Notion.so Instant Search Workflow

[Vbalsamo]

On 5/5/2021 at 7:01 AM, wrjlewis said:

Unfortunately since Notion hasn't released a public API yet, it's difficult to resolve any issues, they don't return error messages. 

I have seen people have success by:
Logging out of notion in their browser.
Logging back in
Copy the cookie as shown in the readme into the workflow env variables. The spaceid should stay the same but may be worth copying over again to be sure.

Try again searching for a page you know to exist in your workspace.

 

Hey just a heads up Notion has a Public Beta API in the wild https://developers.notion.com/ would be amazing to see deeper integration between Alfred and Notion, unfortunately it is well beyond me to develop. Just though I would share.

 

Thanks!

 

[wrjlewis]

2 minutes ago, Vbalsamo said:

 

Hey just a heads up Notion has a Public Beta API in the wild https://developers.notion.com/ would be amazing to see deeper integration between Alfred and Notion, unfortunately it is well beyond me to develop. Just though I would share.

 

Thanks!

 

Hey!

 

Yeah totally, would be really cool to get it integrated. The only issue I see so far, and may be corrected, is that you need to have admin access to the workspace in order to setup an integration, which would rule out most company workspaces. Still, it would certainly work for private workspaces and I’ll be looking into it for sure! 
 

[ileonemil]

@wrjlewis Hi! The Workflow searches pages and all is right, but it doesn't open them....what can I do ??

Edited June 22, 2021 by ileonemil
Forgot the tag

[wrjlewis]

On 6/22/2021 at 4:28 PM, ileonemil said:

@wrjlewis Hi! The Workflow searches pages and all is right, but it doesn't open them....what can I do ??

 

Can you explain in more detail what happens when you press enter on a search result in Alfred? 
Do you receive any errors? Does it open a web browser (or notion app if you have that configured) with the result?

[ileonemil]

7 hours ago, wrjlewis said:

 

Can you explain in more detail what happens when you press enter on a search result in Alfred? 
Do you receive any errors? Does it open a web browser (or notion app if you have that configured) with the result?

 

Hi, now I understand. I put the variable that makes the searched page opening in the desktop app to true, but it function only if Notion is closed, because it opens a new Notion window with the searched page. Is someway possible to use the workflow having Notion opened?

[wrjlewis]

10 hours ago, ileonemil said:

 

Hi, now I understand. I put the variable that makes the searched page opening in the desktop app to true, but it function only if Notion is closed, because it opens a new Notion window with the searched page. Is someway possible to use the workflow having Notion opened?

It should work with the Notion app open. What is happening when you try to open a search result with the Notion app open? 

[ileonemil]

2 hours ago, wrjlewis said:

It should work with the Notion app open. What is happening when you try to open a search result with the Notion app open? 

 

Okay I've just restarted Alfred and the Macbook and now all is on point, sorry for the mess I've done. Thank you for all

[wrjlewis]

4 minutes ago, ileonemil said:

 

Okay I've just restarted Alfred and the Macbook and now all is on point, sorry for the mess I've done. Thank you for all

Glad to hear.

[Bob89]

Hey @wrjlewishave you had the time to look into the notion API yet? Really don't wanna stress you, but having that in there would be amazing

 

Thanks!

[wrjlewis]

On 7/4/2021 at 3:31 PM, Bob89 said:

Hey @wrjlewishave you had the time to look into the notion API yet? Really don't wanna stress you, but having that in there would be amazing

 

Thanks!

Hey, yes will definitely be adding this at some point! Just need to find some time to start on it 😁.

The only thing stopping me from being too urgent about it, is the fact you need to be an admin in your workspace in order to use the Notion API.

Do you use this tool for your personal notion workspace or for your work's notion workspace? Or both? Unless you're admin for your works notion workplace, you won't be able to use the Notion API for that anyway.

Notion say they will improve the authentication process, so you don't have to be an admin to use it, in the future, which I think will be key for a lot of people's use.

[Bob89]

On 7/6/2021 at 11:28 AM, wrjlewis said:

Do you use this tool for your personal notion workspace or for your work's notion workspace? Or both? Unless you're admin for your works notion workplace, you won't be able to use the Notion API for that anyway.

Notion say they will improve the authentication process, so you don't have to be an admin to use it, in the future, which I think will be key for a lot of people's use.

@wrjlewis I'm an admin in all workspaces I use, so it wouldn't be a problem. Maybe there's a way to have a checkbox for "I have admin rights" and then it'll use the API, otherwise it'll still use the current method?

 

An other alternative I'd see is to have two different workflows, one for API, one for the current method.

 

Whatever you decide - thanks a lot for looking into it, much appreciated!

[ian_989]

It's worth noting that as of today the public Notion API does not support the full feature set of the private API. Notably, you cannot access the entire workspace, only a subset. In other words, you cannot get all your pages using the public API, instead you get all the sub pages of whatever page or database you share with the integration.

