luckman212 Posted May 19, 2019 Share Posted May 19, 2019 I saw this has been asked a few times before (e.g. here) but there wasn't a clear answer. Since Alfred 4 is coming soon, I would like to throw this into the pot to see if it might be possible. My brain is getting old. It's hard to remember all the different keywords and hotkeys I've set up. To aid myself I like to be able to use multiple keywords to trigger the same workflow step. Example, I have a workflow for connecting Bluetooth devices, that I trigger using `bt` instead of just "bt" I'd like to add a few more keywords, e.g. "blue", "connect", "audio" etc. I know I can duplicate the script filter opject and connect its Output to the same step—it's a poor man's workaround, but it'd be cleaner and better to allow multiple keywords, such as this: llityslife, Chris Messina, lynxlinius and 2 others 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lycopodiopsida Posted May 29, 2019 Share Posted May 29, 2019 I would also say, that allowing search with the name of the workflow would be a better solution. I can memorise maybe 5-6 workflows I use on the regular basis, but I have no chance to remember abbreviations for the rest of them. Launchbar makes it right - I can assign abbreviations, but I will always find them also via the usual "fuzzy search"-like entry. Since Alfred these days relies so much on workflows, we need a better way to find them. devalias 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
luckman212 Posted May 29, 2019 Author Share Posted May 29, 2019 (edited) I saw Alfred4 is out today (first release!) but I didn't see anything like this in the release notes. Maybe 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 😉 Edited January 30, 2021 by luckman212 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lycopodiopsida Posted May 29, 2019 Share Posted May 29, 2019 There is kind of search now in Alfred 4 - with "?" keyword you can find workflows too, but it will not show you the keywords and if you activate workflows found, it will just open them in the workflow editor. You can user this workflow instead as a workaround for now: http://www.packal.org/workflow/alfred-keyword-help and hope that at some point we don't have to rely solely on keywords As an idea - it would already help, if search in workflow names could be configured as one of the default fallbacks. devalias 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
luckman212 Posted October 16, 2019 Author Share Posted October 16, 2019 Related suggestion: https://www.alfredforum.com/topic/13777-keyword-aliases/ Chris Messina 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lynxlinius Posted August 12, 2020 Share Posted August 12, 2020 Did this ever happen? On 5/19/2019 at 1:44 PM, luckman212 said: I saw this has been asked a few times before (e.g. here) but there wasn't a clear answer. Since Alfred 4 is coming soon, I would like to throw this into the pot to see if it might be possible. My brain is getting old. It's hard to remember all the different keywords and hotkeys I've set up. To aid myself I like to be able to use multiple keywords to trigger the same workflow step. Example, I have a workflow for connecting Bluetooth devices, that I trigger using `bt` instead of just "bt" I'd like to add a few more keywords, e.g. "blue", "connect", "audio" etc. I know I can duplicate the script filter opject and connect its Output to the same step—it's a poor man's workaround, but it'd be cleaner and better to allow multiple keywords, such as this: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vitor Posted August 13, 2020 Share Posted August 13, 2020 (edited) 6 hours ago, lynxlinius said: Did this ever happen? No. As far as I’m aware, there’re no plans for it. Edited August 13, 2020 by vitor Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
evdev Posted September 19, 2020 Share Posted September 19, 2020 I'm surprised there isn't more demand for this feature, I constantly find myself typing different keyword triggers when I want to perform the same action. For the same reason, I also set up multiple duplicate search engines in my browsers that use slightly different keyword variations but all point to the same custom URL query (like ama, amz, amzn that all perform the same custom Amazon.com search when typed in omnibox and Tab key is pressed) When I'm in a moment of mental flow and I suddenly want to check for X on site Y, I want to do so the quickest way possible with the minimum effort/resistance. Same goes for the terminal, once I find myself using a command more frequently, I set a few minimum-character aliases for it like dk, dock, dkr (all aliasing docker) which allows my brain multiple neural pathways for it to be correct in the midst of focusing on a more complex task. I find that it helps my flow state significantly because there's less chance of mental disruption especially when recalling newly created aliases/keywords where the brain's connections aren't very strong yet and will still require more intensive memory lookups during your typing thought process. All that aside, does anyone have any workarounds for this with Alfred workflows other than duplicating them and setting different keywords? Would be nice to have more low level access to Alfred's triggers but in lieu of that I wonder if a meta-workflow workflow could be worth experimenting on. If it would allow one to set a number of aliases for any of a user's currently installed workflows it could be potentially useful. devalias and luckman212 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Messina Posted October 12, 2020 Share Posted October 12, 2020 +1 for this request. I felt the exact same need (in my case, I have several workflows that allow me to quickly access my messages... so I really want to use "message", "dms", and "send", etc as aliases for several searches/workflows). devalias 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vero Posted October 12, 2020 Share Posted October 12, 2020 4 hours ago, chris said: so I really want to use "message", "dms", and "send", etc as aliases for several searches/workflows). The immediate solution is to create a few keyword objects to connect into your workflow. Duplicate your main