TomBenz

Hey,
 
I am working on the next evolution of the workflow. The major changes involve the addition of an agenda, the possibility to create new events using natural language, improvements of the week view and an overall redesign. For now, the search function stays true to what it was, except that it is handled internally.
 
I'm announcing this, because I'm looking for some of you to beta test the workflow as I'm somewhat pushing the limits of what can be achieved with Alfred's plain text result items, and would appreciate knowing that it works well on different machines with different configurations. 
 
For the potential beta tester:
I am using the same tricks to right-align the icons that I use to create the tidy block calendar, and would like to know if the layout of the results (e.g. a listed calendar event) succeeds with your custom theme and configuration. One of the key challenges is to present all the relevant information clearly, given Alfred's limitations in displaying data, without making the view feel cluttered and distracting.  I'd like to get your feedback on how well this works, and your suggestions on how to possibly improve the views. Especially the agenda.  I'd also like you to test the new features and let me know if they (a) work for you as expected, (b) are intuitive for you or not, (c) are buggy in any way or broken due to your locale. Permissions authentication has changed recently, and I am wondering if you are having problems granting access to your calendars, and if so, how you may have resolved them. Note that the workflow requires Apple's SF Symbols to be installed for the icons to show.
Please let me know if you're interested!
 
 
Here are some previews:
 



(Creating an event, you can adjust the day using > and <, as well as the time using + and -)

Folks I am retiring this workflow - I don't have the time to put into fixing the bugs, or the permissions issues, and frankly I just don't use it myself any more. 
 
The workflow will still be available in the same place but I won't be attempting to fix any of the existing issues.

On a daily basis
 
Browser Tabs by Emmanuel Pilande
Calculate Anything by Biati Digital
Menu Bar Search by Benzi Ahamed
Search Notes by Sean Ballinger
System Settings by Vítor Galvão
 
and a workflow I put together to use as an app switcher (used to use Karabiner)

Oh I finally figured it out. I never thought of using an Apple Script. 

Here it is if anyone wants to use it:
 
tell application "Microsoft Outlook"
activate
set theMainWindow to make new main window
set view of main window 1 to calendar view
end tell

this is really nice @Stephen_C. You've become quite prolific.

@TomBenz Keep an eye out for exciting news in the new year 👀 That's as much as I can say for now...

The new "Resolve Dependencies" feature is pretty neat and handy! One possible change that would be useful is on this screen:

Instead of just listing the formulae needed, it would be nice for a column called "used by" or "used in" to list the workflow that requires it (if it's used by >1 then just listing the first one would be fine)

This way we could decide if we want to download a large package or potentially just do some housekeeping and remove a workflow that might no longer be useful.

HI @AuspiringMind, have you tried what Dean recommended in the past? I.e. replacing all files except info.plist?

I suspect there are many users who use both (as I do). Both use differing approaches so it's very much "horses for courses” (i.e., you choose whichever is better suited for what you wish to do).
 
I can give one or two personal examples—but remember these are my personal views and no indication of one app being better than the other.
There was an Alfred workflow to send to Roon, when Roon was running the background, the keystrokes necessary to increase or decrease the volume of the music playing. That workflow stopped working for me. When I recreated it in Alfred by manually passing the keystrokes Roon came to the front on each relevant key press. I then created a macro in Keyboard Maestro which worked perfectly (without bringing Roon to the front when I was trying to change the volume). However, on the other side of the coin, the way Alfred works by typing just a few letters to get what you want (be it a file or a workflow) is wonderful and saves having to remember all the various Keyboard Maestro triggers (or using a lot of macro palettes or the status menu). In that context Alfred's Universal Actions are unbeatable (in my view). It's easier in Keyboard Maestro to use input forms and specifically designed output screens—which can be useful for some things which I need to do. For what it's worth, I use Alfred principally and Keyboard Maestro for various specialist things which I can't otherwise easily achieve in Alfred. The only way you can really answer your question is to look for yourself, I'm afraid. Everything depends on exactly what you want to achieve: each application has its own advantages and benefits. I have never regretted having both.
 
Stephen
 

I'd love a stat in usage of:
 
* What workflows I'm using the most
* What workflows I'm barely using. 
 

Wow! I was dreaming about that! 
I have also researched how to collect all the global shortcuts several times already, but I have had no luck. 
Though, I think I will continue my search. I will let you know if I find the solution.