 

This issue will likely pose some difficulties for this workflow.

 

That being said, the Notion API is in beta, so hopefully they will update it to allow full workspace access.

[saltpeanuts]

Did anything change with the Mac Monterey? I can't seem to be able to get this workflow working.

[wrjlewis]

2 hours ago, saltpeanuts said:

Did anything change with the Mac Monterey? I can't seem to be able to get this workflow working.

I've just updated to Monterey and tested everything is still working, and it seems to be. 

 

I'm also on Alfred 4.6 [1266] which added some compatibility for macOS Monterey, so it might be worth double checking you're also up to date on that front. 

[TheBuilder]

Good morning,

It appears this workflow just might be an absolute game changer for me when it comes to navigating my database from the Desktop app!!! However, I know absolutely nothing about code, and in spite of going into the Develop Menu here in Safari after importing the Notion Workflow into Alfred, I still can't get it to search in the Desktop app. I still get the "No Results - Go to Notion Homepage" whenever I search for something.

 

I'm still attempting to find it in the latest version of Safari here, but I don't know where to look for it in the Develop area, as it is hugely comprehensive. It contains so many tabs in there, so I have attached a screenshot of what I'm seeing.... Please let me know where to look for the Cookie ID and the Search ID when you can!

[deanishe]

8 hours ago, TheBuilder said:

Please let me know where to look for the Cookie ID and the Search ID when you can!

 

If you're trying to find cookies, you need to look in the Network or Storage tabs:

 

[wrjlewis]

On 11/17/2021 at 2:15 PM, TheBuilder said:

Good morning,

It appears this workflow just might be an absolute game changer for me when it comes to navigating my database from the Desktop app!!! However, I know absolutely nothing about code, and in spite of going into the Develop Menu here in Safari after importing the Notion Workflow into Alfred, I still can't get it to search in the Desktop app. I still get the "No Results - Go to Notion Homepage" whenever I search for something.

 

I'm still attempting to find it in the latest version of Safari here, but I don't know where to look for it in the Develop area, as it is hugely comprehensive. It contains so many tabs in there, so I have attached a screenshot of what I'm seeing.... Please let me know where to look for the Cookie ID and the Search ID when you can!

Hey!

 

If you're still struggling to find the value, because you're right it is a little different in the new safari, I would suggest the following:
 

1) Type something into the 'Search DorianWorks..' search box

2) In Safari developer (as shown in your screenshot) click on the network tab. 

3) Find and click on 'search' in the list. 

4) On the right hand side there will be another tab menu, select 'Cookies'

5) The one we care about is at the bottom of the list called 'token_v2'. You want to copy the value into the alfred notion search cookie environment variable so it looks like 'token_v2=XXXXXXXXXXXXXX'. I.e. you'll need to add the '=' in there. 

Let me know how you get on

[wrjlewis]

1 minute ago, wrjlewis said:

Hey!

 

If you're still struggling to find the value, because you're right it is a little different in the new safari, I would suggest the following:
 

1) Type something into the 'Search DorianWorks..' search box

2) In Safari developer (as shown in your screenshot) click on the network tab. 

3) Find and click on 'search' in the list. 

4) On the right hand side there will be another tab menu, select 'Cookies'

5) The one we care about is at the bottom of the list called 'token_v2'. You want to copy the value into the alfred notion search cookie environment variable so it looks like 'token_v2=XXXXXXXXXXXXXX'. I.e. you'll need to add the '=' in there. 

Let me know how you get on

And the space id can be found at step 4 above, by selecting preview instead of Cookies and finding the "spaceId" value in the resulting text. 

[TheBuilder]

Good morning,

I've spent literally the past hour attempting to figure this out based on your directions above, but still no success. I have been able to get the "token_v2=...." dynamic into Alfred's "cookie" area, and stripped out the final part of the token information (i.e. starting with the ".www.notion.so / 7/26/2053...."). I also followed your initial instructions that you supplied in GitHub about this topic, copied and pasted the cookie info (which was different than the above information), and still no success.

 

I am seeing that copying & pasting the cookie information of either the token_v2= information, or the results you find in the Developer area of Safari (i.e. Networks Tab - click on "search" item on left hand side - Headers Tab) is working with Alfred because when I search in Alfred via the "ns" wording, I still see the "No Results - Go to Notion Homepage" text as before. The issue is still with the Space ID, which refuses to show up in the Cookies area, even though I have the "Block All Cookies" check box UN-checked in Safari's Preferences area. I found my "Notion User ID", copied and pasted that into Alfred, but still no success....

