nikivi

I used the workflow @deanishe linked above but switched to a different solution all together for all my note taking.
 
Now I just write all my notes as markdown files in Sublime Text. I put all the notes in one directory called knowledge that I put in Dropbox for syncing. And I can open any file in this directory with Alfred scoped to the path where the directory lies. I made a workflow for it too.
 
On iOS, I use Ulysses app to edit the notes as Ulysses can consume directories of markdown files that are stored on Dropbox. The bonus point of it all is that I can then render all these markdown files to the web with GitBook so anyone can read them. 

If you want to keep private notes in this setup, I would create a directory in the main repo and git ignore it so it won't be pushed online for all to see.
 
This setup works for me and I am super happy with it. Maybe you like it too. I am just not fond of keeping all my notes in a database that only Notes or Bear or any one app can read. Markdown files are super portable. Oh and Sublime Text has vim mode which neither Notes nor Bear nor Ulysses have.

Yeah, I mostly use neovim. But of course I use Xcode, too. If I want to write a good GUI app, then I should start with a good GUI library. And then I use the editor/IDE that works best with that library.
 
I'm trying to write halfway decent software, not have a great time writing a turd. I don't see any point in epic productivity gains if, in the end, that leads to producing crap.
 

That's a huge issue. Unless Alfred creates this file or the developer doesn't have to think about creating this file, this system won't work. As many would simply not bother adding more friction to their workflow of writing and publishing their workflows. imo

@nikivi Okie! I don't see a problem with that... I'll see what I can do  

Yeah. That's what I was thinking.
 
Assuming I couldn't remember exactly what I'd done (which is pretty common for me), I'd figure out {var:an-empty-keyword} a lot faster than an invisible character.

I’m guessing the problem is that it feels like a hacky solution. Looking at it in the future after you forget (or another person looking at it), it will look like a mistake.
 
 
That it is. If you’re using a hacky solution anyway, one that you can see is less likely to come back to bite you.

None of those is related to Pacmax, though. Those are comments on Github and would still be in place if Pacmax had never been made.
 
 
I’m pretty sure we’ve discussed this years ago in the forum. It doesn’t matter if you have a recommended structure, because each developer will do whatever they think is best (see previous previous XKCD). You can get some of the people to not use their preferred method if they see the advantages of following the recommended system, but truly the recommendation is little more than an established preference of somebody else. Case in point, how seemingly every Workflow author that writes in node insists on sharing their Workflow via npm. You won’t convince them all to change to a specific structure.
 
And that’s the ones you can reach! Packal proves that some people just want to make and share a Workflow. They don’t care about (or will even be aware of) best practices. If you want to be the definitive source where people share Workflows, you cannot impose your own method, you have to be flexible to accommodate everybody else’s (though I do think npm installs are so far off they just might need to be ignored).
 
 
Agree with that whole post.
 
 
Maybe the solution is not to have direct download links (why would it? Unlike Packal, Pacmax isn’t hosting), but instead a link to the download instructions.
 
 
Hence my comment on needing a change in ideology, not technology, in what regards to a system that shares Workflows. All of us have reservations regarding investing into Pacmax, and they all come back to “how do we know it won’t crash like all the others?”. @nikivi did well to insist on the question of open-source. Being proprietary was not the sole cause that sunk the alternatives, but it’s big enough that it’s making us think twice.

I’ll stress OneUpdater isn’t a solution for monorepo updates; it’s a method-agnostic solution. The whole point of OneUpdater is to not tie you down in any way. That’s why it’s a single node you can copy and configure to get working, and getting rid of it is as easy as pressing ⌫ on said node. It works just as well for monorepos, no repos (any server works), and github releases.

My main issue with Packal was always that it required me to do everything twice. Every time I updated a workflow, I had to update it on both GitHub and on Packal. The later bugginess aggravated this, but having to do everything twice was always the sticking point.
 
Pacmax has the right idea with "paste repo URL here and that's it". Unfortunately, it doesn't currently do the right thing(s) with repo URLs.

To get a discussion going and hear what the community thinks. I am not the one to judge what people should do, they can decide for themselves.
 
For all we know, the tool might be using some crawler (spider) under the hood already or has one planned.
 
And for another point, it's currently the best website to fill Packal's void. And it has a search that works. Packal is also closed source for whatever reason. 

It's called Pacmax. Saw it posted on Reddit.
 
I was actually thinking of building it but glad that I don't have to. 😅

It's called Pacmax. Saw it posted on Reddit.
 
I was actually thinking of building it but glad that I don't have to. 😅

If I may, I would love to bring this thread to attention as it is a bit relevant to searching of Contacts
 

I very often search people by contact name to open their Twitter/GitHub and such customizable actions would save me quite a bit of time. 🧡
 

My domain and personal site are totally separate things. The former (deanishe.net) sits on a Linode and the latter (www.deanishe.net) is on GitHub Pages. I use GH Pages because it seamlessly integrates the gh-pages branch of your projects with the website.

Previously, I just dumped workflows like this one in a folder on my deanishe.net webserver (and before that in my Dropbox public folder, when it still worked).

I just recently decided it'd make more sense to put them on my website where I can add a bit of context, not least to remind me what the workflow does.
 
 
There isn't really a workflow. I don't do it often enough for it to be worth automating. Previously, I just used a ForkLift bookmark to open the relevant folder on my webserver. Now, I've written a Hugo template that shows a download link for any resource file that isn't an image. (Hugo resources are any files in the same directory as a post's index.md.)

