johnhamill

This is looking more and more like a bug in Mac OSx - a lot of your users may come across this problem. See below another example of the Spotlight popup bar not working, but Alfred and Command-F do. FYI, I am running Big Sur (11.3): Video link 2: https://www.dropbox.com/s/t3j1m4ml5odbl8d/2nd example-Spotlight v Cmd-F.mov?dl=0

Alfred can find the file now, but it took a long time for me to solve it because of the issue I am trying to explain. When Alfred could not find the file, I consulted the Alfred indexing troubleshooting page. Throughout the page, Spotlight is referenced: I paraphrase, "You should check first that the file can be found in Spotlight as Alfred bases its results on Spotlight's indices". This is what I did. And Spotlight did NOT list the file in its results. I kept trying to index, but Spotlight still did not list the file. After some time, I decided to look at the Command-F search (just in case). And it was listed in that search. I went back to Alfred and Alfred did now list it. So now I have the situation where Alfred lists the file, the "Command-F" search lists the file, but Spotlight (the pop-up bar) does NOT list the file. I enclose a video link demonstrating this. Because it took me so long to sort out this problem (by using the Spotlight popup bar only), all I wanted to know was (in the future), can I disregard the "Spotlight popup bar" search in favour of the "Command-F" search when solving these sorts of problems. I hope this more clearly illustrates my question, and thank you once again for your assistance. Video link: https://www.dropbox.com/s/uk7ryqowenuzysi/Spotlight v Command-F.mov?dl=0

I always use the "spacebar trick" to search. I understand everything about indexing (dragging the file in and out of the Spotlight preference pane, mdutil etc.). For future problems, I would still like to know what Alfred results most equate to - the Command-F search results or the Spotlight popup bar results. I ask this because these Mac "searches" provide different results. My first step going forward (in the case that Alfred is not providing expected results) is to disregard the results in the Spotlight popup bar and rely only on the Command-F search results. Would that be a correct "first step" in solving an "Alfred search problem". Thanks.

Sometimes Alfred cannot find files which it should. In such as case, I immediately check Spotlight to see if it can find the file as Alfred is based on Spotlight's index. This occurred recently. I had several files on the system containing the word "Citizen Kane": Citizen Kane (1941).mp4 Citizen Kane (1941)-Extra01-Interview with Orson Welles.mp4 Citizen Kane (1941)-Extra02-History and Hearst.mp4 .... etc I activated the Spotlight popup bar and searched for the first file in the list above. Spotlight separates its results into movies, contacts, definitions, bookmarks & history etc. Referring to the files above, the results page did not display the first file in the list above, "Citizen Kane (1941).mp4". It did list some of the other files that contained the text "Citizen Kane". I then did a search using Command-F and this did find the first file on the list above. My question is: The results are different for the Spotlight popup bar and the Command-F search in the example above. Does Alfred base its results on the Command-F search only? It may be that the Spotlight popup bar only displays what it thinks is relevant (or maybe it limits it results?). Thank you for your assistance.

My bad. Rarely use the shebang (although it is best practice) as all my scripts are run from the command line. Thanks.

Mac OSx 11.3 Alfred 4.6 (1266) The error I receive is a Posix spawn error (relevant screenshot enclosed). I enclose a screenshot of the permissions I have set. I have set them to superuser/owner (rws). rwx permissions should be adequate, but I decided to run it as superuser (just in case). I have also checked the permissions on the recursive directories down to the workflow itself (all 'rwx' for the owner 'johnhamill'). The permissions on directory of the workflow itself also seem fine (screenshot enclosed). The script runs successfully when NOT used in an external script. Workflow and screenshot link: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/caso70jllct0efu/AAAc-qedy24K6q7idURYjImka?dl=0 Thanks.

I am a diehard user of the "vi editor". I would like to use this editor to edit scripts directly (and not within the Alfred script window). I thought I might be able to stick with the"vi editor" if I were to use "External script". I attempted this but ran into problems. Reading the forum post below however, it doesn't look like this is possible (because of single arguments and whitespace etc - see the very last post). What I am doing at present is copying and pasting from Alfred to the "vi editor" and vice versa. There is also the option of editing the info.plist file directly - but I think that is a little too dangerous really. Thanks for your help.

I believe there may be a misunderstanding here. I want to search within files for certain text. I want to specify the search start point within the directory tree. The 'in' keyword searches file contents across the whole system (see enclosed image). I may be just missing something here - but I cannot see how the above answers can help me with this. Can you point me to a workflow or more documentation? Thanks. https://www.dropbox.com/s/9ol5113lyf369p9/Screenshot 2021-11-08 at 22.25.16.png?dl=0

Use of the 'in' keyword is mentioned on the File search page. https://www.alfredapp.com/help/features/file-search/ That is the only mention of it that I can find. I have tried on the forums but the word 'in' is just too common for a search to make any sense. Can this keyword be used with any other Alfred objects? For example, I would like to be able to search the contents of all files from a certain point in my directory tree. Is this possible? Is there any documentation on this? Thank you for your assistance.

