Trigger Workflow on File Save

[mlevison]

I've played for about 10 minutes and am wondering about the limitations of Alfred's Workflow's

 

There are some files that I would like to have converted to pdf's and then copied to another folder everytime they're saved. If that's not possible at least once a day.

 

Premise - I build a lot of training materials as part of my work. Anyone who has ever attended my courses is entitled to automatic updates of the material. I would like to the material (word docs and keynote files) converted to pdf and moved to my dropbox after every save. Or once a day.

 

Is that possible?

 

Cheers

Mark

[_mk_]

I think a Folder Action would better suit your needs to convert a document to PDF and move it to your dropbox folder.

 

Basically you could also use a Folder Action to invoke a specific Alfred Workflow:

 

on adding folder items to this_folder after receiving these_items
    tell application "Finder"
        repeat with i from 1 to number of items in these_items
            set this_item to item i of these_items
            set the path_string to this_item as string
            set the final_path to POSIX path of the path_string
            tell application "Alfred 2" to search "<workflow keyword> " & final_path
        end repeat
    end tell
end adding folder items to

[jdfwarrior]

I've played for about 10 minutes and am wondering about the limitations of Alfred's Workflow's

 

There are some files that I would like to have converted to pdf's and then copied to another folder everytime they're saved. If that's not possible at least once a day.

 

Premise - I build a lot of training materials as part of my work. Anyone who has ever attended my courses is entitled to automatic updates of the material. I would like to the material (word docs and keynote files) converted to pdf and moved to my dropbox after every save. Or once a day.

 

Is that possible?

 

Cheers

Mark

 

 

 

I think a Folder Action would better suit your needs to convert a document to PDF and move it to your dropbox folder.

 

Basically you could also use a Folder Action to invoke a specific Alfred Workflow:

on adding folder items to this_folder after receiving these_items
    tell application "Finder"
        repeat with i from 1 to number of items in these_items
            set this_item to item i of these_items
            set the path_string to this_item as string
            set the final_path to POSIX path of the path_string
            tell application "Alfred 2" to search "<workflow keyword> " & final_path
        end repeat
    end tell
end adding folder items to

 

Hazel would be another good option

[rice.shawn]

As David said, Hazel is the way to go because you want this done automatically. Alfred2 can do so much, but it's a tool that requires manual invocation. Hazel is setup to run actions on system events (like saving a file — or on a timer). You might have to write an applescript or do something with automator to make it work. I don't really remember how Hazel works well enough off the top of my head.

[mlevison]

I had seen Hazel already but was trying to see if I could pull this off easily without installing another tool on my Mac. After all really why would I want any RAM left over :-)

 

Seriously I didn't see a way to do it already. With enough digging I could always use the builtin Mac Automator and perhaps I will be that pig-headed just for fun :-)

 

Thanks for the help.

 

Mark