Added to version 1.2.0

 
OCR Light v1.2.0
Add File Action to extract text from images Fix for macOS Sonoma (Compiles the script en passant to compensate for the failure to link objc symbols on macOS 14).

I am indebted to @exposition for his original post that provided the inspiration for this workflow and also for his assistance in testing beta versions of it and in helping to make the Read Me…well…more readable. Any remaining errors and infelicities are all mine, of course.
 
The workflow has no dependencies.
 
WARNING
One option in this workflow allows you to merge two identically named folders (which is the default in the workflow configuration).  Before you use that function for the first time please backup your original folder and any identically named folder located in the destination so that you can check, without risk of losing data, that the function works as you expect.

Introduction
Select a single folder in Finder, activate Alfred using your Universal Action hotkey then use this workflow to move that folder and its files to a destination of your choice. If an identically named folder exists in the destination you will be offered the options of either overwriting that folder or of merging the contents of both folders. The latter option produces a folder in the destination containing both the files from the original folder (which will be moved to the Bin/Trash) and the files that were already in the identically named folder.

Configuration
When there is an identically named folder in the destination:
You will have the option of either overwriting the identically named folder or of merging the files from the two folders. If the checkbox in the workflow configuration is checked (which is the default setting) the menu offering the choices will appear like this:
 
If the checkbox in the configuration is not checked the menu offering the choices will appear like this:

The options available are the same but the default menu choice (which you can select by pressing ⏎) changes. The purpose of the configuration is to allow you to have your most-used function as the easily accessible default.

Usage
Select a single folder in Finder, activate Alfred using your Universal Action hotkey and find the workflow by starting to type Move folder:

Press ⏎ and you will be prompted for the name of the destination. Start typing the folder name and select the folder you want:

If an identically named folder does not exist in the destination the selected folder will simply be moved to the destination.

If, however, an identically named folder does exist you will see one of the two dialogs shown under Configuration above. (Which you see will depend upon whether or not the checkbox in the configuration is checked.)
 
If you choose to merge the files they will be merged in the destination and the original folder will be moved to the Bin/Trash.

If you choose to overwrite the existing folder the moved folder and its contents will replace the identically named folder in the chosen destination.

Creation of log file on merge
When you choose to merge two identically named folders a log file (called mergelog.txt) is created in the workflow's home folder. To see it right click on the workflow name in Alfred's preferences and choose Open in Finder. You can then open the mergelog.txt file in your default text editor to see exactly what changes were made during the merging of the folders.

Note that the log file is overwritten by each fresh merge to prevent it becoming unwieldy.
 
The GitHub download link.
 
Stephen
 
 

@exposition I should have a (slightly complex!) workflow for you to play with in the next hour or so. I just need to write the Read Me explaining how it works. However, please initially test very carefully the merge files option. I have checked it and it seems to work properly but make backups of the folders you're testing before using it for the first few times.
 
Stephen

Thanks @vitor. That is much much cleaner and instructive. I didn't put it on github as I didn't know if it would be of value beyond being an example to the wider community. In essence everytime i start a new project with its own set of folders, I would replicate this and created the specific folder paths etc. Look how much cleaner this looks:


 
I never have used the split argument object and it works as I have configured it, but is this how it "should" be?

Because it’s a frequently asked question, I’ll cover at the top that the workflow will not show windows which are hidden, minimised, or in another Desktop space. Those cannot be retrieved with current macOS APIs without a significant hit in performance, losing useful stacking order information, or showing a ton of irrelevant non-app windows. The workflow specifically moved away from those tradeoffs.
 
The workflow continues to be maintained and will get relevant tweaks, but it should be considered feature complete.
 
When reporting issues, please include your exact installed versions of:
The Workflow. Alfred. macOS.
In addition to:
The debugger output. Perform the failing action, click “Copy” on the top right and paste it here. Details on what you did, what happened, and what you expected to happen. A short video of the steps with the debugger open may help to find the problem faster.
Thank you. Accurate and thorough information is crucial for a proper diagnosis which allows me to help you better.

Hey @TomBenz, that sounds like a job for a different workflow and somewhat niche.
If you want to adapt the workflow to do that, I'd start with passing (a) the text file location $loc and (b) the keywords, i.e. the query as $1 for zsh argv to a “Run Script” object that runs your python script.
 
