Similar functionality to aText except better UX?

[saint]

Hi all,

 

I write a lot of email, and would prefer to use a template to send snippets of email text. I love the Alfred "bar" where you can input whatever shortcut to get to somewhere.

 

My question is, is there a way to trigger the bar, but instead of choosing from files / custom actions / etc., it shows a list of text templates in the drop-down I've configured? I use aText sometimes, but honestly, it's hard to remember all of the small shortcut names I've given it, and also it's pretty bad UX for something like.

 

Thanks!

[dfay]

Funny I just answered practically the same question here: 

 

[saint]

Wow, thanks @dfay!

 

I'll give this a shot, quick question, do you happen to have a video tutorial of how this integrates (I've never created or done any Alfred custom workflows before.) Or is it pretty easy to put into play?

 

Also, just curious... What did you use to auto-generate those forms? That sounds like a pretty great idea, ha.

[dfay]

Not video but I’d start with the list filter docs : https://www.alfredapp.com/help/workflows/inputs/list-filter/

 

with the template name as title and the template itself as arg

 

at the end you’ll want to add a copy to clipboard object.

 

The custom forms were just html forms and maybe a bit of javascript on the front end.  Depending on the checkboxes etc. selected it would include various bits of text in the body , compose the subject line etc., then on submit it went to an email cgi ( http://www.bu.edu/tech/services/cccs/websites/people/forms/ponyexpress-overview/ - it seems to still be alive 15 years later! ) .

 

You could probably do the same thing with AppleScript and Pashua for the front end.

[deanishe]

9 minutes ago, dfay said:

You could probably do the same thing with AppleScript and Pashua for the front end.

 

Does Pashua work with AppleScript? I've only ever used it with languages that aren't demented.

[dfay]

Yup.