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Weekly, bi-weekly or monthly tips/tricks sharing?


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Hi Alfred team, I was going through the below mentioned forum and found we used to share some tips and tricks that I found to be very useful. I'm sure there are others like me. I was wondering if it might be a good idea for the Alfred team to occasionally share tips about Alfred, like how to do X or Y. That way, users can learn more about Alfred, debug their own workflows, and build more workflows to share with the community. Thoughts?

 

https://www.alfredforum.com/forum/48-advanced-tips-tricks/

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This doesn't have to be advances tricks though. Like recently I learnt that using `?` in the Alfred bar helps me to directly navigate to any workflow, object, or any other feature in Alfred. I have been using Alfred for 2-3 years, but used to open Alfred Preferences > Workflows > navigate to workflow.

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I like this idea very much. My programming "skills" (such as they are!) are limited to AppleScript so although I have many useful personal workflows most are reasonably basic (although, of course, nonetheless very useful to me). I'm sure I'd benefit considerably from the sort of thing you're suggesting.

 

Stephen

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  • 3 weeks later...

You wrote in the past tense, but look at the dates in the posts. Most are quite recent, because that subforum itself is fairly new. The posts in there made prior to this year were handpicked and moved after the fact. Be sure to check the blog because tips are also shared there.


It’s difficult to know which tips to prioritise because it depends on what you read from the documentation. For example, to your ? point, that is listed on the main help page and at the end of the v5 onboarding.


You’ve both made pertinent questions in the past, so suggestions on what you’d like tips on—e.g. something you find confusing—are welcome.

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Sometimes I feel my imagination needs a poke. 😀 I've slowly discovered more and more things that I can do with Alfred and have many workflows—most of which I consider to be pretty basic (e.g., app launchers, search workflows and some which are very slightly more sophisticated and use AppleScript). I've never really got to grips with script filters so today re-wrote two workflows (one to open files from a pre-selected list and one to go to folders from a pre-selected list) simply to understand a little more not only about how script filters actually work but why people might use them. In the course of doing that I downloaded and studied a number of workflows to see what people were doing with them—and, of course, read Alfred's help pages.

 

I guess I fall somewhere between an absolute basic user of Alfred (someone who maybe does little more than launch apps and searches with it) and those here who display consumate programming skills and use Python, JSON, PHP, Perl, Ruby, shell script, etc. Speaking purely personally, I'd be really interested in seeing analysed workflows which use Alfred utilities and only installed macOS languages in interesting and innovative ways. (I appreciate the limitation to installed languages is limiting but I think I'm at the stage in my life I don't really want to start learning another programming language—at least to the extent of downloading and installing a new one!).

 

I do appreciate the audience for this sort of thing may not be large (too much for some, too little for others) but I do think there may be some scope for sample workflows analsyed in detail to help those of us whose imaginations may need a poke!

 

Apologies for the length of the response.

 

Stephen

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I consider myself intermediate Alfred user and have created simple/quick workflows that solve a tiny problem for me to workflows that have removed the need for me to have separate utility apps. For certain things the docs exist, but I feel the retention of that knowledge only concretes once I apply it myself or see it being applied as part of  example, or someone sharing a tip/trick. I'd say that I have learnt most of Alfred's power from browsing other people's workflows that reading the docs (although the docs are very useful), since it shows the application of the object/configuration/trick rather than just explaining its use. 

 

I also second Stephen's thoughts about analyzed workflow.

 

 

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Excellent answers, thank you both! See today’s blog post for a Workflow with complex behaviour but straightforward execution and no code. It is heavily annotated. I particularly recommend understanding the Argument and Variables Utility and its companions, Split and Join arguments, as they help you control the flow of data.

 

17 hours ago, Stephen_C said:

to understand a little more not only about how script filters actually work but why people might use them.

 

You use a Script Filter when you want to display custom information. Displaying thousands of playing cards or recent news requires different ways of retrieving data and you’ll want to display them in Alfred differently.

 

17 hours ago, Stephen_C said:

workflows which use Alfred utilities and only installed macOS languages

 

All official Alfred Workflows fit the criteria, with the exception of Google Drive which is still in Ruby (still bundled even with Ventura, but is supposed to be removed eventually). Maybe check Shortcuts, Network Quality and TinyPNG. 1Password is also a good one but more complex and uses scripts inside the Workflow folder, not only in the objects themselves.

 

18 hours ago, Stephen_C said:

I don't really want to start learning another programming language—at least to the extent of downloading and installing a new one!

 

I would recommend JXA, which is the official JavaScript counterpart to AppleScript. It has some differences, but advantages include native support for JSON (quite useful) and with JavaScript being one of the most popular languages in the world, resources and answers to simple questions are easy to find.


Apple’s Mac Automation Scripting Guide is a good starting point as it teaches simple stuff in both AppleScript and JavaScript. The JXA Cookbook is a nice second source.


Swift is also a good choice. Apple is betting heavily on it and at this year’s WWDC they unambiguously said that’s what developers should be using for future code on Apple platforms.

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Vitor:

 

I much appreciate the long and considered response. I'd already seen the blog post to which you referred and will certainly take a look at the other workflows you mention. By strange coincidence I started looking this morning at JXA and as a result had come across the JXA Cookbook. I have to say that the initial meeting with JXA was not a particularly enlightening experience. 😀 It will clearly require considerably more effort on my part. The native support for JSON is attractive, of course.

 

I need to study more, so thanks for the pointers. I do still wonder if it might be useful for others (as well as me) to have something like a weekly/monthly workflow analysed in detail. However, I do appreciate that those who could do that also have lives to lead!

 

Stephen

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