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jdfwarrior

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Posts posted by jdfwarrior

  1. Hi -- I've googled quite a bit to see if it's possible to ignore an application (not just a file or folder) from Alfred search?

     

    Use case: I love using Alfred to launch Finder, however I just my new company laptop came with a weird program ("Identity Finder") preinstalled. Now when I search Finder I keep accidentally opening this other program, which I hardly ever use!

     

    The easiest thing to do is open Spotlight preferences, navigate to the Privacy tab and then drag the application/file/folders you wish to hide into there. Alfred uses Spotlights metadata server so if Spotlight ignores it, Alfred will also.

  2. Hi, all - 

     

    A workflow I've been using without issue suddenly stopped working today. The "VPN Connections" workflow has been a mainstay for me - invoke alfred, begin typing "VPN," wait for the list to appear, select a VPN connection as necessary. 

     

    Today, when I type "vp" the workflow appears in a default state (i.e., As the first item, "select a VPN"), but it never actually populates with the list of available VPNS (which is available from the VPN toolbar icon directly). 

     

    If I press return on "vp" it auto completes to "VPN", and then offers to search Google/Amazon/Wikipedia.  If I type all of "VPN" it returns an old Safari history item.

     

    I've no idea what changed, other than enabling syncing of lLfred preferences from this machine to a second machine over the weekend. I used the sync file from this machine, and set to a Box folder, and haven't had any other problems with the syncing (i.e., everything custom appeared as expected on the second machine.)

     

     Anyway, thanks for any help - Alfred has been a great tool so far, and I regret ignoring the friends who ranted about it as long as I did.

     

    This could be a number of things but I would venture to guess that none would involve something to do with Alfred. Did you perform any kinds of upgrades/updates to anything recently? Perhaps something with the language that the workflow is written in changed. Who is the author of the workflow? Perhaps they may have some insight into the issue (a known issue perhaps?)

  3. Thanks David! I'd have loved a simple way but I guess I have to use an Applescript. Would this be correct, if I want to use it within Safari?

    tell application "Safari"
    keystroke "TAB" using {control down, shift down}
    end tell

    In Alfred I've set the Trigger hotkey as "Shift+left arrow" and only be active when Safari is focused.

     

    You MAY have to use System Events to send it. I also did it with a menu item instead of the hotkey because.. my iMac is being kinda quirky right now. It also won't let me copy and paste text right now (its having a case of the Mondays). This code works on my laptop though.

    tell application "Safari" to activate
    tell application "System Events"
        tell process "Safari"
            click menu item "Show Previous Tab" of menu 1 of menu bar item "Window" of menu bar 1
        end tell
    end tell
    
  4. Hi there

     

    is there anyway to launch an application (e.g. Marked 2) with a specific path?

     

    I'm trying to open a file with an application that I wish for Alfred to launch, so something along the lines of:

     

    "marked 2 <path to file>"

     

    Should hopefully open the file in marked 2.

     

    Thanks!

     

    In Alfred, this is done a little differently. Instead of specifying the app first, find the file, and press Enter to open it. If Marked 2 isn't associated with the file type that you're trying to open, select the file in Alfred, press the Right Arrow, then select "Open With ..." and type "Marked 2" and it should open the selected file in the application

  5. Hi,

     

    I'd like to remap keys using Alfred Workflow. So when I press a specific hotkey (e.g. Shift+left arrow) as trigger that Alfred outputs a different hotkey (e.g. Ctrl+Shift+Tab) as output. Setting the hotkey trigger as input is no problem but I could not find an option in Alfred for a hotkey output.

     

    Won't this work as Alfred Workflow?

     

    Alfred doesn't currently have this but you could use a Run Script item after the hotkey, set the languages to AppleScript and use AppleScript to simulate the hotkey. Would that work?

  6. Hello all,

     

    Downloaded one of those "Open Safari in Chrome" workflows (many thanks to Andrew Curtis-Black), that I use extensively to get around any video-play issues.

     

    Now I've hit a bit of an annoyance/1st World Problem. 

    I've since started using Parallels to run Windows 7 as a VM, but in the "coherence"(?) mode - i.e., where the Win apps 'open' as OS X apps - as opposed to being 'kept' inside the VM desktop/machine (hope I'm explaining that sensibly).

     

    What happens now, is when I run the workflow, the Windows Chrome version is opened, as opposed to the OS X version, and in the case of the former, the script obviously(?) doesn't complete, in order to paste the Safari url across. 

     

    After checking the script, I think the 'problem' is that the script says [[tell "Google Chrome"...]] - and since both are 'called'(?) Google Chrome, and are available to be triggered, the wrong one gets opened (mostly - sometimes the OS X version triggers first)...

