dansherman

March 15, 2021

@davewripley, I think we're having the same problem. In my case Alfred can see things stored in Dropbox that I've worked on recently, and some other random bits, but not most of the older stuff. If I search in the spotlight pop-up (the default cmd+space) I can find any file on the computer, even if Alfred can't.

I rebuild the metadata and things work fine for a little while (hours, maybe days), but then its "long-term memory" goes away.

Do you have houdahspot? It's another frontend for spotlight that gives some really detailed file search options. It also has the same problem as Alfred, where it can only find a small set of the files stored in Dropbox.

All that makes me think it's a spotlight/dropbox issue, but I haven't been able to figure out more than that.

March 9, 2021

On 2/25/2021 at 10:53 AM, zzzrx said:

Both the local and the online only files can be found with Spotlight.

I've been having similar problems since upgrading to Big Sur. The Spotlight GUI can find things, but its a little slow (that makes me think there is an indexing problem).

If I use `mdfind` from the terminal my results are patchy, exactly like Alfred.

January 15, 2021

@Vero Things were great for a day or two but at some point the index seems to have been corrupted again and I'm having the same issue. I don't know if it's a Big Sur bug or something with Alfred, but I wanted to mention it here (for reference if nothing else). I'll re-index and see what happens.

January 12, 2021

Terminal was in the list of apps with Full Disk Access, but the box wasn't checked. I checked the box and ran the rebuild metadata tool again. This time there weren't any errors!

Index is taking a lot longer this time so I assume it's working correctly (last time indexing was done in less than two minutes).

Thanks for your patience!

January 12, 2021

Last login: Tue Jan 12 05:33:25 on ttys000
/Applications/Alfred\ 4.app/Contents/Frameworks/Alfred\ Framework.framework/Versions/A/Resources/reindexdel.sh ; exit;
(venv-dan) ➜  ~ /Applications/Alfred\ 4.app/Contents/Frameworks/Alfred\ Framework.framework/Versions/A/Resources/reindexdel.sh ; exit;

***************************************************
*                                                 *
*    This script will reindex your metadata by    *
*      firstly deleting .Spotlight-V100 then      *
*   running the command 'sudo mdutil -E -i on /'  *
*                                                 *
*         Indexing can take up to an hour         *
*     and Alfred won't work during this time.     *
*                                                 *
*   You can see the progress of the reindexing    *
*      by performing a search in Spotlight.       *
*                                                 *
***************************************************

Close this window to cancel, or press any key to continue...

Attempting to delete .Spotlight-V100...

Password:
rm: /System/Volumes/Data/.Spotlight-V100: Operation not permitted

Requesting metadata reindex...

/:
	Indexing enabled. 

You can see the progress of the reindexing by performing a search in Spotlight

Press any key to finish...

Saving session...completed.

[Process completed]

I did rebuild the index and checked the V100 box. Looks there was an error deleting the V100. Do you have any suggestions on manually deleting it?

January 12, 2021

I've done some more digging and running `mdfind -onlyin /Users/dansherman/clients -name Forms` also does not find the Forms folder. Actually, using `-onlyin /Users/dansherman` doesn't find it either.

Even running `mdfind . -onlying /Users/dansherman/clients` only returns files and folders I've opened since upgrading to Big Sur. Which is useful in a way, but not most of the time.

Chalk this one up to a Spotlight bug I guess?

January 11, 2021

I re-rebuilt the index and it still doesn't work. I'm specifically trying to find a folder, but searching for a file gives the same result. This happens in the default File Search as well as with File Filters in workflows. Other files and folders in this parent folder show up just fine if I've opened it since upgrading to Big Sur.

This is the Alfred Metadata Tool result for a folder that does not show up in Alfred but does in spotlight:

/Users/dansherman/clients/Forms

Internal File Metadata
======================

 Display Name: Forms
    Alt Names: 
    File Type: public.folder
     Comments: 
     Keywords: 
    Last Used: 2020-10-23 12:58:42 +0000

