sepulchra

I often move files within alfred's file navigation and not the finder. Once I select the move command i'm presented with a list of recent folders i've used but is there also a quick way to show the path of where the file I'm moving currently is or the path the folder is nested in? That would be quite handy. Currently, I'm selecting a folder and hitting command+down arrow to get the path and then delete parts of the path to get where i want to move the file.

According to @vitor alfred's workflows have to be explicitly called but he did have some info in this thread that might be helpful to you:

It looks like this workflow is not being actively maintained. As an alternative, you might look at this workflow that @zeitlings just developed: 

Thank you. This is incredibly helpful and I've since rebuilt those workflows with finder tag automation tasks instead of finder comments.

In case anyone comes across this, finder tags are a good temporary work around for this since you can have text based finder tags..... and @vitor are finder tags embedded into the metadata of each file? from what i read comments aren't consistently maintained when files are copied across machines and volumes.

Thanks!

Hey this is great. Would it be possible to have a modifier used and give the option of overwriting the existing file instead of exporting to another location? 

This would be a great addition if it was possible and thank you for the super useful workflow in the meantime.

I've find this command line tool really useful for OCR on existing PDFs and have alfred set up to trigger with a workflow but obviously would be far more convenient if PDFKit was able to do the work instead.

I do not think you can use snippets or variables  in the title or subtext fields, but if you are looking to pass arguments or variables to a script you need to use the arg and vars utility. That page should get you headed in the correct direction.

But it also would be helpful to know what you are trying to build and folks here might be able to help point you in the right direction.

You can also make custom date placeholders... for example, I prefer my isodates without the dashes, so this is my placeholder:  {date:yyyyMMdd}

I’m not at all surprised. I’m assuming the code is from os9! 🤣

no but i don't see why that should matter because that automation object is seeing the path and passing it -- but i did just include it in the search scope and still fails. So we ruled that one out. 😄

It is the last object that seems to be failing because the path to the file is being passed in:

this is the debugger on my second machine with a different external volume. Same error.

[11:24:32.897] Finder Comment[Automation Task] Running task 'Write Finder Comment' with arguments (
    "/Volumes/dbox v3/TNB Template v2.ptxt"
)
[11:24:33.071] ERROR: Finder Comment[Automation Task] Task Error: ../.common/finder-comment: execution error: Error: Error: Can't get object. (-1728)

EDIT with some more troubleshooting

If you run the "write finder comment" object with path and comment pre-populated and just fire it with a keyword and no argument (removing all other variables and automation tasks) it will work on a file on the desktop for example .... but if the the pre-populated path is on  a external volume it produces the same error. 

Ok -- I got the above to work but only if the files are not on an external volume. If run the above worklflow on files in my home folders, documents etc -- totally works.  But if the file lives on an external volume i get the  "can't get object (-1728) error.

Any ideas? Alfred does have full disk access.

I'm on 13.2.1 and the latest version of alfred. I've tested this on two different machines.

Thanks!

I'm trying to build a workflow that writes my keywords argument to the current file selected in the finder. This is what I have, but I keep getting a "cannot get object error":

this is the error from the debugger

[15:55:05.596] Finder Comment[Automation Task] Running task 'Get Selection in Finder' with no arguments
[15:55:05.747] Finder Comment[Automation Task] Processing complete
[15:55:05.762] Finder Comment[Automation Task] Passing output '(
    "/Volumes/master archive/Extreme 510/01 filed/tracks/2018 april modulars very late"
)' to Automation Task
[15:55:05.766] Finder Comment[Automation Task] Running task 'Write Finder Comment' with arguments (
    "/Volumes/master archive/Extreme 510/01 filed/tracks/2018 april modulars very late"
)
[15:55:05.918] ERROR: Finder Comment[Automation Task] Task Error: ../.common/finder-comment: execution error: Error: Error: Can't get object. (-1728)

Am I misunderstanding how to use these objects?

@RobertF see this thread: 

I believe @Vero's response might be your solution.

I’m sharing a specific use case for a file filter with the hope it helps someone else. I can’t believe I didn’t think of this sooner. 

I often search for Pro Tools Session Files (.ptx files and thanks to @Stephen_C's new metadata workflow, I was able to make quick work of it.)

Pro Tools also makes a number of backup files while it runs, so for example, your working session might be called:

my awesome project.ptx

and in a sub directory you will also have a number of files called:

my asweome project.bak.000.ptx
my asweome project.bak.001.ptx
my asweome project.bak.002.ptx

Those backup files make for some noisy results, so I created a file filter that excludes the backup files (image below). I’m sure there are others here who might find an analogous use case with different applications or files.