The script should look something like this (not at all tested):
 
import os.path import sys from docx import Document from docx.enum.text import WD_COLOR_INDEX from nltk.tokenize import sent_tokenize filename = sys.argv[1] keywords = sys.argv[2] search_words = keywords.splitlines() matches = [] sentences = sent_tokenize(text) for word in search_words: for sentence in sentences: if word in sentence: matches.append(sentence) doc = Document(filename) for para in doc.paragraphs: for items in matches: start = para.text.find(items) if start > -1: pre = para.text[:start] post= para.text[start+len(items):] para.text = pre para.add_run(items) para.runs[1].font.highlight_color = WD_COLOR_INDEX.YELLOW para.add_run(post) # Save the output in new doc file at selected file location root, extension = os.path.splitext(filename) output_filename = root + "_KeySent_Highlights_C1" + extension doc.save(output_filename) sys.stdout.write(output_filename) # e.g. to reveal the file with Alfred  

This workflow is staggeringly useful 🏆
I agree with @pontus that Alfred should "bake this in" to his core functionality.

yes, you can show unread emails only (is:unread), or add a time filter (e.g. since:4, for emails from the last 4 days), or a combination of the 2 which can be saved as a predefined query.

AppleScript is noticeably slower and it cannot guarantee window order. This workflow specifically moved away from it. It will also not show Safari (or any other browser) tabs, that is out of scope as it would drown relevant results (and again, be slow). There are other workflows which can do that, and there are Automation Tasks which return information on browser tabs which can both be used to get tabs and switch to them.
 
This workflow should be considered feature complete. It does what it sets out to do, and does it as fast as possible within the available constraints. I carefully weighted all pros and cons of every possibility and this is what it has landed on.
 
The workflow is still maintained: it will get bug fixes if any are found and updated to newer macOS versions if necessary. It may also get tweaks in behaviour if they are reasonably small and don’t affect the workflow as a whole. But what it does will not change unless new relevant possibilities are added to macOS.

Howdy Vitor,
 
Firstly thank you for this insanely helpful workflow. Such a superpower to add to Alfred! (Another superpower! 🦸‍♂️)
 
I assume the limitations preventing access to minimising windows might be the reason this isn't possible, but couldn't hurt to ask…
 
Is there any change this could be configured to find all open apps (even on different spaces?) or even those that are fullscreen?
 
Cheers, Nathan

Flattery will get you everywhere. Here's your snippet collection for the Wikipedia misspellings (a workflow isn't really appropriate).
 
Do you have a link to the contents of the Microsoft autocorrect list?

It's really a heartwarming community, and I will try my best to contribute more to it.

@drburt
I have the sense that a Workflow like this already exists, but if not this should do what you want.
 
Usage: 
- tabgrab or custom hotkey to save the currently open Finder tabs into a new set (enter a set name)
- openTabSet or custom hotkey to list the saved Finder sets. 
    - Enter to open the set
    - Shift + Enter to show the set folders in large font
    - Control + Enter to delete the set
 
Limitations: 
    - order of tabs not preserved
    - if multiple Finder windows are open when saving, all the corresponding tabs will be saved in the same set and opened in the same window. To my knowledge there is no way to save which window a tab is from.
    - when opening a saved set, an empty Finder window is also opened - could not find a way to avoid that. 

Let me know what you think!

Here's a rundown of what each option in the rsync command does:
-r: This stands for "recursive," which means that rsync will copy all subdirectories and their contents, not just the files in the top-level directory.
-t: This option preserves the modification times of files.
-v: "Verbose." This makes rsync provide more detailed output about what it's doing.
-u: This tells rsync to only copy files that have a more recent modification time on the source than on the target. In other words, if the target file is newer or the same age as the source file, it won't be overwritten.
-c: Instead of just looking at file modification times, this option makes rsync check the contents of files to determine whether they need to be copied. It uses a checksum for this.
--delete-after: This option means that after rsync has copied all the necessary files, it will delete any files in the target directory that aren't in the source directory. It ensures that the target becomes a mirror image of the source.
--ignore-errors: This tells rsync to continue transferring the rest of the files even if some files give errors.
--stats: This option makes rsync provide a summary of how much data was transferred and other related stats.