Space.

I also haven't had any problems with the gMail functionality that I saw others mention.

Duane

awesome....the future of the web...3.0

shinta42

Nice, shows tons of potential.

Hehe, looking at the developer info, this is like Emacs for the browser ... woohoo!

aj_robins

This is very impressive so far. I've been able to get rid of 3 extensions because of the things this can do.

Map this
Wiki look-up
Twitter bar (although the gcal function isn't working)
and the "email this" bookmarklet

neil2121

@mimeryme: Do you about:ubiquity in the Awesome Bar then click Find New Commands.

Roivas

This has so much potential! If the programming is really as easy as suggested, I might dive in to create some commands.

Of course, right now, I'm trying to figure out how I can easily find commands that I need without diving into anything... :D

mimeryme

I just got around to possibly installing a new Ubiquity command. I found this part of the warning message funny as all get out:

"It could steal your credit card number or e-mail your grandmother your entire image browsing history."

I thought the second option was the worst one.

Duane

@Roivas: That's what I get for typing in a hurry.

Do about:ubiquity to pull up the settings webpage, near the top is a bar with some options, click Find New Commands. If you install the Herd command I believe it aggregates all the commands that other Ubiquity users are using to show you what are the most popular ones. I just wish the new commands page had some kind of description of the different commands.

Seeing Ubiquity in action has actually got me interested in programs like Launchy that I have tried before but never understood the point or concept of them.

Roivas

@ebetancourt:
That's exactly what I thought of as I was watching the video. It looks awesome and I'm very excited to see it progress.

Alikia

Very cool, Am I the only one that sees this as the starting point of moving towards the "Aurora" concepts we saw a few weeks ago? Especially the live mash-up capability!

ebetancourt

This is insane. If this functionality could be married with something like Launchy or Executor, and maybe Auto-Hotkeys, you could almost never use the mouse.

jokermatt999

This is totally awesome! I already wrote seven commands.

davisr

damn, talk about potential...
that's one of the best ideas iv seen in years... no joke!
hopefully there will be some good commands to subscribe to, cause i suck at stuff like that.

Charging_Mooses

i don't know if "Natural Language" would be the best term to use; Natural is a programming Language... and this does not appear to be using said language.

lincch01

Hmmm, on review, it does seem to have some pitfalls. One, the .js files used for commands can be changed without warning, leaving your command different without your control, useless, or even malicious. To create a command, you have to have some sort of hosting for both .js and .html files. Lastly, there doesn't appear to be an easy way to manage commands.

Oh well, its a beta.

jokermatt999

This is extremely wicked looking! ^__^

And to think that it is still just a prototype. ^__^

I definitely have to try this extension. ~__^

Asian Angel

awesome! I can easily this being a staple in the future of computing!

dnakhla

Pretty cool n addictive :)

tagnu

If you find this of interest you should try ActiveWords: www.activewords.com.

EffieGolden

Btw. The narrator sounds like the guy who did the video "An engineers guide to cats."

Persistent1

I must have this!

Persistent1

This is great, and I'm looking forward to more commands, but I am having a problem with the add-to-calendar function. A bubble pops up saying an event has been created, but it never appears on my calendar. Other than that... it's pretty great.

Whoopsi

@stripeymonkey: Are you sure you're using the THIS operator?

EMAIL THIS TO

I can't get it to work at all, as I'm using Google Apps for Domains, but my thought was that you're perhaps sending a blank e-mail because you're not specifying what to e-mail.

Tim Raines

Yes I am using the correct operator. I find it works perfectly if I have Gmail open in another tab.

@Whoopsi - same issue here although i only tried it once. Says it was added but the event doesn't show up

stripeymonkey

it's a great stuff, i'm using it already. send feature requests here: [wiki.mozilla.org]

Fatsoe

i'm using this for a whlie by now and i love it! i've already sugested a bunch of new features here: [wiki.mozilla.org]

Fatsoe

New must-have addon. I just enjoy playing around with it now, I'm not even paying much attention to how much time it's saving me not having to open up new tabs just to define a word or Wikipedia something.

masterthundar

I was wondering what the response to this Add-On was going to be after I read about it the other day. I agree, it is freaking awesome and is going to be HUGE (for the people who get it and take the time to learn it.)

HMGS

While the email to... aspect works great would love to see it be able to use either the program you designate (i.e. TB, GMail, Notes, Outlook, etc) or the default for your machine. Would be great at work.

sbrandon

I kind of like this, but it's not exactly what I was expecting.

In other news, does anyone else absolutely hate the word mashup? It symbolizes the biggest problem with the internet, the casual/Wii/old people revolution.

'Check out mah Twitter mashup on Facebook with your iPhone!'

FancyRat

@Wassupdoc: I think it is great that you are using Enso. I use it too. And you would find it interesting if you did not already know that Ubiquity was designed (and by the looks of it, almost entirely designed) by the fellas that created Enso. Enso can already do most of the things that Ubiquity can do (through out of the box or user created functionality), it is just not integrated into the browser.

@ouzoWTF: I agree that having this only in the browser doesn't make sense now. But, as more and more applications start moving to the web based versions, ala Google Office, this will become pretty useful. And I think most launchers can open up links and things if the browser isn't open yet.

pjharris

This kept crashing my "Fastdial" extension in my main Firefox browser...so I was forced to chose between Fastdial and Ubiquity. :( :( Since my Fastdial extension is such an integral part of my everyday browsing, I had to temporarily disable Ubiquity. :( :(

I do have to say that it is a VERY useful extension and I look forward to being able to use it in my main Firefox browser. ^__^

Until then, I will at least get to use it (and have fun with it) in the portable Firefox that I also have set-up on my computer. ^__^

Just curious, has anyone else had any extension conflicts due to Ubiquity??

Asian Angel

@ Asian Angel:

"Just curious, has anyone else had any extension conflicts due to Ubiquity??"

Yes. I did. Same problem: Ubiquity and FastDial do not play well together.

I recently went back to Firefox 3 after finding the latest version doesn't disagree with me or my computer as much as the first version did. Ubiquity was the last new extension I installed, but alas, I had to disable Fast Dial to run it, at which point I lost interest, removed Ubiquity, then I removed Fast Dial, reinstalled Speed Dial (which conflicts with the Silvermel theme, causing me to remove Speed Dial in the first place - but Silvermel and the Dev Build of TabMixPlus don't work together either, so now I've gone back to the Zune theme) and am debating whether not to reinstall Ubiquity.

Why can't all the add-ons just get along? :)

emnem

Seems cool. I've been reading the tutorial on writing commands and scripts because the big scary warning is discouraging me from using other people's scripts. I'm hoping because Ubiquity is close to Javascript, it'll be easy to learn.

Spnkr

@emnem: Sorry to hear that you have been having extension/theme trouble too. :(

I looked up the Silvermel theme and have a recommendation for a theme that you might like (it is one of my favorites). ^__^ It is a very nice, clean looking theme...

It is called ShinyFox and here is the direct link to the page for it:

ShinyFox Theme

Description from the webpage: White and blue Firefox 3 theme inspired by iPox. ShinyFox is a Firefox theme using white and blue shades, for people who love light themes.

Asian Angel

For those interested in writing your own commands, i have put up slightly lengthy example here:

[mytechieself.blogspot.com]

mskadu