OK, I have been a Alfred user from day one. But I have never understood workflows. I just upgraded to V3 and I am again wondering why it is so darned hard to figure out? I need someone to explain how it works. Not how the coding works, not how great workflows are as we all know this by now. I am a highly kinesthetic learner. That means, I need to observe something happening, or at least have someone explain what I am supposed to be doing before the workflow engages. And, what is supposed to happen after the workflow has finished. Nowhere do I see any of this explained.
For example, I look at the workflow section in Alfred’s preferences, OK. I look at the bottom left and see there are step process parts that I can add - if I had any idea where they go because I have no clue how to actually use a workflow. When I look at the example workflows, no matter how I click, where I click, does it make any sense how this example workflow got triggered.
That is to say, when I trigger Alfred, and then I type “ama” and hit tab it has filled in “amazon”. So then I type in what I am searching for on Amazon. This is the same for many things of course. But it does not explain to my brain how this is triggering a workflow. Does the amazon search, or the google search, etc. represent an example of a web search, or an example of a workflow?
I have been reviewing and researching cameras, looking for my next camera. So I would love to create a workflow that would open a browser with searching for a camera part on amazon, dpreview, and a couple of other sites that I like. But how do I get started doing this? Where is there an example of taking what is typed, say, “camera & tab” and then selecting 3 or 4 sites to open set to search on what I will type next? Is this a fancy web search that I need to create and to expand? Or, is there a workflow that I have no clue how to get started with.
I am less worried about how the workflow parts will fit together in the workflow process - although I am sure there will be questions there later. It’s just that I cannot grasp how these things are getting triggered so I cannot even get started. I cannot understand what is really happening with a workflow. If you look at the workflow examples in Alfred, it does not have a description of what the workflow is supposed to do, it is simply assumed that if you are looking at a workflow example, you must already understand what a workflow is, how it works, or how it is triggered. I beg to differ.
I put off this last upgrade for quite some time as I had a powerpack license from day one, but all Alfred was to me was a useful spotlight replacement for searching locally.
I sure wish someone could make things simple enough for me so that I could start understanding and playing with workflows too?
Thanks