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I'm happy to announce that after months of development, I'm ready to make a new workflow and theme repository available to the public as an open beta: Packal. Workflows and themes are taggable and searchable. You can add in the icons, screenshots, long descriptions, and brief ones. There are many different ways to find whatever you need there. Since this is an initial announcement, there isn't much content there yet, except for the workflows and themes that a few kind testers uploaded. Themes are stored as a simple application URL, which means there are no files to download, but, instead, they import directly into Alfred2. Workflows are scanned for viruses after they are submitted but before they are made available publicly. Workflow authors can easily update their workflows just by editing the page and replacing the workflow file there. What is even better is that Packal has its own updater for workflows. So, you have the option to update any workflows that you have downloaded from Packal. I think that these are exciting developments for Alfred, and this sort of repository is what many people have been waiting for since these forums were created. One great advantage for distributing your workflows via Packal is that you do not need to maintain your own download links for your workflows anymore, so you won't need to worry about download limits on sharing services. Another advantage is that it will receive more visibility as it is a place where people can look for workflows and themes without having to page through the impressive number of posts in these forums. So, please, head over to Packal, browse what's there, and, very importantly, submit your own workflows and themes. --Shawn

At my company, all web traffic has to go out through a proxy. This causes all sorts of issues that we have to figure out when apps are inconsistent about how they detect proxy settings. For Alfred, I haven't been able to figure out what to whitelist for updates. I get notifications that an update is available, but when I go to the settings to actually download it, I see the error "Unable to contact update server". Is there any way to find out what exactly Alfred is using (curl, wget, something else) and/or where it is going so I can whitelist this?

I just updated all of my workflows manually by going through the forum and redownloading each one. I tried Alleyoop a while ago, but it was hit-or-miss and I understand it's not being developed any more. Is there a current method of batch-updating workflows, or are we still waiting on one to be developed? Thanks!

I'm happy to announce that after months of development, I'm ready to make a new workflow and theme repository available to the public as an open beta: Packal. Workflows and themes are taggable and searchable. You can add in the icons, screenshots, long descriptions, and brief ones. There are many different ways to find whatever you need there. Since this is an initial announcement, there isn't much content there yet, except for the workflows and themes that a few kind testers uploaded. Themes are stored as a simple application URL, which means there are no files to download, but, instead, they import directly into Alfred2. Workflows are scanned for viruses after they are submitted but before they are made available publicly. Workflow authors can easily update their workflows just by editing the page and replacing the workflow file there. What is even better is that there is a soon-to-be-released companion workflow that will interface with Packal.org allowing for you to update your workflows directly from Alfred. I've worked out a method for updating workflows with Andrew that provides all of the security migration features that Alfred does natively. In order for a workflow to be updatable, the author needs to do nothing other than upload the file to Packal. All the packaging information necessary is automatically created for each workflow by the website itself. Besides the virus scan, the workflow also signs each package in order to verify its authenticity. I think that these are exciting developments for Alfred, and this sort of repository is what many people have been waiting for since these forums were created. So, please, head over to Packal, browse what's there, and, very importantly, submit your own workflows and themes. --Shawn

I've noticed that v 2.1.1(227) has updated three or four times recently. Usually happens on a fresh boot. (OSX 10.9 Mavericks. MBPro 15" Retina early 2013) Now, I am traveling in the Far East and have changed venues three times in the last seven days...could it be ip address motivated?

I know there is the workflow alleyoop going around which will download a release for any workflows that include an update.json file, it's a great idea. Automation for updating, making things easy. As I was getting back into making updates to the Spotify workflow I wanted to add this in, but I didn't care for lack of control. Meaning no way to read about the release, view the codebase or even choose a release version. I opted not to use it. Instead I wrote a little PHP library that will download tags from Github and display them back to the user. They can upgrade or downgrade a workflow, as well as 'Control + Enter' to view the code or 'Option + Enter' to read about the release. If there is any interest, I can create a new repo on Github just for the auto-updater. Only caveat is that it is for just that workflow (for now), it doesn't cover all workflows, not sure it ever will. Although it could in the same manner alleyoop does except it would pull info from github (if hosted there) to get release info and browse the codebase. I think alleyoop could probably easily incorporate some of these items to make it a bit more robust. You can see what I am doing here, and read more about the process here. The rest of the control and option clicks to browse the codebase or read docs are in the actual workflow. You would have to download it to view those, you can do so here. Again, if any interest, cool. I can post up whatever anyone would like to see.

It'd be great to allow workflow updates/bug fixes through some kind of built-in update system. It should check a repository master branch for new commits (on GitHub for example), and pull if there's any - or at least give the user the option to. Currently you have to keep an eye on every workflow developers' blog/twitter account to get notified about updates. An app that does something like this is Sublime Text 2's unofficial package manager called "Package Control".