Jasondm007

For those who come across this post in the future, and who are looking to do something similar, I’ve uploaded a new version of the test workflow described above here: https://cl.ly/fe0cb259c299 It’s updated to show the two different ways you can accomplish what’s described above. All of the usual caveats apply. Here’s a screenshot of it: The old approach - shown in yellow above - relies on the JSON Config utility (which now works again, thanks to @Andrew). And the new approach - shown in red above - accomplishes everything through the File Filter itself, and by adding the asterisks * directly to the Arg & Vars utility. It will only work if you're using Alfred 4.0.2 or newer. As for the new approach, here’s a few screenshots of the relevant utilities’ settings: File Filter - New Approach Arg & Vars - New Approach (old approach simply excludes the *) Hope this helps!

@Andrew Thanks for the clarification on the JSON Config utility! In past attempts to fix the workflow after the upgrade I had mistakenly used the curly brackets {} and not the parentheses () with query, which explains why it didn't work. Also, thanks for the File Filter update in 4.0.2. It works perfectly without the JSON Config utility! It's a million times easier now!! Unrelated to this thread, but thanks for fixing some of the dark mode-related quirks in 4.0.2. It looks great! Thanks again for all of your help, and attention to everything! Honestly, I don't know how people work without Alfred. Hope you have a great weekend!

You're the best, @Andrew. Thanks for taking a look at it!

In Alfred 4, were there changes made to the way the JSON Config utility works with File Filters? I have a workflow, that relies on these elements, that now behaves differently after the upgrade. However, I suspect that the workflow was never configured appropriately in the first place, which is why I have not posted this as a bug. In short, this part of the workflow feeds a variable for a Finder tag/label from the JSON Config utility into a File Filter. It also feeds an argument (for an asterisk *) to pre-populate the File Filter's results in a manner that makes them visible to the user in Alfred's search bar (i.e., for those of us who need a gentle reminder about which files include the tag). Unfortunately, since upgrading to Alfred 4, I am no longer able refine or narrow the File Filter's displayed search results by adding more text to Alfred's search bar. The File Filter just spits out the results for the tag/label and does not respond to any text that is added while the results are displayed, which might otherwise narrow the results. Example w. Config To explain, consider the following example for a tag with the value “Yellow” from Finder. The JSON Config utility includes the following code (where the variable “tag” is defined in earlier stages of the workflow and can take on any value, such as Yellow): { "alfredworkflow" : { "arg" : "*", "config" : { "fields" : [ { "field" : "kMDItemUserTags", "split" : false, "not" : false, "value" : "{var:tag}", "words" : true, }, ] } } } Next, the JSON Config utility feeds to a File Filter whose settings are essentially blanked out as follows: Under both Alfred 3 and 4, when triggered, the Filter spits out results that look something like the following: Now, say I’m looking for the “Pooled” Excel file in the results from above. In Alfred 3, if I typed “Pooled” in the search bar, it would narrow the results down accordingly. However, now in Alfred 4, the results no longer narrow when adding additional text - as shown in the screenshot below. To be clear, since the JSON Config utility doesn’t contain any field-related information and the File Filter is essentially blanked out, I've never understood what fields Alfred 3 used to narrow its search results (though it looked like it was using the title). But it always worked like a charm!! If I had to guess, I’d say that Alfred 4’s new sorting options are impacting it. But, to be fair, I’m not sure that the workflow was ever setup correctly in the first place. Does anyone know how to change the JSON config or the File Filter so that it behaves in the same way that it did in Alfred 3 (i.e., to further narrow its results, as described above)? I tried toying with both elements of the workflow but have not had any luck. For testing purposes, I have created a small workflow that includes the relevant portions described above, and uploaded it here: https://cl.ly/0d64ceb966bc It is not the full workflow - which is specific to my odd Finder tags/labels, and contains a few additional steps. In any case, it should help get the ball rolling if my description above is a little tough to follow. Thanks for any help you can lend!!

