devalias

Maybe I've just been filing a lot of bugs lately, but it would be handy if I could create auto-expansion snippets for well-known and environmental variables, in particular my OS version, i.e. "macOS 10.15.6".

Hey,
first post here, so first of all: Great App, great developer team, great community! Out of all the productivity apps on the MacOS ecosystem Alfred remains my daily driver 🤗
 
I make heavy use of Environment Variables primarily connected to script actions.
So my first suggestion is right there: A keyboard shortcut to directly open the Environment Variable Window without using the mouse.
 
One problem I often face is that by the time I edit e.g. my Run Script action I realize that I accidentally copied the name of the wrong environment variable or I copied the name instead of the value or vice versa. 
Since Alfred does not allow to open two Preferences Windows in parallel (actually not sure why, if this is indeed possible, please tell me 😊 ) I then have to close the action, reopen the Environment Variables Window, close it again and reopen the action again, which is tedious.
 
Thus, my feature request is some form of quick access to Environment Variables while editing workflow actions. For example, Keyboard Maestro has an action called Insert Variable which can be assigned to a keybinding and opens a palette (see screenshot below) with all user-defined variables that are filtered by typing and inserted with Enter.
 
Ideally, such a palette in Alfred would allow to paste the variable name or the variable value (one perhaps while pressing a modifier key) and only variables defined within the current workflow are displayed.
 
Let me know if such a feature is even realistic or if I better get used to copying the correct variable name in the first place 😋
 
Thanks for your great work!
 
 

 

Starting from Alfred 5.1 (currently in pre-release), multiple keywords are supported.

@Andrew @Vero Any chance this feature will be considered for Alfred 5? (I just bought my license today but haven't downloaded yet...)

Yep that would be pretty useful! I like the concept of 'alias' since that is already a familiar term for macOS users.
Something like this would look nice:

 

Yes, that's what I've decided I'll do:
 

 

 

 
 
Yes, I'll likely end up doing that too, once I standardize on the synonyms. 
 
What I would prefer would be to edit one of those keyword objects and just add synonyms or aliases directly, just to keep the Workflow layout cleaner. 

Right, but this would mean duplicating those keywords in each of the workflows in which I want to use these keywords, right?
 
I think that's probably fine, it's just a little inefficient since I'm creating workflow toolkits for several services with similar features (Twitter, Instagram, etc) and will need to sync/update these synonyms across all of the toolkits.

+1 for this request. I felt the exact same need (in my case, I have several workflows that allow me to quickly access my messages... so I really want to use "message", "dms", and "send", etc as aliases for several searches/workflows). 

I'm surprised there isn't more demand for this feature, I constantly find myself typing different keyword triggers when I want to perform the same action. For the same reason, I also set up multiple duplicate search engines in my browsers that use slightly different keyword variations but all point to the same custom URL query (like ama, amz, amzn that all perform the same custom Amazon.com search when typed in omnibox and Tab key is pressed)
 
When I'm in a moment of mental flow and I suddenly want to check for X on site Y, I want to do so the quickest way possible with the minimum effort/resistance. Same goes for the terminal, once I find myself using a command more frequently, I set a few minimum-character aliases for it like dk, dock, dkr (all aliasing docker) which allows my brain multiple neural pathways for it to be correct in the midst of focusing on a more complex task. I find that it helps my flow state significantly because there's less chance of mental disruption especially when recalling newly created aliases/keywords where the brain's connections aren't very strong yet and will still require more intensive memory lookups during your typing thought process.
 
All that aside, does anyone have any workarounds for this with Alfred workflows other than duplicating them and setting different keywords? Would be nice to have more low level access to Alfred's triggers but in lieu of that I wonder if a meta-workflow workflow could be worth experimenting on. If it would allow one to set a number of aliases for any of a user's currently installed workflows it could be potentially useful.

There is kind of search now in Alfred 4 - with "?" keyword you can find workflows too, but it will not show you the keywords and if you activate workflows found, it will just open them in the workflow editor. You can user this workflow instead as a workaround for now: http://www.packal.org/workflow/alfred-keyword-help and hope that at some point we don't have to rely solely on keywords
 
As an idea - it would already help, if search in workflow names could be configured as one of the default fallbacks. 
 
 

I would also say, that allowing search with the name of the workflow would be a better solution. I can memorise maybe 5-6 workflows I use on the regular basis, but I have no chance to remember abbreviations for the rest of them. Launchbar makes it right - I can assign abbreviations, but I will always find them also via the usual "fuzzy search"-like entry. Since Alfred these days relies so much on workflows, we need a better way to find them. 

Three years late to the party, but I am having the same issue. 


Can this be done?
 

@Jasondm007 Given that the original post is over four years old, workflows have evolved significantly since.
 
In Alfred 3, you could add multiple keyword objects before your script filter, one for each keyword. Set them to "No argument" and you'll then be able to hit Enter to launch your script filter. It requires one more press of the Enter key, but may suit your needs
 
However, given the example from the original post using "w" and "wiki", these aren't necessary, as you can just type "w" and press the Tab key when the Wiki workflow is selected, and Alfred will auto-complete the keyword "wiki", ready for you to type your search term.
 
Cheers,
Vero

Hi @Ingolmo - I'm new to Alfred, and was wondering if you ever figured out how to use more than one keyword in a script filter? 
 
I'd like to avoid duplicating the script filter a bunch of times with different keywords (within the same workflow), and haven't come across any discussions of this issue beyond your post.
 
Thanks for your help!!

Hello,
 
I don't know if it's possible to emulate this behavior with a workflow trick (other than duplicate the script filter), but I think it would be useful to allow to have multiple keywords for a single script filter.
It could be used to set multiple language keywords (like "weather" and "météo" in french), or just add a shortcut (like "w" or "wiki" for a wikipedia autocomplete workflow)

I saw this has been asked a few times before (e.g. here) but there wasn't a clear answer.

Since Alfred 4 is coming soon, I would like to throw this into the pot to see if it might be possible.
 
My brain is getting old. It's hard to remember all the different keywords and hotkeys I've set up. To aid myself I like to be able to use multiple keywords to trigger the same workflow step.
 
Example, I have a workflow for connecting Bluetooth devices, that I trigger using `bt`
instead of just "bt" I'd like to add a few more keywords, e.g. "blue", "connect", "audio" etc.
 
I know I can duplicate the script filter opject and connect its Output to the same step—it's a poor man's workaround, but it'd be cleaner and better to allow multiple keywords, such as this:

 

OP wants multiple keywords because he often forgets the right ones. Being able to look up the right one is a better solution than adding aliases and hoping you can remember one of those instead.
 
Ideally, you would also be able to launch the workflow directly from the search results, but like I said, the feature currently isn't very useful.

Yes, I suggested https://www.alfredforum.com/topic/12717-multiple-keywords-to-trigger-the-same-script-filter/ it a little while ago... Great idea and would be immensely useful to those of us "scatter brains" 
 

I think there’s already a feature request for this.
 
You can fake it by duplicating the Keyword node and connection and changing the keyword in the copy.

I often wish I could trigger a workflow input object by one of several keywords, rather than just the one.
I have a lot of workflows and often find myself forgetting which keyword to use. Having a couple different options might make it a little easier.
Thanks.