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Christmas Wish for Alfred: I wish users had some control over the size of the left panel in Alfred's Preferences (not the sidebar, but the panel next to it). As shown below, I'd like to be able to drag the panel right - at times, when viewing my Workflows - as the current fixed version doesn't allow users to see much of their workflows' names. Personally, I keep a lot of resources to use as examples for building or modifying new workflows, but it's impossible to see their titles or descriptions under the current space allotment (i.e., even if I went to a less ridiculous naming convention).😀 Thanks for your consideration!

Up until recently, my preferences and workflows synced between machines wonderfully. Something recently broke and I'm not seeing workflows sync anymore through Dropbox. I know Dropbox is syncing on both machines, as I just dropped a file from my desktop machine into it and I see it on my laptop almost immediately. Both Alfred instances are set to sync from my Dropbox folder. But for some reason, the workflows aren't syncing. As a test, I create a new one on my desktop and don't see it syncing over to my laptop. However, if I delete the Alfred.preferences file from Dropbox, I see my workflows immediately start disappearing from both machines. So the syncing is working right, but just not for new workflows. Any pointers on what I should look for to troubleshoot this?

[I originally posted this on Reddit, but I'm posting again here to make sure that it's seen.] The tool itself is fine. Good improvements, but mostly invisible. My kids don't even know how to use the computer when they use a Mac without Alfred. Incredible software! I've been a user since 1.0 and a PowerPack user for just as long. Before that I used the Google task launcher thing, and before that, QuickSilver. What I'm interested in is a thriving workflow community. If you want to find workflows, you need to search too many places. Packal and Pacmax seem abandoned. You have the forums, Reddit, and random guesses in GitHub search. Consider the following to be feedback for improving the next generation of Alfred: Make it easier for users to get started: Enable them to click a link for a workflow, and have Alfred be the default handler instead of forcing me to download, find it, double-click it. Enable developers to define a setup flow, with some kind of standard UI. For example, I use a workflow for searching Atlassian Confluence wiki software (for work). Instead of having to type `confluence username` and `confluence password`, provide an up-front UI where a developer can ask these questions, and the user can answer them. This UI should be triggered the first time the user attempts to use the workflow (e.g., I type confluence, and the default option in an un-setup state is to start the setup). There should also be a way to validate these values before completing the setup (e.g., authentication to remote service was successful). One of the options in this UI would be to choose which keyword should be used to trigger it. The developer can provide a default, and the user can always go into preferences and change it, but being able to override the default keyword early would be a nice touch. For example, when installing the `pwgen` workflow, I always change the keyword to `pwd` because I can type it faster. Enable me to create different instances of the same workflow with slightly different configurations and map them to different keywords. For a concrete example, I want to have one instance of the Confluence workflow that searches ALL content (e.g., mapped to `conf {query}`), and another instance that can target a specific team's Confluence space (e.g., mapped to `team {query}`). Same workflow; slightly different configuration (in this case, search scope). If I search for something, but there are no results (or an error, or whatever), don't automatically fall-back to the catch-all options. If you recognize the keyword, have the top result say that there was a problem, and enable some way to view the logs and/or open the project in Finder. Perhaps this would be hidden behind an "I am a developer" checkbox in the preferences or something. Some kind of (better?) indicator in the UI when a workflow is waiting on the network. When I develop workflows, here's what would make it easier/better: Optimize some integrations with GitHub (first), then BitBucket or GitLab (after). Leverage things like topics (GitHub) and pull those in. Standardize on things like `alfred-v4` or `alfred-v3`, and `alfred-lang-php` or `alfred-lang-go`. Have a simple, built-in way to lookup and download any updates to workflows. First-party hooks, please. The solutions coming from the community don't last, and I'm tired of the churn. Make it easy to save credentials/secrets to the (encrypted) system keychain instead of making me write them (unencrypted) to disk. First-party hooks, please. Something like I say that this field is a secret and it should have a particular name. Alfred accepts the secret and stores it without me being able to see it. Integrate sanely with the macOS system logging, so that I can easily read errors in the Console.app. Make it easy for people to discover how to find the project and/or development code. Maybe something like `{keyword}?` (e.g., `conf?