Workflow updates

[mlevison]

I don't is this is a feature request or something workflows need to build in. I will assume a request:

 

I would like Alfred to tell me when there are updates to my workflows and offer to download/install them. Much like Obsidian does with community plugins.

 

I want this because I just discovered that the Shimmering Obsidian workflow got a major update and I didn't know.

[vitor]

Auto-updating is something Workflow creators build in. I’ve just checked Shimmering Obsidian and it does auto-update via OneUpdater.

Maybe the version you had installed was older than the inclusion of the auto-update.

[mlevison]

That's a curious thing, I didn't know it did autoupdate.

 

However the feature should still be baked into Alfred, maybe with a popup that says: "X plugins want to update, .... do you wish to allow them to".

- Mark

[nikivi]

2 hours ago, mlevison said:

However the feature should still be baked into Alfred

I agree, it would be nice if this was baked in. I wonder if Alfred can integrate OneUpdater into Alfred itself.

 

As an example, if workflow author includes a link that leads to GitHub repo and checks in `Update check` checkbox:

 

 

It would do a similar thing to OneUpdate, check the new releases as anything inside the workflow gets called and prompt for an update. No need to carry around a OneUpdater block and connect it to everything inside the workflow.

 

Would be nice.  

Edited July 13, 2022 by nikivi

[suth]

On 7/13/2022 at 12:28 PM, vitor said:

Auto-updating is something Workflow creators build in.

So will the planned workflow gallery offer any solution for updates?

[jb510]

I too wish Alfred Workflows had a built in auto-updater for workflows  

I will point out there is probably a decent reason Alfred doesn't do this though.  Workflows are unvetted 3rd party code.  It gets sticky if Alfred is facilitating updates and those updates could possibly be malicious.  Still, Chrome does this with extensions, and malicious injections while not unheard of are pretty rare.  

 

I feel like Alfred ought to at least provide the update notification hook, and tooling for workflow updates though.  Then require users to manually click to update workflows with a disclaimer or something.

The reason is that my workflows are often broken due to being out of date, and that in turn results in a poor perception of Alfred itself.