Change clipboard case

[derBingle]

Hey all, just published a little workflow so that I can change the case of the text in the clipboard quickly. 

 

The code is here: https://github.com/derBingle/alfred-change-case.

 

It requires nodejs, so if you have it already, you can install via 

npm install -g alfred-change-case

 

Screenshot:

 

:

 

Would love any feedback/suggestions!

[deanishe]

2 hours ago, derBingle said:

Would love any feedback/suggestions!

 

Node is a pretty hardcore dependency for such a simple workflow.

 

Could this work as JXA? That way, it would run on every Mac.

 

[dfay]

Or bash & perl, or python 

 

[derBingle]

On 8/2/2017 at 3:41 PM, deanishe said:

Node is a pretty hardcore dependency for such a simple workflow.

 

 

Thanks for the feedback, @deanishe. I don't disagree—Node's just what I'm working day to day and JS is the only language I'm comfortable in (working on that, though!). I already knew/used the Lodash string functions and smart title case module, so it was quick and easy to put this together. I have quite a few personalized Alfred workflows that use node extensively, so I didn't even think about it. But you're right.

 

I might just compile the script to a binary for non-node users — seems a lot less complicated that switching to JXA, adding browersify to bundle the required modules. But I'm open to suggestions. 

 

 

@dfay  This workflow only exists because I was needing the 3 programming-related cases—the sentence related ones were more of a "might as well add it while I'm here" afterthought. So definitely no workflow-infringement intended here - if people don't need snake/kebab/camel case, they should definitely use yours! 

[dfay]

haha no worries @derBingle - there is also this which I'm sure is overkill for most users including myself 

 

[deanishe]

1 hour ago, derBingle said:

I might just compile the script to a binary for non-node users — seems a lot less complicated that switching to JXA, adding browersify to bundle the required modules. But I'm open to suggestions

 

Can the code not be more-or-less copy-pasted? Is some massive JS build-pipeline really required?

 

How big, exactly, would that binary be? I mean, does it include Node?

 

More generally, the "global install" method (in this case, using "npm install -g") is not a good idea. 

 

In terms of Alfred workflows, it means your workflow doesn't sync across machines like well-behaved (self-contained) workflows.

 

In more general Node terms (though the same applies to Ruby and Python), it sets your workflow up to break/be broken by other software, as you can only install one version of a library at a time globally.

 

You probably don't want to open yourself up to many years of support requests/bug reports because your globally-installed program requires a different version of library X to program Y. 

[FroZen_X]

ummm am i wrong or can all this be achieved with Alfred functions oO "Replace" and "Transform", that's what I'm using however plus some regex.

[dfay]

It probably can, but the workflows date back to Alfred 2 before those features were available.

[deanishe]

On 04/08/2017 at 10:47 PM, FroZen_X said:

ummm am i wrong or can all this be achieved with Alfred functions oO "Replace" and "Transform", that's what I'm using however plus some regex.

 

Most of it, yeah. The workflow I use also has a "slugify" mode, which can't be done (easily) within Alfred. In any case, it's generally easier to write two lines of code that add a bunch of Alfred elements, and you can't show a "live preview" in a Script Filter, either.

[Anjadekar]

The implementation is beautiful but it runs very slowly for me. Any ideas why? I'm on a pretty powerful MacBook Pro so would expect it to run faster.