     

    Please understand - I'm not complaining, or being at all critical of someone's work/workflow! It works perfectly, it's me that's introduced the complications!

     

    But regardless, is this something that is unavoidable, or could there be a way to use an alternative 'identifier'(??) for Chrome, or something?

    I don't know anything about scripting, but know where to go and ask - but figured I would 1st pop something up here, to see if there isn't maybe a simpler solution - or (alternatively), to confirm that nothing can really be done, before I start searching properly... 

     

    Many thanks! 

     

    Could you provide a link to the workflow you're referring to so I can take a look at it?? I would think that the AppleScript wouldn't be an issue because the application has to provide an AppleScript dictionary in order for OS X to call upon it. The Windows applications wouldn't have this obviously as they don't support AppleScript.

  7.  

    I am a long time user of Alfred and up until today it has worked flawlessly. For me, Alfred is indispensable. I really didn’t realize how much I used it until it quit working right. At any rate, I primarily use Alfred to launch apps & find stuff. Well, it won’t launch apps now. Before today, all I would have to do was type the first letter of my often used apps and presto, Alfred would find it. I would then hit return and the app opened (there is NOT a faster app launcher out there when Alfred is working). So, in an attempt to fix, I go into the settings, and clear the Applications cache. It had no effect. So, I rebuilt OS X metadata, and it had no effect. Are the Alfred gods mad at me!!! Please help.

     
     
    I have a MacBook Pro 15” Retina, 2.7 GHz Intel Core i7, 16GB ram. It is running OS 10.10.4. I haven’t installed anything new since the 10.10.4 update came out.

     

     

    Correct me if I'm wrong but, the files are being found, right? They just dont launch? Or are they not being found in Alfred? If they aren't being found, did you potentially modify Alfred's search scope? Have you checked out any of the other indexing steps listed here?

  8. Hi All

     

    Is there a way to insert a 1Password search result directly into the selected field?

    At least is is possible to copy the password to the clipboard with a few clicks of the keyboard.

    Gmail recently changed their log in process. It now spans over two screens, 1 for email then another for password.

     

    With the 1Password mini app running I constantly have to right click in the field, call up the app, type the Gmail I'm using then hit enter.

     

    If I call up the 1pass mini app with a hotkey it will open a whole new window and start the log in process from the beginning.

    I have the same experience with Alfred's 1Password integration.

     

    I'd like Alfred to automatically bring up the gmail login page, fill in the emails address and then if I have to search for the password again insert it directly into the password field (least have the option of copy and paste).

     

    This would be useful for other situations where the app doesn't allow you to rightclick in a password field. 1password mini app doesn't allow you to navigate with keys alone, so to copy the password to the clipboard you have to hover over the password with your mouse and copy it. This becomes a big hassle on those days where you seem to do little other than logging in to accounts.

     

    Due to security concerns, Alfred doesn't have direct access to the contents of 1Password. Alfred only has basic access (just the login url) that has a code appended.

     

    With 1Password Mini, if it is setup to activate with a hotkey, you could.. Use Alfred the first time to select the login you want to visit, then on the second step, action 1Password Mini, enter the login name, press the right arrow, and then press Enter. Pressing the right arrow would show the details of the login item, typically with the password selected and the Copy action available. 

     

    Would that work?

  9.  

    This folder filters are great but for sometimes the Mobile Documents create a problem.  For instance when searching for the Documents folder in my home directory I get dozens of "document" results which are from iPhone Applications I believe.  Anyway to avoid this? 

     

     

     

     

    If they are results that you wish to never see then you could try adding them into Spotlight's Privacy section within Spotlight Preferences. This will prevent the folders from showing up within Alfred's results. If you need any further help setting this up, let me know and I'll assist further

  10. Hi,

     

    when I write a script filter, the output is sometime mixed with fallback results.

     

    For example I have a "Hue" workflow that outputs the name of the bulbs available in my network, but together with the name of the bulbs I get also "hue.py" (the script) and "How to hue...pdf" (a pdf).

     

    How can I prevent that?

     

    Thanks, Gianluca

     

    The easiest way would be to change the keyword that activates the workflow. From the sounds of it, you have Alfred configured to show everything in the default results. This has the tendency to make your results kind of cluttered which is why its disabled by default. It makes it easier to show everything by default but results are a lot cleaner and a lot more accurate if you limit default scope and have workflows setup to perform more specific searches. For instance, one that I use all the time is folder only results. I use , as a keyword to show only folder results when searching rather than having to search through a mass of results for everything that could match my query.