 

There are SO many places to view in the Developer area that it's almost like I'm having to think on the level of an Android in order to figure this stuff out.... I have to commend you all who are coders and developers for doing this stuff, because the average person (such as myself) is not into having to search and focus at this level to perform something as simple as this.... Honestly, all I care about is things simply working, and if it doesn't, it feels like the scenario where you go to a candy machine to get some candy, you put your dollar in there, and the candy machine keeps spitting out your dollar, which makes you want to shake the daylights out of the machine to get it to work (LOL)....

 

All in all, I sincerely hope that the developers of Notion will finally release their Public API so that this workflow will be as simple as a) installing the Workflow from Alfred, and b) begin typing my search request in there so it can go straight to either the Desktop app, or the Web app immediately.... In the meantime, I'll just use the Quick Find feature within Notion to search for stuff (similar to how Things 3 is operating now) in order to find items....

[wrjlewis]

18 minutes ago, TheBuilder said:

Good morning,

I've spent literally the past hour attempting to figure this out based on your directions above, but still no success. I have been able to get the "token_v2=...." dynamic into Alfred's "cookie" area, and stripped out the final part of the token information (i.e. starting with the ".www.notion.so / 7/26/2053...."). I also followed your initial instructions that you supplied in GitHub about this topic, copied and pasted the cookie info (which was different than the above information), and still no success.

 

I am seeing that copying & pasting the cookie information of either the token_v2= information, or the results you find in the Developer area of Safari (i.e. Networks Tab - click on "search" item on left hand side - Headers Tab) is working with Alfred because when I search in Alfred via the "ns" wording, I still see the "No Results - Go to Notion Homepage" text as before. The issue is still with the Space ID, which refuses to show up in the Cookies area, even though I have the "Block All Cookies" check box UN-checked in Safari's Preferences area. I found my "Notion User ID", copied and pasted that into Alfred, but still no success....

 

There are SO many places to view in the Developer area that it's almost like I'm having to think on the level of an Android in order to figure this stuff out.... I have to commend you all who are coders and developers for doing this stuff, because the average person (such as myself) is not into having to search and focus at this level to perform something as simple as this.... Honestly, all I care about is things simply working, and if it doesn't, it feels like the scenario where you go to a candy machine to get some candy, you put your dollar in there, and the candy machine keeps spitting out your dollar, which makes you want to shake the daylights out of the machine to get it to work (LOL)....

 

All in all, I sincerely hope that the developers of Notion will finally release their Public API so that this workflow will be as simple as a) installing the Workflow from Alfred, and b) begin typing my search request in there so it can go straight to either the Desktop app, or the Web app immediately.... In the meantime, I'll just use the Quick Find feature within Notion to search for stuff (similar to how Things 3 is operating now) in order to find items....

 

The spaceId isn't in the cookie.
Perhaps this will help you locate it, if you're still looking to get it working:

[TheBuilder]

Good morning,

Perfect!!! It now works!!! Those above instructions were very helpful in being able to find out my Space ID successfully. This is an awesome workflow, so for the first time ever, I can finally search for ANYTHING in my pretty large Notion database. I will admit: It takes a couple of seconds at times for it to search, but it does the job very well.

 

Thanks again for devising this workflow!! I definitely plan on using the daylights out of it in conjunction with the Notion Desktop app....

 

Now: The next step for the developers of Notion is to get the app set up where a user's contents could be stored offline so an internet connection won't be required to use the app.

[wrjlewis]

5 minutes ago, TheBuilder said:

Good morning,

Perfect!!! It now works!!! Those above instructions were very helpful in being able to find out my Space ID successfully. This is an awesome workflow, so for the first time ever, I can finally search for ANYTHING in my pretty large Notion database. I will admit: It takes a couple of seconds at times for it to search, but it does the job very well.

 

Thanks again for devising this workflow!! I definitely plan on using the daylights out of it in conjunction with the Notion Desktop app....

 

Now: The next step for the developers of Notion is to get the app set up where a user's contents could be stored offline so an internet connection won't be required to use the app.

Pleased you got it working!

[Ben33]

Hello, I have a problem when I use the NS command. It tells me No result - go to notion homepage.

 

I copy paste my SpaceId here

 

 

and my cookies here and i had the "=" before. It still doesn't work...

 

 

 

Thank you 

[wrjlewis]

3 minutes ago, Ben33 said:

Hello, I have a problem when I use the NS command. It tells me No result - go to notion homepage.

 

I copy paste my SpaceId here

 

 

and my cookies here and i had the "=" before. It still doesn't work...

 

 

 

Thank you 

Hi

 

When you copy the token_v2 string into Alfred, does it look like this, where Xs are your id? "token_v2=XXXXXXXXX"

[Ben33]

14 minutes ago, wrjlewis said:

Hi

 

When you copy the token_v2 string into Alfred, does it look like this, where Xs are your id? "token_v2=XXXXXXXXX"

 

Its look like this.