I'm sure the dumb luck is on my end! Ha

@deanishe Thanks! Yeah, maybe it's a Mojave thing? I gave the Clipboard Viewer app a try, and boy is that thing confusing! In any case, here are my settings for the text, as it appears in Notes w. the same text as above: {\rtf1\ansi\ansicpg1252\cocoartf1671\cocoasubrtf500 {\fonttbl\f0\fnil\fcharset0 AppleSystemUIFontBold;\f1\fnil\fcharset0 AppleSystemUIFont;} {\colortbl;\red255\green255\blue255;} {\*\expandedcolortbl;;} \deftab560 \pard\pardeftab560\partightenfactor0 \f0\b\fs34 \AppleTypeServices\AppleTypeServicesF2293774 \cf0 Title Text\ \pard\pardeftab560\slleading20\partightenfactor0 \f1\b0\fs24 \AppleTypeServices\AppleTypeServicesF2293774 \cf0 \ \pard\pardeftab560\sa40\partightenfactor0 \f0\b\fs28 \AppleTypeServices\AppleTypeServicesF2293774 \cf0 Heading Text\ \pard\pardeftab560\slleading20\partightenfactor0 \f1\b0\fs24 \AppleTypeServices\AppleTypeServicesF2293774 \cf0 \ Body Text}

Hi @deanishe and @dfay - OK, please ignore my previous post. After doing some more goofing around, I was able to find something that works on my system. Thanks again for all of your help! To be clear, I have no idea why it works, and the other tests did not. However, if others would benefit - and presumably have similar Notes settings - here's what worked for me in Alfred: PS - Each is designated as a "System Font" PPS - Just to be clear, the text does not look this way in the Notes app when the snippet is used. It's formatted in the appropriate tags - which for me is 17, 14, 12.

Hi @dfay & @deanishe - Thanks for the feedback and for taking a crack at it! I really appreciate it. @deanishe I've tried this countless times today, and just haven't had any luck. So that I'm clear, are you recommending, in Alfred's snippet viewer, to change the font size as follows: Titles to 34, Headings to 24, and Body to 12 (or anything, since Body appears to be the default)? If so, are you also defining the Family and Typeface (Yours looks like Helvetica Neue - Regular)? Finally, once you trigger the snippet in the Notes app, yours automatically recognizes everything appropriately? I've tried countless variations, and my text usually comes out with Body tags - i.e., regardless whether it actually looks looks identical to the Notes app's text. However, I did notice that if the text is 34, or larger, it's usually recognized as a Heading. That said, I was never able to find the appropriate size or settings for Titles. If possible, could you share your working snippet? Just for testing purposes, I also tried changing the ⌘V shortcut from "Paste" to "Paste and Retain Style" and it didn't fix anything either (Notes - Edit - Paste and Retain Style). FWIW - it did seem to create some new problems with the color of the text, however - often pasting the text in charcoal/black so that it was unreadable on a dark background. In any case, I've switched things back to normal. Lastly, I'm not sure if it's helpful, but since we both appear to have different settings, I've included a few screenshots of my settings from the Notes app below. The first image shows my preferences in the app, and images 2-4 show what the text would look like if it were formatted appropriately. As always, thank you both for all of your help! Preferences - Image 1 Default Formatting in Notes app by tag, showing Fonts panel - Images 2-4

@luckman212 I too got my hopes up about using snippets to paste appropriately styled text into Evernote and the Notes app. 🤦‍♂️ To be honest, I wasn't surprised by Evernote. It's always been flaky. At the moment, I can't even get it to accept Rich Text snippets from Alfred that aren't discolored or without some other problem (I use the app in Dark Mode). However, I was a little more surprised by the Notes app, since it's native to MacOS. Any ideas how to maintain its simple Title, Heading, or Body tags? Has anyone else had any luck using snippets with formatted text in Evernote or the Notes app? It's got to be possible to apply the appropriate tags or styles to snippet-related text - even if it's processed via another step. Thanks for any help you can lend!

