dfay

Wow, ok — makes sense now. Thanks! I can see the source of my confusion since the Snippets Manager doesn't really connect to the Workflow Snippet Triggers (i.e. by cross-linking or perhaps by listing them as a special collection in the Snippets Manager).
 
It would be handy if the Snippets Manager listed Workflow-derived Snippet Triggers!

You'll need to set keywords for the Snippet Triggers as these are stripped from the workflow to avoid clashing with your own.
 
For example, I've set them to these... Just keep in mind the shared prefix in your Snippet Triggers setup, so I've only set them to "tw" and so on, and the \\ prefix is set globally for all my snippet triggers.
 

 
You've no doubt figured that in @dfay's example, you can set the name and address in the environment variables under the [x] in the top right of the workflow canvas   
 
You can read more about the snippet triggers object, or see the few scenarios with dynamic content within the snippets as examples too. 
 
Nested snippets and snippets trigger based workflows generally are really good fun and ever so useful.

I'd like to say it's by design but it's actually an artifact of the crazy regular expression in rpn.py line 42:
 
ops = map(lambda y: y.replace(' ',''), re.split('\s|(?<!\d)[,.]|[,.](?!\d)',query))
 
 

Thanks for the reply, that led me to explore. iCloud was working overall but the Alfred folder seemed to be stuck with the cloud icon and wouldn't download. So you are right I think that's where the trouble may have originated.
 
But then it still wasn't explaining why my recent backups weren't working in a new directory. So I went back even further to a backup from months ago, dropped that in the new directory, and it's golden. Everything is back to normal!
 
So maybe the iCloud problem somehow messed up my preferences file and I just haven't restarted my computer in so long that I never closed out and opened the "new" preferences.
 
Either way it's working so I'm happy, thanks again.
 
 

Alfred internally has a URL scheme to open the preferences to certain pages, sometimes used by the ? keyword. I'm reluctant to make this a public accessible feature as this makes it significantly more tricky to make changes in the future for something which won't be used much.
 
Having said that, in my wider plan, I do have some ideas written down to make a configurable user-facing "preferences" per workflow which would show when installing a workflow.

I've used Skim since 2005, before Preview added annotations, so it's largely a matter of inertia.  But it also has better AppleScript capabilities for getting notes out than anything else I've tried
 
I was trying to get the app icons but they weren't showing up despite using (what I think was) the correct json.  So I gave up and used the generic 4 square icon.
 
The "All Tags..." control would need to be addressed through GUI scripting.  I tried a bit with no success.

thanks again for your feedback @deanishe. I saved the dictionary as JSON instead of CSV and then read it in, which allowed me to ✅ avoid using Alfred-Workflow and ✅  be able to use fuzzy.pl.
thanks!!
 

In any case here's the code (from the workflow linked above) - it's a pretty trivial bit of AppleScript - the function call is just there b/c I had it lying around.
 
on alfred_script(q) click_menu("Finder", "Window", "Merge All Windows") end alfred_script on click_menu(app_name, menu_name, menu_item) try tell application app_name activate end tell tell application "System Events" tell process app_name tell menu bar 1 tell menu bar item menu_name tell menu menu_name click menu item menu_item end tell end tell end tell end tell end tell return true on error error_message return false end try end click_menu  

That is correct. Thing is, your actual Alfred.alfredpreferences bundle might not be in ~/Library/Application Support/Alfred. If you've turned on preference syncing, it's somewhere else.
 
So if you ever want to access your preferences bundle, the safest way to ensure you're in the right place is to open a workflow in Finder from Alfred Preferences because your workflows are also in the Alfred.alfredpreferences bundle:
 
Alfred.alfredpreferences/ ... snippets/ Collection 1/ Collection 2/ ... My New Collection/ YOUR SNIPPETS GO HERE.json <------------------------- ... themes/ workflows/ ... user.workflow.BLAH-BLAH-BLAH/ YOU ARE HERE! <------------------------------------- ...  
Once you’ve found the right snippets folder, create a new folder within it called whatever it is you want to call your snippet collection, then put the actual JSON snippet files in there.

Doesn't matter, I'm afraid. People will still add too many workflows and they will still add slow workflows, and then they'll write Vero an email asking why it doesn't work.
 
 
I'm sorry, there isn't really a balance to be struck. For a feature to be considered, the risk of misuse or misbehaviour must be basically zero.
 
