How to set a keyboard shortcut to launch Quicksilver...

This is SO cool, and finally means that you need NEVER touch a mouse again!
Well, ok, not quite, but seeing as QS is all about not using a mouse it seems such a shame that when occasionally QS crashes, you have to navigate to the dock to re-launch it.

Not now you don't...

So, firstly, you need to create a new Service to Launch Quicksilver.

Open up Automator and choose Service from the templates list.
Set Service receives selected to 'No Input' in 'All Applications'
Next drag the action 'Launch Application' over.
In the drop down menu in the launch application action choose the app Quicksilver.
Now save your new service action with the name 'Launch Quicksilver' (without the speech marks!) and close Automator.

If you have a quick look in the services drop down menu at the top of your screen (Finder/Services) you'll find a new service called Launch Quicksilver. But it still doesn't have a short cut.

Open up System Preferences and head to Keyboard/Keyboard shortcuts.
Click on the '+' sign.
In the drop down menu choose All Applications
In the Menu Title box type the name of the service EXACTLY as you spelled it. In my case it was Launch Quicksilver.
And finally, key in your shortcut.
In my case, I put F12.

I've set my function keys to work without the Fn Key as well as I prefer it that way. I've also disabled Exposé and The Dashboard as I have most of them as gestures on my trackpad, and hardly use Dashboard.

So there you have it.
Any time QS crashes, I simply hit F12, and she's back online again.

Incidentally, this will work for any app, although with all those lovely triggers in QS itself you don't really need it.

You can however give a keyboard shortcut to ANY menu item in pretty much any app so long as you spell it exactly the same as it appears in the app's menu. Its new keyboard shortcut will also show up along side it, just like all the default ones do.

Hope this makes you smile as much as it did me!

That's a great technique, and I've been using a similar technique to open System Preferences using Control-Command-Comma for a while now. Just one tip to make this even easier: with services, you don't have to type in the name of the service. In the list of Keyboard Shortcut sections, just click Services, and you'll see all the services available on your system, including ones you made. Then you can either select the service you want to add or change a keyboard shortcut for or double-click to the right of it to add the custom shortcut—same premise, but a tad simpler.