I knew it had to be simple 😀 Thanks.

I'm using a hotkey in a workflow and wish the hotkey to execute "only if the Finder has focus". You have to drag an app to the window to do this, and the Finder in Big Sur does not seem to have a Finder binary. I seem to remember in the past that there was a Finder binary. Attempted a few other apps in the utilities folder, but none "represents" the Finder. I can reverse it of course and exclude all applications for this hotkey –but that seems a little bit of overkill. There is probably a simple solution that I am missing - Any thoughts would be appreciated.

My bad! I work with video editing quite a lot and I assumed that fade very slow meant "fade out" very slow like a video fade out. I have downloaded the example workflows and I can now see how it works. Thanks for your help and apologies for "my assumption".

Nothing happens at all no matter what you set the fade to be. I would expect it to show the message and then slowly fade from the screen. I have to manually press escape to clear the message from the screen. This isn't a big deal. I was just reporting what I thought might be a bug. Being a good web citizen 🙂

Please see enclosed. https://www.dropbox.com/sh/caso70jllct0efu/AAAc-qedy24K6q7idURYjImka?dl=0

Mac OSx 11.3 Alfred 4.6 (1266) Object: Output/Large Type When selecting the fade option, no fading occurs. Replicated after reboot of iMac with only two objects - hotkey trigger and large type output object. This seems to have occurred before -

I will be using this workflow regularly, so I let you know. Thanks.

Well, I do not wish to rob you of any "extra work", 😀 but I think it's working exactly as it should. When I uncheck the option (in Features > File Search > Buffer > Clear After Actioning), the values (file path names) are assigned correctly to the array in the Alfred shell script. These files do remain in the file buffer (as they should). You are reminded of this when you next display the Alfred launch bar and must execute "Alt-Backspace" to clear it. Again, this is as it should be as your shell script may well be processing these files. Personally, I think this is one of the most powerful aspects of Alfred - the ability to use the GUI to select your files, perform an action on these based upon dynamic (JSON like) choices by the user / operator. I come from a systems admin/programmer background and this functionality would allow a lot of tasks to be offloaded to "operators" who may not have great knowledge of "shell scripts". If say, you control 30 servers which require similar maintenance via shell scripts. The "operator" could be given a list of "servers" in the script filter from which to run the "Operations" for that specific chosen server. More script filters could be added for more operational granularity. Very powerful. Thanks again for your help.

Thanks for that. But ... I am unsure on whether I should open another forum post for the following problem. It does follow on from the output of the "file buffer" referenced earlier in this thread. I will open another post if you deem it is necessary. Again, I have code that operates correctly outside of Alfred (in a shell script), but does not operate (using the same shell script code) with output supplied by the "file buffer" object to an Alfred script. I enclose the workflow and shell script. In the shell script, displaying array elements works correctly. The Alfred script does not seem to recognise (or interrogate correctly) the same array. https://www.dropbox.com/sh/caso70jllct0efu/AAAc-qedy24K6q7idURYjImka?dl=0 Thanks again.

Thank you for your help. Your suggestion to "get the files back out of the File Buffer." worked. I had some trouble initially as I did not know whether to set the output of the "File Buffer" to 'Successfully added files' or 'File buffer contents'. I have set it to 'File buffer contents' and that works. But it does not work with the option 'Successfully added files'. What is the difference between those options? It doesn't really make it clear in the help pages. Again, thank you for your help.

Thanks for your help. I will try those suggestions out. Just to confirm, I should consider that all output from Alfred objects will be a single string of "arguments". Are they always delimited by a tab character? Again, thank you for your help.

Dropbox link below: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/caso70jllct0efu/AAAc-qedy24K6q7idURYjImka?dl=0

I have a File Action object which is connected to "File Buffer" object. My intention is to save this list of file names (selected via the file action object) and process them (the list of files) in a shell script object later on. To achieve this, I am assigning the selected files to an array using the JSON object. I intend to use this array to process each of the files individually in a shell script later on. The output from the JSON array is "<filename1> Tab character <filename> etc . I am having problems interrogating disarray within Alfred however. I have created a shell script outside of Alfred which operates correctly outputting: X: filename1 X: filename2 When I use the same shellscript code inside of Alfred, the output is incorrect: X: filename1 filename2. I don't know why the script should operate correctly in zsh but not in Alfred. Do I need to alter the configuration for zsh in the workflow home directory? I suspect it may a globbing issue? I enclose: 1. Workflow 2. The zsh script that works (tab_file_buffer.zsh) Thank you for your assistance. PS. I intended to add the files above. However, it says the excepted file types are only gif, jpeg, jpe, jpg or png ???