Raw mdls File Metadata
======================

_kMDItemDisplayNameWithExtensions      = "Forms"
kMDItemContentCreationDate             = 2018-11-14 19:10:34 +0000
kMDItemContentCreationDate_Ranking     = 2018-11-14 00:00:00 +0000
kMDItemContentModificationDate         = 2020-10-23 12:58:42 +0000
kMDItemContentModificationDate_Ranking = 2020-10-23 00:00:00 +0000
kMDItemContentType                     = "public.folder"
kMDItemContentTypeTree                 = (
    "public.folder",
    "public.directory",
    "public.item"
)
kMDItemDateAdded                       = 2020-04-16 21:15:29 +0000
kMDItemDateAdded_Ranking               = 2020-04-16 00:00:00 +0000
kMDItemDisplayName                     = "Forms"
kMDItemDocumentIdentifier              = 0
kMDItemFSContentChangeDate             = 2020-10-23 12:58:42 +0000
kMDItemFSCreationDate                  = 2018-11-14 19:10:34 +0000
kMDItemFSCreatorCode                   = ""
kMDItemFSFinderFlags                   = 0
kMDItemFSHasCustomIcon                 = (null)
kMDItemFSInvisible                     = 0
kMDItemFSIsExtensionHidden             = 0
kMDItemFSIsStationery                  = (null)
kMDItemFSLabel                         = 0
kMDItemFSName                          = "Forms"
kMDItemFSNodeCount                     = 35
kMDItemFSOwnerGroupID                  = 20
kMDItemFSOwnerUserID                   = 501
kMDItemFSSize                          = (null)
kMDItemFSTypeCode                      = ""
kMDItemInterestingDate_Ranking         = 2020-10-23 00:00:00 +0000
kMDItemKind                            = "Folder"
kMDItemLastUsedDate                    = 2020-10-23 12:58:42 +0000
kMDItemLastUsedDate_Ranking            = 2020-10-23 00:00:00 +0000
kMDItemUseCount                        = 2
kMDItemUsedDates                       = (
    "2020-08-04 05:00:00 +0000",
    "2020-10-23 05:00:00 +0000"
)

Is there any other information I can provide?

January 11, 2021

I've rebuilt my index a few times, spotlight can find files just fine, and the Alfred Metadata Tool shows the correct info, so I *think* that means this is an Alfred issue. The File Search and File Filter in a workflow will only find files and folders that I've opened since installing Big Sur. If I haven't opened it, Alfred can't see it.

I tried clearing Alfred's learning knowledge, but that didn't make a difference.

Any other ideas?

October 7, 2013

This is actually by design, but I can see why it may be confusing. I'm going to move this to 'noted' for now and take another look at it in a future release

Cheers,

Andrew

Sounds great, thanks!

3point · September 9, 2013

I'm not sure if this is a bug, or by design. But it feels buggy to me, so I thought I'd post it here.

In the "Advanced" tab I set `cmd + return` to "Search with Spotlight". This works as expected in a vanilla Alfred query, but if I do a file search it changes from "Search with Spotlight" to "Find similar files". I'd expect it to perform a spotlight search with my query instead of showing me related files.

Latest Alfred 2.0.7(205), OSX 10.8.4

August 7, 2013

I updated add.scpt to work with any track in iTunes (in my library anyway — including iTunes Match tracks located in iCloud).

on run argv
	set sArgv to argv as text
	tell application "iTunes"
		set myList to sArgv
		set current_track to the current track
		set sTrack to name of current_track
		set sArtist to artist of current_track
		--check if in playlist
		set sListTracks to name of tracks of playlist myList as list
		if sListTracks contains sTrack then
			return "\"" & sTrack & "\"" & " is already in " & "\"" & myList & "\""
		else
			set currentList to playlist myList
			duplicate current_track to currentList
			return "\"" & sTrack & "\"" & " added to " & "\"" & myList & "\""
		end if
	end tell
end run

April 1, 2013

This can be done by enabling the option "Automatically paste to front most app", in the "Copy to clipboard" box.

Well, that pretty much takes care of my suggestion. Thanks.

April 1, 2013

I've done that, and it works ok, but I think it'd be even better if Alfred could replace the existing text directly. Especially without involving the clipboard or defining a new hotkey.

April 1, 2013

I'd love to be able to select some text, pull up Alfred, type a keyword, and run a script to manipulate the selected text. A lot of this can be done through text services, but it'd be great to do it straight through Alfred. I suppose another way to do this would be to call the separate service from within Alfred. Either way, it would be nice to return some manipulated text.

April 1, 2013

This sounds really awesome! I keep getting error messages when trying this, however. It seems the problem is an "always https" extension I'm using in Chrome. If I paste the URL of the youtube video with https into vlc it gives me the same error message, yet when I remove the s the stream runs well.

Is there any way that this could be accommodated?

Thanks

All set. I added a line to replace 'https' with 'http'. The link in the first post has the updated version.

April 1, 2013

I updated the link in the original post, it shouldn't expire now.

March 21, 2013

> The code you provided does not work in AppleScript Editor.

Right, the ASE code used `open "/users/dansherman/test.pdf"`

> Make a separate call to open the file

Very clever, I'll give that a shot!

Amoftcoorb · March 21, 2013

I started on a workflow to call PDFPenPro via applescript to run OCR on the selected files. I have an automator service that does it, but I like Alfred better.