  11. Hello,

     

    I'm kinda new to Alfred (which is awesome by the way) and I created a workflow with three steps:

    1. when triggered by a keyword
    2. execute a script
    3. post a notification

    Step 2 takes a couple of seconds and currently the notification is posted without waiting for the result of 2. I would like to make step 3 wait for step 2 to finish before posting the notification. I would also like to capture success/failure of step 2 and post a notification in accordance to that. Could someone tell me/point me to how I can go about doing this?

     

    Your help is appreciated.

     

    Cheers!

     

     

    Normally, notifications aren't posted till the script completes. You must be doing something to alter this behaviour.

     

    It's impossible to say any more because you haven't posted any code or screenshots of your workflow.

     

    If you want help with something, you kinda need to post that something to get accurate feedback instead of guesses.

     

    As Dean mentioned, the notifications usually aren't shown until execution finishes. I've never checked but I wonder that works with things like Node.js which are asynchronous. Could you provide some sample code? What language? 

  12. Hello! I love Alfred. The find and buffer work awesome for handfuls of files, but I'm a product manager for a collection of websites that may soon number in the hundreds, or thousands! Using the buffer to add each file may become untenable. 

     

    Is there a way (native Alfred "find", or otherwise) to automatically open all of the files with an explicit file name at once? Maybe even just limiting it to within a parent folder. My dream workflow would be something like the keyword + query combo of "findall config.yml" opening all of the config.yml files in Sublime (the default editor of yml) at once. 

     

    I googled a bit but think I could use an expert-shove in a direction!

     

    Are you familiar with creating workflows within Alfred? More specifically, have you taken a look at File Filters? You could create File Filters that are fine tuned to find the files you want with a keyword. Check those out and see if they may fill your needs. If you need help, let me know and I'll try to help you where necessary

  13. Hi,

     

    This is basic but I don't seem to find it. I must be using the wrong search terms! 

     

    I have a table with 2 columns: name->value and I would like to build a workflow where the user enters the name and the workflow looks up the possible values.

     

    for example: for a table like this:

     

    1 burrito -> mexican

    2 burrata->italian

    3 taco->mexican

     

    if the user enters

    **Keyword** bur,

    the workflow will show the top 2 values, and upon enter on the first one, will copy "mexican" to the clipboard.

     

    Can you guys point me to a workflow that does that or something similar? Sorry if this is too trivial.

     

    Thanks!!

    Giovanni

     

    Which part specifically are you having issues with? All? I don't know of one right off that does such a thing (searches a table) to provide as an example. How is the data formatted? By table, are you meaning that it is an Excel sheet? CSV, TSV, JSON or something else would be easier to parse than an excel sheet. You could also store the data in an sqlite database. That would make the searching pretty easy,

  14. Hello everyone. I've been using Alfred v2 with the power pack for about a month now and absolutely love it. There is just feature that I can't seem to figure out that is killing me--finding and playing music!

     

    I love that I can create workflows by just typing what seems logical, without having to memorise all sorts of complicated hotkeys--the whole thing I love is that everything starts from the launch alfred hotkey, and I can just go logically from there. It kills me, however, that I can't search for music without opening the mini player (causing me to press enter once). In the iTunes Keywords set there are options for Play/Pause, Next track, Previous Track, Random Album, etc. The great thing about these is that they can be accessed without having to open up the mini player; you can enable these iTunes mini player commands to work directly from the normal alfred bar. There isn't, however, a function to search for music in the Keywords page--am I missing something? I have tried several different workflows I've come across the internet for searching and playing for music without opening the iTunes player, but they all have problems (results load slowly, switches to desktop after pressing enter while using full screen applications, etc.).

     

    Is there a native way to find music without opening the mini player? Also, could I make it so that Alfred automatically brings up the mini player just by typing "music" (no enter)?

     

    Thanks you very much in advance!! :D

     

    You could create a file filter that would only show mp3s (or whatever format you use) within a folder but that wouldn't show actual metadata (the id3 tags and such) in results, it would show the file name and path. You could make workflow that would allow you to show id3 info in the results but that, as you mentioned before, sometimes tends to be slower because it isn't using the native access to Spotlight's metadata server to do the searches. The workflow itself is performing the search. That workflow COULD use mdfind to search and may speed things up some, but it still wouldn't be as fast as Alfred could do it and you also wouldn't get the album art and such. The mini player is the best solution. You could change the way you access the mini player to make it a little easier. For example.. if you use the Cmd+Space hotkey to access Alfred, you could use something like Opt+Space for the mini player. Or, another option would be using F6 since it resides just to the left of the other media keys.  

  15. it doesn't turn into a calculator, if i hit return after typing 2*2, the window just disappears.

