Some Way to See Long Path Names

[Matman67]

I am a long time Alfred user and a great fan and brand ambassador. 

I use the app at home and at work, including many of its advanced features, but probably most frequently as a simple launcher and file finder.

 

When Alfred returns results after I search for a file or folder (ex: 'xlan) , I often need to distinguish between results with the same names. The only way for me to do this would be to see the full file path, but Alfred truncates longer paths.

 

What I wish for then is some way to view longer paths. I have several ideas:

 

1. Add a "Tool Tip" type option to show the full path when hovering over a file result returned in the search result. If hovering isn't desirable, perhaps a keystroke such as Cmd+Shift could change the truncation scheme so it shows the paths from the end and truncates the beginning. 

 

2. If that's not possible, perhaps the main Alfred search box could be user resizable so one might stretch it wider.

 

I've pasted some partially obfuscated search results below so you can see what I mean. There's more to those directory names. One ends in CURRENT and one ends in OLD, but I can't tell them apart. 

 

Thank you for reading!

 

[dfay]

I love idea #1 re: variable truncation.  I’ve been dealing with a similar issue in DEVONThink & there it seems there’s no way to control truncation.

[deanishe]

17 hours ago, dfay said:

it seems there’s no way to control truncation

 

It's an API option, but Alfred doesn't expose it to the user. The problem is, there's no obviously best choice between start, middle or end truncation (Alfred uses middle-truncation for paths in its Clipboard History). Each is going to obscure the important part under some circumstances. To get good truncation, I imagine you'd have to compare the paths of the results and manually truncate common sections.

 

Is there a better way Alfred could show the full path? Tooltips aren't ideal in a keyboard-driven app. Would it be distracting if Alfred changed the truncation of the selected result, so selecting an item truncated the start of the path, not the end?

[Matman67]

I'd suggest: 

Shift + Cmd: Beginning Truncation

[GuiB]

1 hour ago, deanishe said:

Is there a better way Alfred could show the full path?

While doing a File Search, I think Alfred should put the file path into the Large Type parameter so we can see the full path using CMD+L instead of the query

 

During a standard Alfred search, it could be questionable if the "Title" should be put into the Large Type parameter or the "Subtitle", but what about using CMD+L and CMD+ALT+L to switch between both? I mean, like we can have with the Calculator Large Type which pop the Result with CMD+L or the Query using CMD+ALT+L

 

So more generally, Alfred could use (which would work in the standard search or file search):

CMD+L : Show the Title in Large Type (That would be the file or application name)

CMD+ALT+L : Show the Subtitle in Large Type (which would be the file path)

[giovanni]

thanks @Matman67 I made a similar point last year... for me showing the beginning and the end of the path would be sufficient (so basically making sure that the beginning and the end of the path are included, and replacing anything that doesn't fit with '...' in the middle of the path) 

Edited July 18, 2021 by giovanni

[deanishe]

3 hours ago, GuiB said:

I think Alfred should put the file path into the Large Type parameter so we can see the full path using CMD+L instead of the query

Probably, but I don't think that's super helpful here, as CMD+L makes Alfred close, so it's not much help for quickly checking the full paths of a list of  results.

Edited July 18, 2021 by deanishe

[GuiB]

25 minutes ago, deanishe said:

Probably, but I don't think that's super helpful here, as CMD+L makes Alfred close, so it's not much help for quickly checking the full paths of a list of  results.

Actually, this has never been the case on my side and I'm using the Large Type feature a lot as some kind of preview for my workflows that I've been popping and closing using CMD+L (pop) and ESC (close) and keeping Alfred always open so I can move to another result and preview it with CMD+L again...

But now that you say that, I see in the "Large Type" section in "Alfred Preferences -> Features" there's a toggle to "Auto Hide Alfred when showing Large Type" which should be active on your side... I find it very useful to have it unchecked so I can use the Large Type feature as a preview, but yes now I see that this could be a problem for this feature requests.

[deanishe]

9 hours ago, GuiB said:

there's a toggle to "Auto Hide Alfred when showing Large Type" which should be active on your side...

 

Huh. I didn't know there was that option, and I certainly can't remember what the default setting is.

[vitor]

On 7/17/2021 at 4:35 PM, Matman67 said:

perhaps the main Alfred search box could be user resizable

 

It is. Alfred Preferences → Appearance.

[Matman67]

On 7/19/2021 at 9:48 AM, vitor said:

 

It is. Alfred Preferences → Appearance.

I mean left-right stretchable. 

[vitor]

2 hours ago, Matman67 said:

I mean left-right stretchable. 

No idea what that means or how it’s different from the example. How would you describe what’s in the video?

Edited July 21, 2021 by vitor