keyword object then change the keyword, and connect it to the same workflow Cheers, Vero Chris Messina 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Messina Posted October 12, 2020 Share Posted October 12, 2020 6 hours ago, Vero said: The immediate solution is to create a few keyword objects to connect into your workflow. Duplicate your main keyword object then change the keyword, and connect it to the same workflow Cheers, Vero Right, but this would mean duplicating those keywords in each of the workflows in which I want to use these keywords, right? I think that's probably fine, it's just a little inefficient since I'm creating workflow toolkits for several services with similar features (Twitter, Instagram, etc) and will need to sync/update these synonyms across all of the toolkits. devalias 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dfay Posted October 12, 2020 Share Posted October 12, 2020 Why wouldn’t you put them all in one workflow per service? Alternately use BBEdit or the like and do a multifile search of the plists? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Messina Posted October 13, 2020 Share Posted October 13, 2020 2 hours ago, dfay said: Why wouldn’t you put them all in one workflow per service? Yes, that's what I've decided I'll do: Quote Alternately use BBEdit or the like and do a multifile search of the plists? Yes, I'll likely end up doing that too, once I standardize on the synonyms. What I would prefer would be to edit one of those keyword objects and just add synonyms or aliases directly, just to keep the Workflow layout cleaner. devalias 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
luckman212 Posted October 21, 2020 Author Share Posted October 21, 2020 On 10/12/2020 at 10:24 PM, chris said: What I would prefer would be to edit one of those keyword objects and just add synonyms or aliases directly, just to keep the Workflow layout cleaner. Yep that would be pretty useful! I like the concept of 'alias' since that is already a familiar term for macOS users. Something like this would look nice: devalias and Chris Messina 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Messina Posted October 21, 2020 Share Posted October 21, 2020 21 minutes ago, luckman212 said: Something like this would look nice: Love it! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
luckman212 Posted January 8, 2021 Author Share Posted January 8, 2021 @Vero Happy new year 🎉 Do you think there's any shot at this request making it to the drawing board? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
llityslife Posted January 21, 2021 Share Posted January 21, 2021 On 10/22/2020 at 4:25 AM, luckman212 said: Yep that would be pretty useful! I like the concept of 'alias' since that is already a familiar term for macOS users. Something like this would look nice: How to set this "alias", I cannot find this feature. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Messina Posted January 21, 2021 Share Posted January 21, 2021 6 minutes ago, llityslife said: How to set this "alias", I cannot find this feature. It doesn't exist. You'll have to create multiple keywords and link each of them manually. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
luckman212 Posted June 28, 2022 Author Share Posted June 28, 2022 @Andrew @Vero Any chance this feature will be considered for Alfred 5? (I just bought my license today but haven't downloaded yet...) devalias and Chris Messina 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
luckman212 Posted November 19, 2022 Author Share Posted November 19, 2022 Since this hasn't made it into Alfred 5 (yet!) I came up with a workaround, which is a custom Script Filter workflow that uses multiple "match" keywords and then fires the original object using the ExternalTrigger / URL Handler action. It's clunky but "it works" for now... If anyone wants to see how this is done, I can publish a template to GitHub if I get a bit of time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vitor Posted November 19, 2022 Share Posted November 19, 2022 Could be a nice post for the Advanced Tips & Tricks subforum. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
luckman212 Posted November 19, 2022 Author Share Posted November 19, 2022 Alright. I'm going to work on it a bit, I have some ideas on how to make it more modular and user-friendly. Once it's ready I'll post it up. vitor and Alan He 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lcht Posted January 28, 2023 Share Posted January 28, 2023 On 11/19/2022 at 8:47 AM, luckman212 said: Alright. I'm going to work on it a bit, I have some ideas on how to make it more modular and user-friendly. Once it's ready I'll post it up. did you every post this up? I'm curious how you made it work as I'm looking to do something similar. thanks! :] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daylighter Posted January 30, 2023 Share Posted January 30, 2023 (edited) On 5/19/2019 at 7:44 PM, luckman212 said: I saw this has been asked a few times before (e.g. on bigwinwall.com/us/) but there wasn't a clear answer. Since Alfred 4 is coming soon, I would like to throw this into the pot to see if it might be possible. My brain is getting old. It's hard to remember all the different keywords and hotkeys I've set up. To aid myself I like to be able to use multiple keywords to trigger the same workflow step. Example, I have a workflow for connecting Bluetooth devices, that I trigger using `bt` instead of just "bt" I'd like to add a few more keywords, e.g. "blue", "connect", "audio" etc. I know I can duplicate the script filter opject and connect its Output to the same step—it's a poor man's workaround, but it'd be cleaner and better to allow multiple keywords, such as this: Great idea. I was thinking about something like this also and I'm glad you're trying to realize it. Keep up the good work and I'll be happy if you post the result ✌️ Edited February 7, 2023 by Daylighter Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vitor Posted April 5, 2023 Share Posted April 5, 2023 Starting from Alfred 5.1 (currently in pre-release), multiple keywords are supported. devalias, iandol and luckman212 1 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now