Mine is set to this:
 

 
For similar reason as @vitor. GraphQL servers use cmd + space to get suggestions.
 
I never press those keys though so I activate Alfred by either pressing j and l keys together or with a single press of right command (configured with Karabiner). Although I don't often activate Alfred alone as I have everything bound to an external trigger with Karabiner. I really dislike the overhead of keywords and want to activate my stuff fast.
 
Maybe it works for you too. Although it probably is not as common to do it this way. 🙂

That might be the best idea. Decouple the suggestions from the searches, and then you can mix and match as you please.
 
Currently, that simply is not a goal for Searchio.

No, not really. What you're asking would be a lot of work because the basic data model of the workflow is "one engine per search".
 
Changing that would require some fairly fundamental changes to the workflow, not just a few lines of Go.
 
I'm not going to implement it because I have no use for the feature (I never, ever use "I'm feeling lucky" and I don't think it applies to any other search engines). And I'm not going to help you do it because helping you with code, I am sorry to say, is almost never an enjoyable or rewarding experience for me.

Niki, you asked a question about something you’ve done a dozen times yourself.
 
Any Script Filter you’ve written that doesn’t use “Alfred filters results” is using {query} (or ARGV).

This doesn't make any sense. {query} is exactly what is fed to the program as input. Literally no Script Filter can work without it unless you have "Alfred filters results" checked.

As you're talking about Searchio!, the variable is literally called query.

All you need to do is modify the Item.
 
Exactly how long did you spend thinking over this problem before you started making screenshots and composing your forum post? Five seconds? Less?

My system shows JS files as having the UTI com.netscape.javascript-source. So you should grep your /Applications directory for com.netscape.javascript-source to see which app defines that UTI. On my machine, that would be BBEdit, VimR, VoodooPad and TextMate. Installing (and running) one of those apps might also fix your problem.
 
VS Code supports .js files, but it doesn't define a UTI for them, so that likely won't work.
 
(This stuff is all defined in an app's info.plist.)

Anything look funny to you, Niki?

I was going to include that point in the original post, but refrained from it for length. Yes, in theory every software tool is an automation tool because they automate the flipping of ones and zeroes, but that’s not a useful metric. Words have meanings but those meanings are contextual. We could call them “bananas” instead of “automation tools” and still have a productive discussion, as long as we both agreed to that nomenclature.

I specified what I mean by “automation tool”. I defined them as “tools whose purpose is to automate others”. Affinity Designer and Karabiner do not fit that definition and thus are not automation tools in the scope of this discussion. If we were discussing the meaning of “automation tool” then we could certainly argue about it, but in this case it was a shorthand for a point about a specific type of app.

How can a tool do something too well? “Too well” implies the tool does its job so effectively it becomes inappropriate for the job. I’ll need an example, because I can’t think of any case where that makes sense.

You may argue that some tools make certain tasks so practical that you’d rather do it in them. That’s valid, but that doesn’t mean your other tool can’t do the task of the first with a bit more effort (i.e. using it to the fullest). Sure, you can have fifteen automation tools running at once, using each for the tasks it excels at, but maybe you could also reduce those fifteen to five, and reap benefits to your wallet and the stability of your system.

I’m not saying there’s never a use case for many automation tools. What I am saying is that if you have many, maybe you should take a harder look and confirm if you really need all of them. The answer, for most people, is that probably you don’t.

Your case is particular because you enjoy tinkering. Even if you don’t need (in a practical sense) to use several tools, you’ll do so for the enjoyment and exploration. I’d wager that’s not the case for most people that use multiple automation tools, and I’d wager even more that the number of tools a heavy automator uses (out of necessity, not tinkering) is, as a rule, inversely proportional to their ability to code and/or think like a programmer. I make this distinction because I’ve seen people who can code but then overegineer solutions because they didn’t take the time to stop and evaluate what the result (not the process) should be. 
 
 
Is a keyboard customisation tool, not an automation tool. Even if you can use it for automation, that’s not what it is and you’re bending it to your setup. You can also use a web browser for automation (bookmarklets, headless mode) but it’s not an automation tool in and of itself because it’s not its primary goal. My comment concerned tools whose purpose is to automate others.
 
 
This is a deepity. I don‘t need to master a crossbow to know I shouldn’t use it to write a novel. I don’t need to master a paintbrush to know not to use it to kill a lion. I don’t need to master Microsoft Word to know I shouldn’t use it to code fractals. I don’t need to master vectr (or a multitude of other vector drawing tools) to know they’re not good enough to make a mandala. In some of these cases it’s by mastering the task or a different tool that I can in a few minutes recognise another tool is insufficient; in the others I have no need to master either because the design of the tool makes its strengths and weaknesses obvious. In fact, we might even argue that if we need to completely master a tool before its shortcomings are clear, it might be a badly designed tool1.
 
1. But I will not say that right now, as I’ll need to first think about it some more and try to disprove the hypothesis.

I've posted an updated version of this post on my own site: Workflow/environment variables in Alfred.
 
I tried to update this version, but the awful forum editor makes it too difficult to be worth the effort.

I meant Alfred Preferences.
 
This stuff
 

 
And this stuff:
 

 
To have dark interface. Same as all the other macOS Mojawe apps and OS.