`) for easily discovering metadata about a workflow? Make it easy for people to report bugs/issues and send the developer some kind of debug/diagnostic data. Define strong standards/conventions that I can follow when creating workflows, so that you can read them and present them to users, without me having to duplicate my effort. One example is to leverage GitHub topics (mentioned above) and just pull them in to a centralized database of workflows. Why submit manually to another website when you can search the API and auto-populate data for a workflow to show to users? Right now, the results are always a single set of options (analogous to the HTML <select> field). I would love to be able to set up the equivalent of an HTML <optgroup> in the results — a way to group them. For example, "here are the exact matches, then here are the fuzzy matches). HTML <optgroup> is an exact grouping (i.e., one group, then the next group). The group could have a label defined which provides instructions. Something like "Choose a language…". (Provide a link in the docs which point to Apple's HIG so that people know how the ellipsis character should be used in menus and buttons.) Having a way to add an icon to the left/right-edge that is vertically/horizontally centered and not inline with the other text would be a good way to flag certain results as standing out. For example, here are the search results from hub.docker.com. These are from the community, but these (with a star/checkbox/smiley-face on the left-edge) are official. I haven't looked at the multi-level query stuff yet, and you may have already done this, but supporting/auto-completing enums after the keyword would be awesome. Also wrapping enums in the previous suggestion as a group with a label, to allow developers to provide more context, would be awesome. Different versions of macOS include different versions of language runtimes (and Apple's documentation says that language runtimes will stop shipping by default in upcoming versions of macOS). There should be a way for the developer to specify binaries (detected by /usr/bin/env is preferable over hard-coding a path, like many hash-bangs) and versions that are required to run. This should be validated at install time, not at run-and-fail-time. If the current system does not meet the requirements, then the developer should be able to provide instructions and/or a setup script that can be run by Alfred (with user confirmation + sudo password, if necessary) to install any prerequisites. So, an install-time script to detect, and a setup script which can install missing dependencies. All would happen during this hypothetical "Setup" wizard. Some kind of package signing. Public/private key? GPG? User-facing warnings about installing unsigned workflows. Don't need to go full-scale notarization (yet), but let's see what the ecosystem does as a result. Streaming results. We define the format of the individual results, and as data comes back (e.g., fetching API results across pagination), we can append/prepend/overwrite results. `fzf` is an example of a CLI tool that can update results as new data streams in. Being able to filter those streaming results in real-time with fuzzy-matching would be mind-blowing. Some kind of background/async support. Example of background support: I install a workflow which lets me keep an eye on stock prices. This workflow has the ability to watch a particular stock, and can send a notification when it crosses a threshold or moves so many percentage points up/down. To me, background == polling/scheduled/cron-ish, but maybe I'm not thinking big enough. Example of async support: I want to use Alfred's file selection support to find a directory containing FLAC audio files, then pass that directory (or files) to a workflow which calls out to FFMPEG and converts them all to MP3 @ 96kbps (muah-hah-hah!). When the task is complete, I would get a notification. When clicked, Alfred would open with a new selection of MP3 files that I can take the next action on (open in iTunes/Apple Music/QuickTime Player). A single, canonical place to find reasonably-curated workflows. Preferably owned and maintained first-party. Yes, it means running some servers and doing some work to curate. Not sure how practical that is for a small team, but it's necessary. When I look for workflows, here is what I want to know: What are the user ratings? (this means finding an easy way to enable users to rate the workflows they use and collect that anonymized data) What language(s) is this written in? (Can I contribute or hack at it if I want? What language do I need to know? Do I have that runtime installed?) What version of Alfred is this optimized for? (The first results on Packal are ≥ 5 years old) How many workflows of the exact same thing already exist? (Should I re-think writing my own and just use or contribute to an existing one?) Is this maintained? Is this maintained by a trusted developer? Or just some dude on the Internet somewhere? What new (or newly-updated) workflows are available which support (a) the latest version of Alfred, (b) whatever cool new feature of Alfred, (c) some other notable thing? Apple's App Store does this and it's a great way to find the signal amidst the noise.

Hi, I need to know how to get my Workflows from my old laptop to my new one. I have downloaded the app and installed on the new machine but I need to know how to get my workflows.

