Can Alfred help me tab between fillable fields in a text?

[Rodrigo Rosa]

Hi,

I was wondering if someone could help me with a question about snippets. I am a medical professional and use multiple templates at work on a daily basis. Most contain the key #INPUT#, which our current EMR uses to allow us to use "tab" to jump between them and quickly fill out pertinent information. Unfortunately, our EMR system is being replaced by a new version that does not support this feature. I was wondering if it is possible to create a snippet that allows me to jump between fillable fields in a text using Alfred. Any bright ideas? Thanks!

Rod 

[Stephen_C]

Take a look at this recent thread. You could, in the case of either suggested solution, add a Dispatch Key Combo Output to the workflow to add the tab.

 

Stephen

[Rodrigo Rosa]

Hi Stephen,

Thank you so much for the recommendation! Unfortunately, I am still struggling to make this workflow work, more than likely due to my own ignorance.  I went through the description provided by Stephen C and Vero, but I don't think I followed the recommendations accurately. Would you be so kind as to look at this flow and let me know why it is not working? Again, my goal is to be able to use Alfred to create a "hot key" that allows me to jump sequentially between a pre-set keyword on medical templates. The keyword is #INPUT# 

Thanks!

Rod 

[Stephen_C]

Make sure (double click on the Copy to Clipboard action) that you have checked Automatically paste to fronmost app. However, the immediately obvious problem is that you appear not to have linked the Dispatch Key Combo correctly. It need to be properly linked to the Copy to Clipboard action (because you want the tab to be the last thing that happens).

 

It may be helpful to take a look at this Alfred help page: Getting Started with Alfred Workflows—as well as this page which is helpful in explaining how to connect objects in a workflow.

 

Stephen

[zeitlings]

What does your EMR (electronic medical record) look like? How does it behave? Is it like an Excel sheet, where when you tap ⇥, you jump to the next text field that allows user input? Is the difference that when you're now pressing ⇥, the selection does not directly jump to text fields that are pre-populated with the text # INPUT #, but simply to the next text field that can be edited? That's a lot of assumptions, and depending on the behavior of the application, your implementation will have to look differently.

 

If the EMR input is behaving somewhat similarly to how I extrapolated, the workflow will have to be a little bit more complex: Remember visited non-INPUT field name(s) as signposts, loop through all fields by simulating ⇥ key strokes until a # INPUT # placeholder is found (check the field contents), exit and allow editing or open an input field with Alfred, start the loop again or replace the contents with your input, continue looping until you hit a signpost (at which point no new # INPUT # could be found), ...