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Indexing missing folders such as /Applications/some_folder?


ylluminate

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I need Alfred to index /Applications/Epichrome as I store many SSB / dedicated browser instances in there from Epichrome.  It appears that while I have this folder enabled within Alfred's preferences, it will not always list these browsers:

Image%202020-04-16%20at%205.52.50%20PM.p

 

When I subsequently activate Alfred the contents of this folder do not always show up. For example, Epichrome.app proper will show up, but the apps created by this do not...

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@ylluminate Alfred should index subfolders automatically, but you may find that in Catalina, the actual folder location is different to what you think... for example, while most of the macOS apps are shown in /Applications/, their actual location is /System/Applications/ and this is the underlying scope folder Alfred adds when you select the checkbox for "macOs Applications folder". You may need to add the real location of this folder.

 

Is Spotlight finding these apps?

Are the actually apps which are being created, or something else like an alias? in which case, the type of these will need to be added to the Advanced... types in your screenshot

 

It's worth noting that you don't actually need /Applications/ manually added to your scope.

 

Cheers,

Andrew

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Yes, Spotlight does find these apps in `/Applications/Epichrome/`

 

The peculiarity is that some items in this folder show up while others do not - I can't ascertain the rhyme or reason thereof.

 

Some history:

I really try not to use Spotlight - I've actually tried to turn it off due to some odd issues I've had with Apple dev support, but ultimately I turned it back on.  I'm working towards when I can simply disable Spotlight as my goal is to have a system that has only the services enabled that I want to be executing in the background, but I've not reached that point yet due to the difficulty Apple has created in doing this.

 

Nonetheless, so yes, I do have Spotlight on on my `/` volume & it does find those apps: 

$ ls -d /Volumes/* | xargs mdutil -s
...
/:
	Indexing enabled.
...

$ mdfind Amazon|head
/Applications/Epichrome/Amazon.app
/Applications/Epichrome/Amazon Sales.app
/Applications/Epichrome/Amazon Drive Web.app
/Applications/Amazon Photos.app

You are right about that situation and I understand what you're saying about `/Applications/` since it was a leftover from my initial Spotlight disablement attempts and trying to get Alfred to work without it (I really only want Alfred for 2 things: app launching & Music control, but I'm looking for a sane alternative to Music.app now that Apple has broken the iTunes concept in Catalina). 

 

Notwithstanding, if I remove `/Applications/` and `/Applications/Epichrome` I still get the same initially reported results.

 

I did try to also add `/System/Volumes/Data/Applications/Epichrome` manually but Apple's masking that pretty good at the filesystem level for most libs that access it at the UI level.

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6 minutes ago, deanishe said:

 

If you turn off Spotlight, Alfred won't work either. It uses the same system-wide index that Spotlight does.

 

Right and this is why I ultimately reenabled Spotlight and thus this point is moot except for the fact that I'd like to see Alfred offer the option to function without Spotlight at some point - even if with a limited capacity for app launching only.

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3 hours ago, ylluminate said:

I'd like to see Alfred offer the option to function without Spotlight at some point - even if with a limited capacity for app launching only.

 

I very much doubt that will happen. Alfred tries to do as little as possible when it's not being used, so its own indexer is probably off the table. Especially when the use case is restoring an absolute minimum of functionality after the user has deliberately crippled it.

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37 minutes ago, deanishe said:

 

I very much doubt that will happen. Alfred tries to do as little as possible when it's not being used, so its own indexer is probably off the table. Especially when the use case is restoring an absolute minimum of functionality after the user has deliberately crippled it.

 

I very much do not appreciate the implication of crippling something when in reality it is an effort to enhance the system; particularly in trying to obtain more reliable performance and less background processes.  Microsoft has such a service for Windows 10 via LTCS with distant updates and minimal system services and Apple needs to take a cue from this.  We need better predictability from our OS sometimes.  Spotlight is a serious problem that many have acknowledged and we could argue this solidly and go back and forth here, but the fact remains that there are appropriate times when Spotlight can and should be disabled.  We really need a "light mode" in Alfred for those of us only wanting to launch apps with it and do minimal other things.  I have no desire to interface with Spotlight via Alfred and began using Alfred in hopes of having this, but found out post facto this problem that Alfred has.  

 

I like Alfred in that it's better supported than QuickSilver, but this is indeed a problem - BUT NOT THE POINT OF THIS THREAD.

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29 minutes ago, ylluminate said:

I very much do not appreciate the implication of crippling something when in reality it is an effort to enhance the system

 

The two are not mutually exclusive. You get a better-running OS—and I totally understand why you'd want to disable the metadata index—but you're still cutting the legs out from under applications that depend on it.

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1 minute ago, deanishe said:

 

The two are not mutually exclusive. You get a better-running OS—and I totally understand why you'd want to disable the metadata index—but you're still cutting the legs out from under applications that depend on it.

 

So one final note on this side quest: And I'm searching for applications that have full functionality that don't require Spotlight.  Mixed results, but working and pushing every single worthwhile project I find that has Spotlight dependency to offer additional options for users who want / need this.

 

At any rate, back on topic: Still struggling with this search functionality as per above and yes, Spotlight (even in shell usage) does find `/Applications/Epichrome/` apps.

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6 hours ago, ylluminate said:

that have full functionality that don't require Spotlight

 

LaunchBar uses its own index (like Quicksilver, it pre-dates Spotlight). I don't know if it's completely independent of the system index, but it certainly doesn't lean on it extremely heavily the way Alfred does. OTOH, it's also not so well supported. I don't know if it's as bad as Quicksilver, but releases are fairly infrequent, the forums are moribund, and there aren't anywhere near as many Actions available as Workflows for Alfred.

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I tried switching to LaunchBar and it has been better than Alfred so far in terms of listing Epichrome apps in that folder.

 

I'm still frustrated and feel as though Alfred should work right in this case.  We must be missing something that's causing Alfred to misbehave since Spotlight is detecting them.

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6 minutes ago, ylluminate said:

We must be missing something that's causing Alfred to misbehave since Spotlight is detecting them.

 

What do you see if you try to find them with mdls (the command-line interface to the index)?

 

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Yep, as I reported before  `mdfind` works and also `mdls` works:

$ mdls /Applications/Epichrome/* | grep Amazon
_kMDItemDisplayNameWithExtensions      = "Amazon Drive Web.app"
    "Amazon Drive Web.app"
kMDItemCFBundleIdentifier              = "org.epichrome.app.AmazonDriveW"
kMDItemDisplayName                     = "Amazon Drive Web"
kMDItemFSName                          = "Amazon Drive Web.app"
_kMDItemDisplayNameWithExtensions      = "Amazon Sales.app"
    "Amazon Sales.app"
kMDItemCFBundleIdentifier              = "org.epichrome.app.AmazonSales"
kMDItemDisplayName                     = "Amazon Sales"
kMDItemFSName                          = "Amazon Sales.app"
_kMDItemDisplayNameWithExtensions      = "Amazon.app"
    "Amazon.app"
kMDItemCFBundleIdentifier              = "org.epichrome.app.Amazon"
kMDItemDisplayName                     = "Amazon"
kMDItemFSName                          = "Amazon.app"

 

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