Monday, June 6th, 2005 at 7:30 AM
Inquisitor is a Safari plugin which adds predicting capabilities to Safari’s search field, complete with star ratings. Possible search matches visibly sort as you type, making for a great interface. I would expect nothing less from it’s creator, David Watanabe, who is best known for NewsFire and Acquisition. All his applications have fantastic easy-to-use interfaces with a distinct Aqua sparkle that I look forward to every time I launch them.
While not mentioned anywhere that I can find, a quick peek at TCP traffic with Eavesdrop revealed that Inquisitor is powered by Google Suggest. I think this is it’s most important feature – Google’s wealth of information is based on what’s available on the web, and this is what is searched when you type, not a predefined list of words. This helps keep plugin size to a minimum and information updated. Still in beta, Inquisitor already feels as if it’s ready for full time use. Check it out.
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In my book David Watanabe is best known for extremely closed development. You had to sniff where Inquisitor gets it’s data from? I had to look through the bundle to find out that Acquisition is a Gnutella client. No information on the website, no help, no faq or support area. And no recommendation from me.
Closed development or not, he’s still a master of OS X graphical goodness. And the way some of his projects are done, like Acquisition and Inquisitor, aren’t really about the technology they use — they’re about abstracting away how it all functions and simply providing a tool for the user that “just works.” Some people (myself included) do like knowing how things work, but that’s not quite how they were designed. The technology is there, but it’s not the focus of the application; It’s about getting what you want with as little hassle as possible.
Yeah, I hear the dev is a total ass, but he does make some damn good software. Doesn’t bother me a bit to use it.
can you use inquisitor and acidsearch at the same time…?
In the Acquisition agreement when you attach it’s disk image:
It seems Inquisitor and AcidSearch interfere with each other, both trying to gain control of Safari’s search field. For now, I’ve disabled Inquisitor, though I still recommend it to people who don’t have the need for the extensive search capabilities of AcidSearch.
No, you cannot use AcidSearch and Inquisitor at the same time. Dave doesn’t care either. Asshole.
had an argument with this dick, after offering help with the german localisation.
all this highbrow language, but really this guy doens´t have a clue about a lot of things. for his best i wish him a really bad time, a hard fall on his face. that should teach him modesty.
i still like his work. i check it out, but i refrain from using it. i dont buy the best burgers in town either, when i think the shopkeeper is a moron.