Thanks a ton @lycopodiopsida, @Carlos-Sz & @xilopaint!!

+1

Hi @mandrigin - Is there a difference in the way this workflow's two script filters search - particularly with multi-word searches? The reason I'm asking is that when I try to do a search with more than one term in the Window/Tabs filter, it never seems to work. But if I search using more than one term with the Safari filter it seems to work just fine. I usually have a lot of PDFs open in different windows of the Preview app - for research-related articles, which all have pretty long titles - and I was just hoping to rely more heavily on your workflow to find the article I'm looking for. Thanks for your help!

@sysninja Thanks for the suggestion! I really appreciate it. Just for clarification, are you recommending: to "Use font smoothing when available" from System Preferences, to run the app-specific terminal command (defaults write -app Alfred\ 4 CGFontRenderingFontSmoothingDisabled -bool YES), but to leave the global terminal command alone (defaults write -g CGFontRenderingFontSmoothingDisabled -bool NO)? Thanks for your help!

Hi @Andrew - Thanks for getting back to me, and for digging into this black border issue. I'm glad to hear that I am not going crazy, and that it's related Mojave's dark mode (PS - I think you deleted my previous post when this thread got split). In any case, it's very minor issue. I'm definitely not losing sleep over it. I know you've got more important things with the release, and I just wanted to give you heads up about it. Thanks again & Congrats!

@Alexander I'm having the same problem with borders in Alfred 4 (see thread below). I haven't had a chance to toy with it yet, but @Andrew recommended creating a temporary user account to test whether the border goes away:

@Andrew Thanks for getting back to me. No - I do not have any accessibility options enabled that would impact Alfred. After posting this question, I noticed that the black border around Alfred only shows up when Mojave is in Dark mode (previous screenshot above). When in Light mode, there's still a small border around the window, however, it's very light gray and hardly visible with Alfred's drop shadow (see screenshot below). Unfortunately, I don't have time to create a new user account at the moment, but I'll give it a try this evening when I leave the office. Thanks again for all of your help! @sysninja I'm not sure if it's helpful, but I used to notice a difference with the font weighting issue sometimes when I would toggle the "Use font smoothing when available" option in System Preferences off and on (System Preferences → General).

@Andrew FWIW - I've had similar issues with fonts rendering, too. Relatedly, are there rendering issues with other aspects of Alfred 4's themes, such as the way it deals with shadows? Since upgrading, I've noticed that Alfred's window has a small black line around it (where the border is set to zero, etc.). I've tried creating a new theme and using the default ones, but they all seem to have it on my machine (see screenshot below w. default theme). If this is another rendering issue, do you have any suggestions for tinkering with settings to get rid of it (i.e., like the font issue discussed above)? Thanks for your help! PS - Congrats on Alfred 4! The new features look great!

Hi @deanishe and @vitor - Thanks for the third party app suggestions. I was only aware of one of them, so I'll take a look at the others. That said, I was really hoping for an Alfred-based solution that uses these utilities. At the moment, I rely on a bunch of other workflows to accomplish what I need, and it's a lot more messy than just using Alfred's Web Search & Web Bookmark tools. It might be aspirational ... but this is a Feature Suggestion thread after all, right?