The Alfred team just doesn't have the capacity to be fielding an extra bunch of support requests, and you can't make trade-offs when you've nothing to trade with.

Given that the OP wanted to know 
I'd recommend typing out the full unicode number for every character....

Unless you're going to be regularly producing new templates and really need to search dynamically, I'd use a List Filter.

Here's what I use - called from a keyword with space & argument required, in a Run Script object set to osascript (AS) with input as {query}
 
on run set theQuery to "{query}" tell application "HoudahSpot" search theQuery template POSIX file "/Users/username/Library/Application Support/com.houdah.HoudahSpot4/Templates/templatename.hstemplate" activate end tell end run  

💯

Great! Next time, let's do this without all the drama.

@Chris Messina this is indeed a UI issue, however minor, as the underlying feature works as expected (all URLs are routed via macOS).
 
Alfred should really dynamically be showing the correct default handler if possible.
 
Taking suggestions from this thread (thanks for the relevant input), I've updated Alfred to show "Open With" instead of "Browser", and the default handler will automatically update as you type, for example:
 



 
This should be in the 4.3.2 pre-release in the next few days.
 
Cheers,
Andrew

This thread started out with a complaint about an issue which does not actually exist.  Yes, the UI is old and probably predates the widespread use of URL schemes on MacOS, and hence might be confusing if you haven’t tried calling a URL scheme from Alfred.  But why not try it and see what happens before posting criticism?  I suspect that’s what put people off.

Seems to me that what you’re pointing out is that Apple’s UI isn’t accurate. That “Default web browser” is the same thing.
 
Alfred can follow macOS’ example or deviate from it. Considering this is the first time I recall this being an issue on these forums, it seems that not deviating has worked out fine, and changing that to another option not used anywhere else is opening the door to confusion.
 
You should consider mentioning it to Apple via Feedback Assistant. If they change it, I’d see a bigger argument for Alfred to follow.
 
But I don’t think they will, and that you’re thinking too narrowly. As a fellow designer, you seem to me to be stuck in a bubble of theoretical design and repeatedly missing the necessary practical decisions of software. UI is the least of the world’s software design problems.
 
In math class, one is taught negative numbers don’t exist, or that fractional numbers don’t exist, or that the square root of a negative number doesn’t exist—until they reveal those to be lies. But those lies are told so you don’t get confused; they limit your view of what’s possible to your understanding of the world and avoid you getting overwhelmed.
 
”Default web browser” is the same kind of lie. It’s clear for the overwhelming majority of cases, and if you’re the type of person who needs to know the exceptions (what it really does), a one-line sentence clarifies it for life.
 
In sum, you’re arguing for a change that is no longer relevant to you and that can make Alfred more confusing to everyone who’ll never need to know what you now do (most people). That’s impractical, and bad software design.

You misunderstand: "Default Browser" means "default application for the given URL scheme". Alfred just passes the URL to macOS to open. The URL is only sent to a specific application if you choose a specific application.
 
It’s functionally equivalent to calling /usr/bin/open "scheme://blah" vs /usr/bin/open "scheme://blah" -a SomeApplication and already works the way you describe.

I can't flippantly change the default core behaviour as single Esc to close Alfred in this context has been the same for many years and will throw people's workflow out. Having said that, I've added this option to the Browse in Alfred workflow object allowing you to shape the Esc behaviour for the next build:
 

 
This would allow for a simple folder file filter where you can peek into folders using the Browse in Alfred object.
 

Just wanted to second this: THANK YOU!

this script will let you import in bulk from csv:
 
https://github.com/derickfay/import-alfred-snippets
 
 

Hey, @deanishe!
 
I just wanted to let you know that I found this awesome python module and with just a few tweaks I've managed to plug it into my workflow. It's now around 400 kB (!!)
Thank you for pointing me in the right direction. Sqlite was indeed the way to go.
 
Cheers!

I would trust @dfay's observations as much as my own, as he's a long time community member and very astute Alfred user
 
If all you're trying to do is return the folder (app library) in search results, you could create a tiny workflow with a keyword connected to that folder, as I did in the "keywords as nicknames" header in this post:
https://www.alfredapp.com/blog/tips-and-tricks/how-to-get-the-results-you-want-in-alfred-every-time/
 
Cheers,
Vero

I'm not really sure what you're asking.  
 
Here's what my setup looks like: