[question] Best practice (arg or default/fallback)

[manavortex]

Hello forum, 

What's the best practice for a workflow trigger (keyword or script filter) that uses an optional argument with a fallback value? 

Example 1 (I made this up): I want to more easily yell at people on the internet, so I have a workflow that turns text to caps. 
My clipboard is "foo". 
I call 

caps

and expect my script to receive "foo". 

 

 I call 

caps wasd

and expect my script to receive "wasd". 

 

Example 2: Like example 1, but instead of the contents, I want to use hardcoded text. 

I call 

caps

and expect my script to receive "your mother". 

 

 

 

... What's the best practice to do that? 

 

 

This would be the in-script solution. Is there a built-in way to do this?

import sys
from AppKit import NSPasteboard, NSStringPboardType

def getClipboard(): 
	pb = NSPasteboard.generalPasteboard()
	pbstring = pb.stringForType_(NSStringPboardType)
	return u"Pastboard string: %s".encode("utf-8") % repr(pbstring)

query =  sys.argv[1] if len(sys.argv) >= 2 else getClipboard()
# query =  sys.argv[1] if len(sys.argv) >= 2 else "your mother" #example 2
sys.stdout.write(query.upper())

 

 

Edited April 13, 2020 by manavortex
added example code

[deanishe]

An optional argument to a Script Filter only determines whether the Script Filter will be run before you've entered a query. You still have to action a result to pass control to the next action.

 

With a Keyword, you probably want to set your default/fallback in code. You can do it in Alfred with a pair of conditionals, but that's a lot more complicated than just doing it in code.

 

If it's something you think you'll change a lot, put it in a workflow variable so you can change it from the workflow's configuration sheet.

[manavortex]

Hey deanishe, 

thank you for answering the question. Does it make sense to file a feature request for this? 

[deanishe]

Doubt it. It's simple enough to do in Alfred already and entirely trivial in code.