    Im trying to post a screenshot taken by Grab on the mac, put Alfred won't let me post the image extension used on the file.

     

    rgds,

    Lorconblue

     

    If you'd like, you can send the image directly to us. The image or a link can be sent to info@alfredapp com or to me directly if you would like via david@alfredapp com and we'll try to get you taken care of asap.

  16. What has Alfred got against the files inside one particular folder, such that they won't appear in his search results, even though Spotlight has no problem finding them?

     

    Metadata on some of the files may have gotten corrupted. Did you try reindexing the drive? Did you try it with the 'Delete /.Spotlight-V100' option ticked? This is the most thorough way of reindexing.

  17. I don't understand --- the script is a simple way to do it no matter how many files there are.

     

    I guess I don't understand your statement   "action visible results"

     

    How is that visible list created in your scenario? It sounded like I would have to actually open the Finder to the folder that contains the files and select them--- which is precisely what I DON'T want to have to do.

     

    You can set Alfred to have a configured modifier key to "action visible results". This will allow you to, when searching/filtering files, you can perform the default action on all files currently listed in the results list. So, an example, say I pop up Alfred and type 'resume. The ' would initiate a file search and say that there are 5 files that are matched results. If I had the modifier key (ctrl + return) set to action visible results, pressing that hotkey would open all 5 of the files that matched the search.

  18.  

    Hi and good day,
     
    In the first Alfred Window,
     
    where everything is done,
     
    it doesn't stay very long!
     
     
    How to keep it up longer?
     
     
    The moment I activate/ click on another app the Alfred Window disappears, but maybe I still need it.
     

    /

    with best regards,

    Omar KN

    Stockholm, Sweden

     

     

    As mentioned by Vitor, this is indeed, by design. Alfred pops up when needed, does what he is commanded and then gets out of your way so that you can continue working. If you need Alfred to do something else, just press hit hotkey and he's ready to go again.

  19. I wasn't aware of the File Buffer but I don't think that would help me as it sounds like I would have to first manually select the files of interest through the Finder. Those files are in a deeply nested folder and the point is to not have to navigate to that folder.

    I just wrote a trivial bash script, i.e.,

    /user/bin/open /path/to/*.pptx

    which I can trigger but it would have been nice if I could have used the Launch App/Files action with a wildcard.

     

    If it's a constant folder, that is a simple way to accomplish the task. If the folder changes, you could make a result action to do something similar for any folder and it not be hard coded. You could always use the method I described earlier as well and use the mod key and have a file filter to show all files within that specific folder

  20. I want to be able to open all the PowerPoint files in a particular directory. As I create new files, I'd like those to be opened as when. Right now it seems I have to specify each file explicitly in the Multiple Files action.

     

    I realize I could just write a bash script and invoke that but it seems like a wild card specifier would be very helpful, particularly for people who don't know (nor care about) how to write scripts

     

    By the Multiple Files action are you referring to the File Buffer? If not, are you familiar with that feature in Alfred? If it is the buffer you are trying to avoid, since all you're wanting to do is open them, you could config alfred to do that with a modified key. In Alfred's Advanced preferences, on the right side you have the option to set what happens when you press return with several of the modifier keys. One of these options is "Action visible results".  This would allow you to use the wildcard and just press (for example, ctrl+return) and have it open all visible files in the result list.

  21. Sorry Andrew, I got really slammed on a project and haven't had time to play with this again until today. I tried moving it out of Dropbox and Alfred seems to be working fine now but it's also possible something else may have changed on my system since I had previously restarted Alfred.

     

    I seem to be good but I'm not if this gives you much certainty in Alfred on El Capitan.

     

    Thanks for the help!

     

    Hey Chris

     

    When Andrew mentioned Dropbox before, did you notice that he said the issue was potentially specific to the Apps folder within Dropbox, not Dropbox in general. The Apps folder within Dropbox is reserved for apps that make use of the official Dropbox API. We've seen issues in the past with users saving their preferences within this folder. If things are persisting after you removed it from that folder, try it again in Dropbox, but try with another folder. See if that works and let us know how things go.

  22. I REALLY want to like Alfred, but in both of my attempts to use it (one going on currently, and one a few months ago) it fails to find about 50% of the apps I have installed. Ironically, the apps it fails to find are the ones I use most, so this is obviously a problem. The same apps are found instantly using Spotlight, so it doesn't appear to be a problem with the app cache... Any help would be appreciated!

     

    Even though Spotlight does find the files, there could be still be something wonky with the metadata. Have you tried reindexing? The option to do so is available in Alfred's Advanced Preferences. Try that and let me know how that works out

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