Vero

Take a look at Alfred 4.3 and this thread for lovely updates on Big Sur theming:

Cheers,
Vero

Take a look at Alfred 4.3 pre-release and this thread for Big Sur theming updates  

Cheers,
Vero

Take a look at the Alfred 4.3 pre-release and this thread for a lovely update on theming in Big Sur:

Cheers,
Vero

Alfred 4.3 is now in pre-release with gorgeous improvements to theming.

We've added the ability to choose a native macOS Visual Effect view to back Alfred's window, which makes it easy to create native-looking themes, as well as more control over rounded corners.

We've created a couple of themes as examples, but I'm sure you'll create some fabulous themes too!

• Light Experimental theme
• Dark Experimental theme

Below are the key things to check out when creating themes in 4.3. Please read all the way to the end of this post for a few important notes!  

1. Set your base Visual Effect to light or dark under the Window Blur icon in the top left of the theme preview

This will define the base of your theme to be brighter or darker. The macOS Visual Effect view is designed to be used with no additional colour, however you can still set your theme's background colour, so you can get some really interesting tints.

Your best bet to get a colour tint is to set the window colour, and turn down the opacity. In the included themes, the dark version has a low opacity black background set. The light theme has a low opacity white background set. An opacity of 30-35% seems to give the best readability in most situations.

2. Rounded corners can be tweaked for the whole window, the search box and the selected result

Hover over any corner of the field you're interested in and drag to set the corner roundness.

3. A few important notes

• This feature is still in development, so there may be some more or less visible changes over the next little while
• The "Share on alfredapp.com" feature isn't yet suitable for these themes, as the site isn't set up to understand the new theme settings If you want to share your theme with a friend, use the "Export as file..." option instead.
• As usual, check out the change log in the Update tab of the preferences to see the full list of changes in this pre-release

 And now for some pretty pictures, here are the two themes in their full glory!

Cheers,

Vero

8 minutes ago, tdenson said:

It echos the keyword such as `e - I use ` for snippets.

Could you clarify what you mean by that?

3 minutes ago, tdenson said:

Yes and I have uninstalled and reinstalled Alfred. Although there is a strange thing with Mac Preferences. I cannot untick Alfred in the Accessibility option (I was trying to toggle it)

Un-toggling and re-toggling won't have any effect. As I said, you need to remove and re-add Alfred by following these steps:

- Quit Alfred 4

- Go to System Preferences > Security & Privacy > Accessibility

- Ensure the padlock in the bottom left is unlocked and you've authenticated with your password

- Select Alfred 4, then click the minus button

- Either use the + button to re-add Alfred 4 to the list

- Relaunch Alfred 4

Cheers,
Vero

@lewgley The search bar not showing a full Google URL is just the way Safari works when Google is your default search engine.

In Safari's prefs > Search > change your search engine to Duckduckgo temporarily, then pop up Alfred and type "google Alfred". Safari should pop up and fill a full URL in the browser menu bar.  This may not solve your issue but it'll allow you to see a complete URL in the search bar.

Do you have any browser plugins that may be intercepting the Google search? Or any other network settings that may be interfering with normal browser operation?

Cheers,
Vero

@Alan He Alfred can't override macOS's own text expansion, so your best bet is to change your macOS text expansion to something less likely to be accidentally triggered (e.g. replace "qq" with "!qq" with an exclamation mark prefix), or disable it altogether as you can create these as snippets in Alfred.

Cheers,
Vero

@tdenson We've also been testing Alfred in Big Sur on an M1 Mac, and it's working as expected, so it's likely your issue is more of a permissions one.

- Which version of Alfred are you using?
- Have you granted Alfred all necessary permissions? https://www.alfredapp.com/help/getting-started/permissions/ (Try removing Alfred 4 altogether and re-adding, in case there's any corruption of permissions in macOS)
- Are snippets enabled in Alfred's preferences?
- Is the specific snippet you're trying to use enabled for expansion?
- When you try to expand a snippet, at what stage does it fail? E.g. Does the snippet disappear and nothing is pasted, or does the snippet keyword not disappear either?
- Does the issue occur in all apps or only some apps? Test in TextEdit, which is one of the simplest apps, as some more complex apps or browsers have their own clipboard management or behaviours that may cause issues
- Do you use any third-party clipboard managers or snippets tools that may be interfering?

Cheers,
Vero

@jayhlee You have the box ticked for "Show in default results" so your bookmarks will only show in your default results. If you only want to see your bookmarks when typing "1p" first, then uncheck the "Show in default results".

What you're seeing is "1p" bringing up the 1Password app in your results. If you uncheck "Show in default results" then type "1p", you'll also see the "1Password Bookmark '...'" prompt, with the subtext "Find and open a 1Password 1Click Bookmark". See the second result in my screenshot.