How do I use a workflow? How do I make it run. As you can tell by my posts I am a 'baby' Alfred user. Thanks

What it does is fast change your system appearance to Dark/Light mode. osmode <option> Further details see DarkOrLight on GitHub. Download | Source

My first (exported) workflow: Do Not Disturb, Limited - Toggle the macOS Do Not Disturb feature, optionally for a specified length of time. I was really inspired by CalmNotifications but I always forgot to toggle it back. Plus, I really wanted the indicator to reflect the current status, which didn't happen when the "set a plist value and kill NotificationCenter" method is used. Releases | Source

👋 Hi. Long time lurker stopping by to share something I've been working on. I'm calling it Pacmax (PM). Akin to Packal (which is a great website that I'm sure we all know and love) PM is my attempt to fill what voids I feel exist in the current landscape for the other Alfred lovers out there, like myself. Namely: 1) It works from the source, dynamically updating content from GitHub. 2) No accounts are necessary to add Workflows and Themes, because I'm curating submissions. 3) Adding to PM is as simple as submitting the GitHub repository. Repos with files that use the appropriate .alfredappearance & .alfredworkflow extensions will enable PM to display Import (themes will open directly with Alfred) and Get Import File (workflows). There is plenty left to be desired—so your feedback is very important! I hope you'll check it out and let me know what you think. Don't forget to add your favorite Workflows & Extensions! I've added a few of my favorites, and have even discovered some real neat repositories that I felt were worth sharing. If anyone is interested, you can learn more about Pacmax at pacmax.org. If you have any kind of feedback or are interested in maybe getting involved on a deeper level I welcome your feedback over at pacmax.org/feedback Thanks and all the best, Maxwell

Hi there! I wanted to ask if there is a way, with a button shortcut to have a file open in Photoshop? For example, I have jpegs automatically open in Photoshop by default through my Mac SysPrefs... but I still have pngs open in Preview. Is there a way to have a button to have it "open in... application" or just "open in Photoshop" as an option, like how we can press Shift or CMD to preview or open the file location? Thanks!

It would be great when you say that "we have over a dozen examples and over 40 templates" (or words to that effect) if you appended that webpage (Alfred Blog > Tips and Tricks > Learn to Create Workflows with Alfred's Built-In Examples) with a follow-on webpage and link with a list of those examples and templates that you speak of, serving as a repository for us to go to for a one stop place to download from.

I understand that I can copy the Open Apps examples, paste in my 3rd party apps and start them using the example workflow; What I don't understand is, what do I do with the apps from my remote after I have opened them. There is no keyboard interface that comes with the workflows so I can't edit the files I open in these apps; so why bother opening an app from my remote if I can't do anything with it after I open it??? I may seem to be as dumb as a post to you but I just don't get it. (at least not yet)(I haven't quit trying).

It would be great if the workflow sidebar could be flexible making it convenient for me to resize it to fit my workflow descriptions.

I'm just getting started with creating my own workflows and I have a couple questions I haven't found the answers for yet after a bunch of searching, reading and testing. A quick note to begin with, I'm writing this partially as an exercise to improve me proficiency with AppleScript, as frequently painful as it is. It does seem like a good workflow to use it for since its functionality is almost entirely reading information from and sending commands to the iTunes AppleScript Dictionary. JXA is a little further down the to-learn list. 1. What is the proper way (if there is one) to get Alfred's workflow environment variables into an AppleScript file? Right now I'm using the Script Filter to issue the Bash command osascript *file*, I can append a variable to it like "alfred_workflow_data" and read it as an argv or use (do shell script "pwd") to get the workflow path but I haven't found a way to access all of the variables directly. I'm open to ultimately running it as a usr/bin/osascript if that's the best solution, but it's nice to just run the script from my code editor rather than copying and pasting it every time I want to test a change. I have read the pinned post on using environment variables but I'm not sure how to apply it in this context. 2. It looks like the best practice is to use alfred_workflow_data and alfred_workflow_cache where possible but is it appropriate to use the workflow folder for things like included icons or should I be creating a data directory, copying the files there and then using that location when setting icons in a Script Filter? Given that there doesn't appear to be a provided environment variable for the workflow folder path I wasn't sure if that was to discourage using that in the workflow or because it's trivial to determine that path another way. 3. I have a couple of different icons I'm using for different workflow components so I don't want them all to inherit the workflow icon but I also use some of the same icons for multiple trigger objects. If I assign them the same icon I get duplicate *iud*.png files, is there a way to set the path for the icon programmatically so I can set a single image to multiple objects? 4. Along similar lines, does Alfred allow you to use any vector formats for icons? It doesn't seem to accept SVG and it converts vector PDFs to PNG images but I know that some of Alfred's internal workflows use vector code for icons so I thought it was worth asking. If not, is 512px the appropriate resolution? I've seen 128px referenced in older threads but that seems pretty small for uses like icons in the iOS remote app for devices like retina iPads. 5. Finally, is there a good way to assign multiple keywords to the same action? I'd like to trigger my script filter with both itunes and love and I had hoped that using a Keyword object as the input to a script filter would do it but while it still lets me trigger the action object I've linked the script filter to the script filter functionality doesn't work. I've also tried adding an Arg and Vars utility to overwrite the query to the keyword for the Script Filter but I get the same result. I can just duplicate the Script Filter with a different keyword but am trying not to repeat an identical function if I don't need to. Thanks for any help, I really appreciate you taking the time to read over this. The workflow in its current state can be found on GitHub. Alfred 3.6.2 [921] macOS 10.13.5 (17F77) I've customized a lot of my macOS environment but I don't think anything that would affect AppleScript and likely not anything that would affect running osascript commands from /bin/bash.