I would love to see Alfred’s Web Bookmarks and Web Search features allow for alternative browser opening options. Like most people these days, I often find myself needing to switch between browsers during the day. Since Alfred’s Web Bookmarks and Web Search features are tied to the user’s default browser (or, in the case of Web Bookmarks, the browser where the bookmarks came from), I have had to create a bunch of workaround workflows. However, I’d love to go back and start using Alfred’s under the hood features again. Alfred’s Web Search, for example, makes it so much easier to see everything than in a bunch of messy workflows. There are a lot of different ways one might implement this functionality, so I thought I’d throw out a few ideas below. I’ve tried to stay within the usual confines, without calling for anything too crazy. However, @Andrew, please feel free to put me in my place if I’m way over the moon with these. As always, thanks for your consideration! Web Bookmarks In its “Open Bookmarks” dropdown, add one of the following options: “on a case-by-case basis”: This option would prompt the user to select the browser where they want to open the bookmark each time. This is probably my least favorite option, but I thought I’d go ahead and suggest it. I imagine this could work like a list filter - i.e., where it’d just show the user a list of their installed browsers, and they could select the one they liked. “call external workflow”: This option would just send the url to an external trigger defined by the user. If this option is selected, it would then have to open another dropdown where the user could select the appropriate Trigger ID, etc. This option sounds like it would give users the most control over everything. However, I imagine that it’s also the most complicated. Add a new “Modifier Key” option with (1) a dropdown that allows users to select a modifier key (e.g., command, option, control, function, shift), and (2) another dropdown that allows users to select a browser that’s installed in its system - much like Alfred’s “Open URL” action does (see screenshot below). All told, this is probably my favorite option because it seems like the least amount of work, and it feels like others options that are presently in Alfred already. If you wanted, you could also add the default options to this dropdown too (e.g., “in macOS default browser” and “in bookmark’s source browser”), or even the first two suggestions above (“on a case-by-case basis” OR “call external workflow”). As a quick aside, I would also love to see a Hotkey option added to Web Bookmarks - like below. I understand that you can make a hotkey search using your designated keyword, but I hate having other stuff in my results. Web Search In theory, all of the options from above could work here, too. For example, while it looks a little wonky, here’s a screenshot of how the the “Modifier Key” option might operate. Alternatively, I imagine some people would like to specify this within each individual custom search. I suspect this might make Alfred a little overly bloated, however.

Hi @mandrigin By chance, is there any way to get Finder's tabs listed separately in the search results, like with Chrome and Safari? Depending on the project I'm working on, I usually keep several Finder tabs open in the same window. However, it's often difficult to see what's open, depending on the monitor width and where they bunch up on the right-side (i.e., without right-clicking Finder in the dock or the "Window" list from its Apple menu). In any case, since your workflow works so well for Safari and Chrome tabs, I just thought that I'd ask about Finder. As always, thanks for your help!

@Bhishan I've implemented this in a much larger workflow, so I'd recommend downloading @Andrew's posted above (July 18, 2018) - which fixes the original workflow: I just checked, and his Dropbox upload still works.

@deanishe When I run the suggested command, Alfred's Preferences merely open. That is, they do not open to the specific workflow's path (let alone the Workflows tab/window, unless it was open previously).

Does anyone have a workflow that searches imported workflows, and then opens the selected workflow in Alfred's Preferences tab (i.e., instead of opening Alfred's Preferences tab, and then using its search bar)? I have found several great workflows - like @dfay's Workflow Picker or @pochemuto's Alfred Keywords - that search your existing workflows and then run them or reveal them in Finder, etc, but I haven't been able to find one that has the option to open the workflow in Alfred's preferences window. Like most people, I find myself constantly tweaking my existing workflows, and would love to find an easier way to search and open them in Alfred. Thanks for your help!

@mandrigin Thanks for sharing this workflow. It's awesome! I can't believe this is a "little weekend project." This thing is awesome! Out of curiosity, do you see yourself adding multiple-spaces/desktops to it any time soon? I've tried a few window switching apps that are dedicated to this function, and I actually like your workflow's interaction better in many ways. My only problem is that I like to work on several desktops/spaces at a time. @oldhgf By chance, did you have any luck tinkering with the desktops/spaces issue? Thanks again for sharing!

Good News: After reaching out to Google Drive's support, it looks like they've fixed the problem. The account-specific urls - mentioned above - are working again! Case closed ... Ha