The problem I'm having is that PDFPen refuses to open the file because it doesn't have permission.

I checked with their support people, and they said that since the script works in AppleScript Editor and Automator, it must be an Alfred problem...

I'd recommend letting the authors know, as there aren't too many sandboxed, scriptable apps out there… yet. - Greg from Smile Software

Here is the code. For testing purposes the file action only accepts one file, but if I can get that to work I'll add support for multiple files.

on alfred_script(q)	
tell application "PDFpenPro 6"
	open q 
	tell document 1
		ocr
		repeat while performing ocr
			delay 1
		end repeat
		delay 1
		close with saving
	end tell
end tell
end alfred_script

It is currently in an NSAppleScript action, but I've tried it as a /bin/osascript too. Even using /bin/bash or /bin/python to pass the query to a standalone script (using argv) come up with the same error, so does using osascript from the terminal.

Thoughts?

March 19, 2013

I'd suggest bundling BS with your workflow.

Good catch, I'll throw it in.

March 18, 2013

Doesn't seem to work for me. If a Pinboard Search item is selected, the Return key does nothing. Doesn't even dismiss Alfred, it just sits there ready for me to type some more.

So it returns some results, but doesn't let you act on them?

March 18, 2013

Link: https://www.dropbox.com/s/pgse5l1u12xeqse/Pinboard%20Tools.alfredworkflow

Yet another script to search Pinboard. It uses the web search, instead of a local cache, so it's not quite as fast, but it is always up to date. It only runs the search for query lengths of 4 or more to try to be more efficient.

Use "pins set {username}" to set your username, and "pins {query}" to search for bookmarks.

Because it doesn't store any login information or cookies, it only searches your public bookmarks.

It works fine for me, but let me know if you run into any issues.

Edit: 2013-03-21 - Included BeautifulSoup, should work for people who don't have it installed on their machines.

March 15, 2013

I'd really be interested in the concept you have for this. As I see from the Pinboard API, it allows you to fetch bookmarks added after a specific date/time, but to identify modified bookmarks you'd still have to fetch all. Or am I missing something?

Maciej said the pinboard API might be getting an overhaul soon (and that he might start charging devs for API access) - https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups=#!topic/pinboard-dev/PidYOmyBaxI

As part of that overhaul, he'd like to make it easier to get bookmarks changed since `date`.

March 15, 2013

If you rename the beta to Mailplane.app, it may likely work.

It almost worked. I renamed "Mailplane 3.app" to "Mailplane.app", and tried the email file action. It popped up a new message, but didn't attach the file.

I've got an applescript that does the trick in a file action workflow:

on alfred_script(q)
	set Applescript's text item delimiters to tab
	set input to every text item of q
	tell application "Mailplane 3"
		set m to make new outgoing message
		tell m
			repeat with i from 1 to number of items in input
				set a_file to (item i of input)
				set file_name to a_file as rich text
				make new mail attachment with properties {path:file_name}
			end repeat
		end tell
		compose m
	end tell
end alfred_script

March 13, 2013

When I use a file action to email a file, Alfred uses Mail.app instead of my default (Mailplane 3 Beta).

If I pull up a contact in Alfred and start an email that way, it works just fine (with Mailplane 3).

If I set my default mail program to Sparrow it works as expected for both contacts and files.

* Edit: Latest Alfred build (163), OSX 10.8.2

January 15, 2013

If it helps, it looks like the script runs ok from the command line. It complains about UTF-8, but spits out valid XML.

Might the XML error be the hold up?

> php -f search.php -- "alfred"

Warning: SimpleXMLElement::asXML(): string is not in UTF-8 in /Users/dansherman/Library/Application Support/Alfred 2/Alfred.alfredpreferences/workflows/user.workflow.313E934E-E195-49C0-A25F-C215C734171B/extension_utils.php on line 35
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<items><item uid="http://jdfwarrior.tumblr.com/post/40355737734/a-little-secret-in-alfred-2-youll-like" arg="http://jdfwarrior.tumblr.com/post/40355737734/a-little-secret-in-alfred-2-youll-like"><title>A Little Secret in Alfred 2 Youâ</title><subtitle></subtitle><icon>icon.png</icon></item><item uid="http://www.macstories.net/tutorials/screen-sharing-for-alfred-brings-vnc-to-your-fingertips/#more-28145" arg="http://www.macstories.net/tutorials/screen-sharing-for-alfred-brings-vnc-to-your-fingertips/#more-28145"><title>Screen Sharing For Alfred Brings VNC To Your Fingertips</title><subtitle></subtitle><icon>icon.png</icon></item></items>

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