Hi all, I'm trying to run a node.js script with Alfred, using this workaround: http://remy.bach.me.uk/blog/2014/03/writing-alfred-workflows-in-node/ It seems to work to get scripts to run without modules, but when I try to use the npm 'fast-csv' module, running the Alfred workflow with my script gives me the error "Cannot find the module 'fast-csv'". I've installed 'fast-csv' globally, so I'm not sure what else to try. (The script runs correctly when using the terminal.) Any ideas? Thanks

Hi Everyone! New to Alfred and its world of workflows. I'm interested in creating my first two workflows. This is what I'm hoping to achieve: 1. Copy the contents of a text file (whether it's txt, nfo, html, rtf etc.) to the clipboard. I know there's a terminal command for that: pbcopy. I want to have this ability either through File Actions or as a workflow input. 2. Define a workflow input to open the most recently download file (in other words, the most recently added file in the macOS's Downloads folder). Help would be very appreciated! Thanks!

Thanks in advance for the help! I'm trying to pass two (or multiple) variables to AppleScript. For example, “keyword query1 query2” and then get both arguments into AppleScript. Or something like “keyword query1^query2” and then split them. I feel like I’m almost there, but missing something… I guess I should add that I’m using Alfred 3.5.1 with Powerpack. I read this article: but my dumb brain couldn’t figure it out… Any help would be greatly appreciated. My use case for this particular workflow is AppleScipt, but I'd be interested in knowing how to do the same thing with a bash script or something like that. Thanks!

This seems like it's simple, but I don't find anything about how to create a clickable link that will trigger a workflow. We have several workflows we'd like to trigger externally by clicking a link we've placed in another application. is that possible?

If Alfred were paid in 'penny per use' he'd be rich. This App is simply wonderful and been part of my Mac for years now. I wonder how many Workflows I miss out on? I know we all have different needs, but is there a quick way of seeing New Workflows? (a monthly email, or should I check the forum?) Or indeed a Gallery of most downloaded Workflows? Be so great to quickly check back from time to time and see anything I need to add to my Alfred setup! Thanks again for a brilliant App. Adam

Recently I have been really enjoying programming workflows in Go using @deanishe incredible AwGo library. So I decided to write an article on how anyone can start building things with Go by going through building a complete and working workflow from scratch. You can read the article here. I would really love to hear your thoughts on it. ? It is quite long in hindsight but I wanted to be as clear as I can be so anyone can follow along. I also leave some personal tips of my own that I use to help me develop workflows faster.

Hi folks. I'm totally new to scripting and was trying to create a script that turns on Do Not Disturb for a set number of seconds and then turns it off. The number of seconds would be passed in as an Alfred argument. I have the script mostly done and working, but the last part is figuring out how to pass in the argument. Can someone please help me? Here's what I have so far: on run argv delay 3 tell application "System Events" option key down delay 0.1 tell application process "SystemUIServer" try tell (every menu bar whose title of menu bar item 1 contains "Notification") click (1st menu bar item whose title contains "Notification") end tell end try end tell option key up end tell delay ****[the argument from Alfred]**** tell application "System Events" option key down delay 0.1 tell application process "SystemUIServer" try tell (every menu bar whose title of menu bar item 1 contains "Notification") click (1st menu bar item whose title contains "Notification") end tell end try end tell option key up end tell end run Any help would be greatly appreciated! Thank you!