15 minutes ago, vitor said:

Thank you both for the kind words!

 

It may help to understand my design goals for this specific workflow. As with @sepulchra, this is one of my most used and I tweaked it a lot to get to the current speed. The way I see it, the objective is to get as fast as possible into the contents a couple of directories and do some organising. E.g. It shows ~/Desktop and ~/Downloads, I open the most recent download—a zip which unpacks to the Desktop—then access the new thing on the Desktop to move somewhere else / change its name / grab a file from inside / … You can see why speed is crucial, I open it a bunch of times. And what’s important are the immediate children of the folders.

 

With that in mind, while those specific changes wouldn’t fit I do think you can get (closer to) what you want.

 

@sepulchra You can already kind of search for filetypes—but only one at a time—by typing the extension. E.g. if I type png scree I see all the Screenshot pngs on my Desktop.

 

@thisisb What you can do is add those frequent subdirectories to the directories Workflow Environment Variable. I will eventually turn that into a proper Alfred 5 File Picker configuration, before adding to the Gallery.

Thank you! this makes a ton of sense. And again -- this thing is FAST!

@vitor this has become one of my most used workflows and the speed of it is just incredible.

I'm using this with some paths on external volumes and it is just perfect. Would you ever consider adding the ability to define files types? I know there are some other workflows out there but the speed of yours is why i would love that addition.

No worries if it is a no, and thank you for all the killer work!

actually just found this very helpful script from brett terpstra and maintains the toggle function:

set appName to "Finder"
set startIt to false
tell application "System Events"
	if not (exists process appName) then
		set startIt to true
	else if frontmost of process appName then
		set visible of process appName to false
	else
		set frontmost of process appName to true
	end if
end tell
if startIt then
	tell application appName to activate
end if

https://brettterpstra.com/2011/01/22/quick-tip-applescript-application-toggle/

I have a hotkey assigned to the "launch the apps/ files" object where it is set to launch Finder and toggle visibility is checked. When I have have more than one finder window open it only brings the most recent finder window i was last active in to front. It won't bring all finder windows to front unless I hit the hotkey two more times (hiding the app and making visible again). Is there another way to do this so when I hit my hotkey all of my finder windows are brought to front and not just the last one i was active in?

Thanks!

This thread I started a ways back may also be of use: 

I'm not sure if it is required but i have a similar workflow to create text files and I have the Args and Vars utility before the write text file object. 

the filepath goes in the argument field. and then I have  {query} in the the filename field.

Some of my favorites

Paste as plain texts gets used every day. And has since was introduced in Alfred. Thanks @Vero

I also launch and hide a apps with hotkeys with Launch/Apps and Files. I have a moom script tied to a few to help me setup specific workspaces for different projects and arrange windows.

I also built universal actions for text transformations using Copy to Clipboard Output. I used some specific ones almost every day and i’ve found the dynamic placeholders and some automation tasks work just as well as the some of the more built out workflows for my needs.

I also have a bunch of file filters setup for specific searches that help keep me nimble.

I also try to use alfred’s file navigation over the finder as much as possible, so I have a number of regular file paths setup in a list filter (thanks @Stephen_C) and some assigned to hotkeys.

I have a few custom scripts that I trigger with alfred for very specific needs (adding tasks to taskpaper projects, pulling mix notes from pro tools sessions to text files, and logging some of my daily tasks with toggl and brett terpstra’s doing.

And Some off the shelf workflows from the gallery I love (so much  @vitor 
 

Window Switcher

Yak Saver (i modified mine to cycle like a pomodoro timer — added a timer for the breaks. I also have mine yell profanities at me when my timers are up)

Soulver (so many powerful conversions)

Right Click

Pin Plus

Open Conference URL

Moom

**EDIT**

adding Coffee Coffee which is not yet in the gallery, but i use whenever i am printing long mixes or running long chronosync backups and don't want my machine to sleep. It gets used almost everyday.

One thing i’ve found helpful is using a hyper key (remapping capslok to trigger (shift, control, option and command). I use Karabiner Elements to do this but there are other pieces of software that will do it. I’ve found using a hyperkey has helped me avoid hot-key conflicts.

@vitor's suggestion is a great one. I've also used SF Symbols to create pngs that will work well with alfred. I haven't used it but there is also a handy workflow that makes it even easier.

that works but i also had "Treat URL schemes without // as URLs" unchecked -- and i thought that would have also solved it but did not

thanks @Stephen_C this is helpful. I do still wonder why using a "." to begin a keyword triggers the URL fallback. I suspect it is because urls end with .com or dot something.