Workflows Help Workflow

[rice.shawn]

Maybe I can add in a testing script to see if I can get some debugging info.

[nickvitale]

Working for me, I love it. It would be totally rad to see the keywords in alfred itself as an option or maybe completely. 

 

This workflow is awesome for a nice pop up that's clean, accurate and easy to consume.

 

However, if you're looking to get results back you can interact with, I recommend trying this one out:

 

Check out: http://www.alfredforum.com/topic/1572-browse-alfred-extension-alfext/

 

I really like this help option when it comes to getting something static and easy to review. However, the above link allows for results within Alfred that you can interact with which is another side of the coin. Really helpful for me as I'm a workflow addict.

 

Hope it helps.

[Ddyracer]

This workflow is awesome for a nice pop up that's clean, accurate and easy to consume.

 

However, if you're looking to get results back you can interact with, I recommend trying this one out:

 

Check out: http://www.alfredforum.com/topic/1572-browse-alfred-extension-alfext/

 

I really like this help option when it comes to getting something static and easy to review. However, the above link allows for results within Alfred that you can interact with which is another side of the coin. Really helpful for me as I'm a workflow addict.

 

Hope it helps.

 

Thx. I seen it but never felt the urge to give it a try, will now.

[greenamit]

I get the following error:

 

 

Traceback (most recent call last):

  File "help.py", line 112, in <module>

    commands += "\r\n* `" + item['config']['keyword'] + "`"

KeyError: 'keyword'

 

 

 

[twinpeaks]

Well your not alone with the line 112 error, that makes 3 of us... You can comment it out but that kills script filter keywords, which are pretty useful so for now I think we are going to have to sit back and let this workflow mature a bit.

[rice.shawn]

Just posted a new version. I think it should take care of those problems. To duplicate it, I created a new workflow or two and put in a few placeholder keywords and script filters that didn't have any keywords assigned to them. The script broke in the same places, so I escaped for those circumstances.

 

v 1.04 now here.

[rice.shawn]

And... updated again (v 1.05). This one should fix the ALP errors. Really incomplete workflows might not show up on the list because, well, I haven't figured out a way to write this workflow without relying on the info.plist that defines every workflow...

 

Let me know if there is a particular one that doesn't show up. And, again, let me know of any errors you encounter. Hopefully that will be none.

[CarlosNZ]

And... updated again (v 1.05). This one should fix the ALP errors. Really incomplete workflows might not show up on the list because, well, I haven't figured out a way to write this workflow without relying on the info.plist that defines every workflow...

 

Let me know if there is a particular one that doesn't show up. And, again, let me know of any errors you encounter. Hopefully that will be none.

Woo! Working now.

 

Thanks Shawn, nice work.

[greenamit]

And... updated again (v 1.05). This one should fix the ALP errors. Really incomplete workflows might not show up on the list because, well, I haven't figured out a way to write this workflow without relying on the info.plist that defines every workflow...

 

Let me know if there is a particular one that doesn't show up. And, again, let me know of any errors you encounter. Hopefully that will be none.

 

Thanks - that's working for me too.

BTW - I'm quite new to workflows etc. Is there a way to update the workflows as the developers (in this case you) releases new versions without manually downloading and installing the .alfredworkflow file?

[twinpeaks]

@greenamit - Alleyoop, search the board, it's creators has also made a ton of other awesome workflows for alfred. And you will be happy to hear that this which this workflow supports and uses alleyoop.

 

Nice one Mr. Rice! You solved all our problems! Thanks, this is really useful.

[Domenic]

Thanks - that's working for me too.

BTW - I'm quite new to workflows etc. Is there a way to update the workflows as the developers (in this case you) releases new versions without manually downloading and installing the .alfredworkflow file?

 

There is no official way, but some workflows support phyllisstein´s Alleyoop. That works quite good.

I´m sure there will be an official way someday but in the meantime just make sure to follow every workflow you are interested in (at the top on the right)

 

B2T:

With this update it works for me,too!Nice!!

I´ve got quite a list with workflows - I would like it to show the help file in a smaller font - is this possible?

Another idea would be a "blacklist" - a list every user can manipulate to set some workflows to not show up in the helpfile.

 

Domenic

[rice.shawn]

Yes! I'm glad that this bugfix helped everyone (so far).

 

@greenamit: as twinpeaks and domenic mentioned, many workflows are now using Alleyoop, so you should download that workflow to help with the updates. It's a clever system, although it was designed as a stop-gap measure. There is an unofficial repo in the works (the website is nearly done, and the workflow that accompanies it is also near completion) that will serve to browse, download, install, and update workflows more efficiently.

 

@domenic: the smaller font is possible, and I'll include it in v1.1. The blacklisting could work too, although that might be a bit more complex based on identifiers and how not enough workflow developers include all the metadata in their workflows (I've just noticed this through the debugging for this script).

 

Right now, I've been working with creating config files through dialogs to make it easy to do. Right now, I'm just using Applescript dialogs to do it, but they're ugly. I'm considering writing an actual frontend to it via xcode, but I've never done that, so I have no idea how to do it and don't enough time to learn.

 

I could do it easily with a php web interface, but I can't seem to get the popups to use php (since they don't come from the web server, and I need this to be all offline). If I could figure out a way to get an ajax call on a webpage to execute a script via some post data in the web popup (in automator), then I could do that well, but I haven't figured that out yet. I've recently found out that it's hard to write dynamic web pages when there is no server to serve dynamic webpages. Fun, right?

 

One possibility that I could do would be to install the file, or perhaps create a symlink, in a place that osx could serve it (/Users/USERNAME/Sites/...), but I can't remember if all recent versions of OS X come with the server automatically enabled with PHP enabled. Does anyone remember if they do? I'm also hesitant to write files outside of the appropriate storage places. Anyone have thoughts on this?

 

Without something like a dynamic webpage, it would be hard to create an elegant UI to handle blacklisting.

 

Right now, I'm considering having Alfred run some scripts to generate the HTML files for the Help workflow when necessary and cache them in the appropriate places, but that's not optimal for interaction.

 

Send me ideas! Also, send me any more feature requests.

 

Shawn

[jonathanwiesel]

Great workflow, love it! =D

[greenamit]

Thanks for the reply.

[rice.shawn]

Would be great if you could add the feature to enter a query string after help to search for a specific workflow and then hit enter to show only that workflows info.

 

Planned for an upcoming version. I'm trying to incorporate all requests that I've seen for the next version.

[Subject22]

This is a cool idea, and could be very useful. I don't have time to do more than scan this thread at the moment so apologies if this has already come up, but my feature request would be to condense the layout a bit, potentially adding columns. The more densely the information is presented the more quickly I can scan for what I'm looking for :-)

[rice.shawn]

Glad you like the idea. I haven't completely forgotten about this project, but currently, for my Alfred projects, it's behind one major one that should be released soon.

 

Version 1 of WHW was a great idea, but it does suffer from usability concerns, and these were in part due to the way that I decided to generate the help files. I've since figured out much, much better ways to go about it, and I have some of the framework done for a better version.

 

The next version won't use quicklook (well, I might have that as an option but not the default); instead, it'll use a custom viewer as default with other options of opening the file in a browser window and generating it as a PDF and opening it in Preview. Instead of generating markdown files, it'll instead generate richer HTML pages with quite a bit of javascript that should make navigation and layout much better. It'll have the option to just view one workflow as well as all of them. The plist parsing will be done quite a bit better for more accurate results. It will also allow workflows to define their own help files for richer content. If the help file exists in the workflow folder, then it will use that, and it will fall back on plist parsing. The workflow will also include an easy help generator for workflow authors so that they don't need to write out xml/json/plist files by hand. Lastly, it'll have a nice speed increase by "caching" the help files and regenerating them only when it senses that a workflow could have changed.

 

I don't have an exact timeline to finish it, but it should be pretty sweet when the new version sees the light of day.

 

Shawn

[Don Dahl]

Hi Shawn.

 

I've noticed that in your screenshot you've icons alongside the rest of the infos. Somehow that doesn't show at my end. I've had this workflow since '13 and just saw the update on Packal and updated. Maybe thats what causing issues? Cheers

[rice.shawn]

The update on Packal just updated the tags to include Yosemite, so nothing should have changed. It's been forever since I looked at that original code. I've rewritten a bunch of it to work much, much better, but I haven't finished it. Give me a couple of more weeks to get back to the project, and I'll give you a new and improved version. Currently all my development time is going into the next major version of the Alfred Bundler.

[Cassady]

One of my most beloved Workflows - purely because I have a habit of forgetting what the heck Alfred can do for me!

 

That being said - it is with great regret (and a fair bit of angst), that I come here now, on account of my thinking Yosemite has broken it.... 

 

When triggered - Notification pops up, like it always did, and then.... nothing.

 

I realise you've been awfully busy of late (what with Packal etc.) - but should you manage to find the time to have a looksie at this one again - would be greatly appreciated! 

[rice.shawn]

I think that you're right that Yosemite broke it. I just tried it on mine, and — lo and behold — it didn't work. I have been tinkering around with code (off and on) to update this thing, but I haven't been satisfied enough to finish any approach that I've taken. However, now that it's broken, fixing it has a bit more exigence. I have a few pressing deadlines in the next few days, but I'll try to fix it after that.

[rice.shawn]

Okay, so I have a very rough and temporary version to download if you want something on Yosemite for now: https://github.com/shawnrice/alfred2-workflow-help/raw/master/whw.alfredworkflow. It uses a different bundleid, so it's not going to officially "replace" the old one yet. I still have a lot of work to do on it, so, when it gets to a better state, then I'll update it on Packal and post again here.

 

Right now, it only opens the help file in a browser window, and it doesn't cache anything. Some of the formatting is a tiny bit funky as well. I'll add in more options later.

 

But, right now, you have a nice scrolling nav window on the left, and you also have a great "filter" search box up top. It displays hotkeys as well.

 

I just wanted to push this draft code so that people can use it again.

 

Oh, and the code is an absolute mess. Don't judge me on it.

Edited November 4, 2014 by Shawn Rice

[Cassady]

Okay, so I have a very rough and temporary version to download if you want something on Yosemite for now: https://github.com/shawnrice/alfred2-workflow-help/raw/master/whw.alfredworkflow. It uses a different bundleid, so it's not going to officially "replace" the old one yet. I still have a lot of work to do on it, so, when it gets to a better state, then I'll update it on Packal and post again here.

 

Right now, it only opens the help file in a browser window, and it doesn't cache anything. Some of the formatting is a tiny bit funky as well. I'll add in more options later.

 

But, right now, you have a nice scrolling nav window on the left, and you also have a great "filter" search box up top. It displays hotkeys as well.

 

I just wanted to push this draft code so that people can use it again.

 

Oh, and the code is an absolute mess. Don't judge me on it.

Hero!