tl;dr: A new Alfred workflow to launch Zapier workflows from your keyboard. Ever wanted a quicker way to add data to your web apps? Say you get an email from a potential customer, and you want to add them as a new lead to your CRM. You have to copy their email address, open your CRM app in your browser, find your Lead page, open the Add Lead page, and finally paste in the info. Or if you wanted to find more details about a contact—perhaps to see what products they've bought from your store, or their last email to your support team, or the notes you wrote about your last call with them—you'd need to open a handful of other apps and search in each one manually. Personally, I wanted a simpler way to send template emails. I wanted to enter a contact's name in Alfred and have it find details about the contact in address book, then make a new draft email to them. That's why I made this Zapier for Alfred workflow. Zapier's to web apps what Alfred is to your Mac—it connects 750+ web apps (including Evernote, Salesforce, Shopify, Gmail, PayPal, and much more) so you can build workflows and automate tasks. And with Zapier for Alfred, you can start those workflows from your Mac's keyboard. Everyone will have a different use case, but the core workflow works the same. You'll make a Zapier workflow, and connect it to your Zapier for Alfred workflow in Alfred. Then, to run it, you'll enter some text into Alfred, and this workflow will send it to your Zap to kick off the online workflow you made. Then you can get the results back to your Mac in a Pushbullet notification, email, Dropbox file, or even an SMS message in Messages. Download Zapier for Alfred here, or check out our launch blog post for more details. Looking forward to hearing how you use Zapier with Alfred!

Ok, I've put off moving past Alfred v1 for years because Workflows looked like an elephant gun when all I needed was a flyswatter. But I'm building out a new Mac from scratch, so thought I'd catch up and bite the bullet. All I really want is to assign hotkeys to apps. I used the Workflow template "Launch file group from hotkey," which I assumed I'd need to do once for each app, and just create "file groups" of one app each. But it looks like you're supposed to be able to set up a bunch of these inside of a single workflow: https://www.alfredapp.com/help/workflows/triggers/hotkey/creating-a-hotkey-workflow/ The problem: The instructions refer to and show a + icon in the upper right corner of the workflow panel that I don't see. I will try to resist voicing the cascade of frustrations that the UX for what must surely be a common task is so oblique, though I really hope Alfred gets some UX design help. But can anyone enlighten me on how I can set up hot keys for apps in the way the help page indicates I should be able to? Thanks!

It would be very nice if, instead of only being able to use the context menu, we could also use a keyboard shortcut to quickly access the 'Edit Details' for Workflow components (and groups).

When an object in a workflow outputs valid configuration JSON, this will be applied similarly to the JSON Config object in the workflow editor. Unfortunately, this seems to apply to all objects, including keyword inputs and the like, meaning that if valid configuration JSON is typed into any workflow keyword input, the workflow will not work as expected. This can be easily reproduced by creating a workflow similar to the one shown below and typing the following text into Alfred: To break the intended functionality: test { "alfredworkflow" : {} } To actually manipulate the workflow: test { "alfredworkflow" : { "config" : { "title" : "Title", "text" : "Text (this should not be possible)" } } } I am using Alfred v3.3.1 [806] on macOS 10.12.3. This could easily be fixed by adding a checkbox specifying whether the output of the object should be interpreted as configuration.

*************** Please see new thread ****************** Alfred already has the ability to search in many different contexts due to the versatility of workflows, and this is great. The downside is that the more workflows that you have, the more Alfred starts to lose part of its initial appeal as being a quick way to search everything in one place. For example, I'd like my pinboard bookmarks to always show up in my default results since they have equal importance to me as the files on my computer. This is just one example of many. Two possible features that could help: Allow workflow results to be included in the default search. Allow items be passed between workflows, to easily combine them into "meta-workflows" and reduce the total number of searches you have. I understand this is a performance risk, but I don't have the technical knowledge yet to understand exactly how to solve that. I'm grateful that a conversation has already been started in another thread about this, and I think we should continue it here and work together to find the best solution. In response to one part of that conversation, @Andrew said: And @deanishe responded: I think @deanishe is on to something important. Thank you for considering.