Modifier key to open URL in current tab instead of new one

[tschoof]

Hey guys, once I got used to opening URLs with Alfred instead of activating safari and hitting cmd+t, I kinda wished Alfred 2 had this feature.

 

If I want to open a new tab, I can do so by hitting cmd+t or do it via Alfred. But if I want to ‘replace’ the current tab with another address, I can only hit the Safari shortcut for focusing the omnibar and start typing.

 

Wouldn't it be much nicer if I can, whether it's a standard web search or a workflow with suggestions, hit for example shift+return and have the action Alfred executes (if browser related) be happening in the current tab instead of a new one? Like an update feature, this is something I feel should be centralised and not left to every single workflow's discretion.

 

I get that this might interfere with how modifier keys in workflows work, but having it for the default web searches would already be very helpful to me.

 

I hope I got it across okay, thanks for listening!

[jdfwarrior]

Hey guys, once I got used to opening URLs with Alfred instead of activating safari and hitting cmd+t, I kinda wished Alfred 2 had this feature.

 

If I want to open a new tab, I can do so by hitting cmd+t or do it via Alfred. But if I want to ‘replace’ the current tab with another address, I can only hit the Safari shortcut for focusing the omnibar and start typing.

 

Wouldn't it be much nicer if I can, whether it's a standard web search or a workflow with suggestions, hit for example shift+return and have the action Alfred executes (if browser related) be happening in the current tab instead of a new one? Like an update feature, this is something I feel should be centralised and not left to every single workflow's discretion.

 

I get that this might interfere with how modifier keys in workflows work, but having it for the default web searches would already be very helpful to me.

 

I hope I got it across okay, thanks for listening!

 

This essentially performs that same as you typing "open <url>" at the command line to keep things simple, clean, and fast. So this essentially falls back on how your browser handles being told to open a url. Adding this functionality would require the maintenance of code to control every browser individually since it would require AppleScript to perform such an operation. While I can't rule this out the long-term possibility of this functionality ( I have no idea what Andrew plans on adding in the future ), I would think the best short-term solution for this may be a workflow to action some AppleScript. To make this as simple as possible, it may be best to set the keyword to simple punctuation such a a comma.

[tschoof]

Oh, that makes sense. I didn't think of that it comes down to the browser handling it, but of course the default could also be the other way around. Thanks!