Cheers,
Vero

@chris lord Welcome to the forum  

When you're in the "Move" view, start typing the name of any folder you want to move the file to, and a list of folders will start appearing. Keep typing to filter down, or use the down arrow to look through the list.

As you start using that action more often, the list of your commonly used folders will grow, so they'll become increasingly quick to choose from.

Cheers,
Vero

@Philip_D Are you running any third-party "app cleaners" that could be interfering with Alfred's normal operation by removing essential files? 

When you say the hotkey isn't working, is Alfred running in Activity Monitor? What is your hotkey set to? Have you checked whether Spotlight or another app is using the same hotkey? For example, if you change your Alfred hotkey to something more obscure that isn't used by a third-party, does Alfred show as expected?

If you can be more specific/detailed in describing the problem you're seeing, I'll be able to help you more accurately.

Cheers,
Vero

@verypleasant If you drag the Adobe app to the desktop, then search again, is it found? How about once you return it to its original location?

@jayhlee Could you please provide a screenshot of your 1PW preferences (you can crop out the list of bookmarks for privacy) and what you're typing into Alfred so that I can take a look?

Cheers,
Vero

@scafaj @Mr Pennyworth I haven't followed the full thread for this workflow, but given your most recent discussion about macOS permissions, I wanted to pop in and suggest that if these permissions were granted before upgrade to Big Sur, it may be wise to remove Alfred fully, then re-add (or allow apps to request permissions again).

There haven't been many users experiencing permissions issues with Big Sur, but it's possible that there was some corruption of permissions. Removing and re-adding apps tends to resolve that particular issue.

Beyond that, it's also worth looking at the workflow debugger in case there are specific errors that can help you establish what's happening (or failing to happen) on your Mac.

Cheers,
Vero

@swpowe The Powerpack unlocks a whole heap of brilliant features; Snippet text expansion, clipboard history, file navigation and the truly brilliant workflows.

You can see the full features list here and purchase a license when you're ready:

https://www.alfredapp.com/powerpack/

You'll then be able to launch your whole set of tools at once with a keyword / hotkey, or create a list to choose from. Your imagination is pretty much the limit

Cheers,
Vero

@swpowe There are quite a few ways to do what you have in mind using workflows. If you can please confirm your Powerpack email address in your forum profile, we'll be happy to help you further with a few suggestions

Cheers,
Vero

Just to let you know, Andrew has been working on new theming options, allowing for rounded corners and using the native macOS Visual Effect view  

Take a look here for an example just freshly posted:

@dd852 If you use the File troubleshooting tool, do you get complete results or does the troubleshooting fail? Which version of Alfred and Big Sur are you using?

@meeffe A quick look online tells me that Nimbus (https://nimbusweb.me/note.php) is an Electron apps. 

Developers sometimes choose Electron because it makes it easy to create one cross-platform app, rather than creating a native Mac app, as well as native ones for their other platforms. However, Electron also usually means that the app lives in its own box, with no integration possible.

You may need to contact them to find out whether any way of searching the app from an external app is possible.

Cheers,
Vero

@marslo Snippets and workflows shouldn't be used for password storage, as they're stored in plain text and may be synced.

Use the macOS keychain or a third-party service like 1Password, which are intended for securely storing passwords.

Cheers,
Vero

@marslo As per the error message in red in your clip, iTerm 2 has taken secure input. While this error is showing, no apps can expand snippets, as iTerm 2 is restricting other apps from seeing your keypresses, and therefore from being able to expand snippets.

Quit iTerm and keep an eye out for errors such as the one shown in your clip.

More on secure entry here:

https://www.alfredapp.com/help/troubleshooting/snippets/#secure-input

Cheers,
Vero

@mikeswimm If you're frequently searching specifically for content in .md files, it would make sense to create a File Filter for that purpose specifically  You can set your keyword as "md" and only ever get results that are relevant to your Markdown search.

https://www.alfredapp.com/help/workflows/inputs/file-filter/#workflow

Cheers,
Vero

@Ted Curran Further to what Andrew suggested, you can also separate your more private snippets into a collection that you disable before your screen shares, so that you don't accidentally broadcast your details.

You can disable a collection by right-clicking on it and unchecking the "Enabled" option. 

Cheers,
Vero

@willcosgrove When rebuilding your Mac's metadata, did you see any errors in Terminal? 

You can always try dragging your Applications folder into Spotlight's Privacy tab, waiting 30 seconds, dragging it back out then waiting again. This is another way to force macOS to rebuild specific folders.

While the vast majority of users (ourselves included) have upgraded to Big Sur totally smoothly, a few users are seeing indexing issues like yours. While Big Sur is a pretty solid release, macOS isn't completely flawless, and minor corruption issues like this can occur upon OS upgrade. Try the above first as it might sort it out for you

Cheers,
Vero