RecentDownloads — List and act on the contents of a directory

[politicus]

@vitor Thanks for this wonderful workflow! Probably the one I use the most!

 

I was wondering if you had the intention of adding an exclusion list? I have my Keyboard Maestro settings file in this folder and as it updates almost every day it appears at the top of the results. Of course, I could and certainly will move this file somewhere else. But still wanted to ask you this question as I suspect other interesting use cases for this feature 😀

[vitor]

8 hours ago, politicus said:

Thanks for this wonderful workflow! Probably the one I use the most!

 

Thank you for the kind words.

 

8 hours ago, politicus said:

I was wondering if you had the intention of adding an exclusion list?

 

I do not. I doubt many people would use it.

[Jasondm007]

@vitor I would definitely echo @politicus statement about how awesome this workflow is! It's definitely near the top of my most used workflows.

 

Somewhat related to @politicus question about blacklisting items, is it possible to exclude temp/invisible items? I might be wrong, but the issue seems to be limited to Microsoft Word files. When I run your workflow, it always shows a handful of Word files that start with "~$". I notice them whether I run the workflow on my Downloads or Desktop folders, etc.

 

Thanks again for sharing the workflow!

[vitor]

2 hours ago, Jasondm007 said:

is it possible to exclude temp/invisible items?

 

Technically yes, but I’ve just tried it and there’s a severe speed tax due to having to check every file for the hidden flag, so I won’t implement it.

[Jasondm007]

1 hour ago, vitor said:

 

Technically yes, but I’ve just tried it and there’s a severe speed tax due to having to check every file for the hidden flag, so I won’t implement it.

 

No problem - many thanks for taking at a stab at it though!

[vitor]

Update.

Fix showing directories other than ~/Downloads.

To update, download the latest version (same URL) or wait a few days and it’ll prompt you to on next usage, since it uses OneUpdater.
 

[vitor]

Update.

On deleting cache file, also ask Spotlight to reindex directory. This should make certain operations (like renames) quicker to show up correctly.

To update, download the latest version (same URL) or wait a few days and it’ll prompt you to on next usage, since it uses OneUpdater.

[seishonagon]

Hi Vitor, 

I've made very good use of your workflow in conjunction with the Hook App. 

I have it index a folder with a bunch of files that point to all of my projects, and voila - instant project management tool!

 

I just need to figure out an option to list the files simply in alphabetical order and I'll be happy. 

 

If you're interested, here is the small post i made about using your worfkflow: https://discourse.hookproductivity.com/t/using-hook-files-to-maintain-a-list-of-current-projects/2884?u=seishonagon

 

Thanks! 

[vitor]

@seishonagon No plans to officially add alphabetical sort. But you can make a new Script Filter with language set to /usr/bin/ruby and paste the following:

 

require 'json'
require 'pathname'

script_filter_items = Pathname.new(ENV['downloads_dir']).expand_path.children.sort.each_with_object([]) do |entry, array|
  name =
    if entry.directory?
      entry.basename.to_path
    else
      entry.basename(entry.extname).to_path
    end

  array.push(
    type: 'file',
    title: name,
    subtitle: entry,
    icon: { path: entry, type: 'fileicon' },
    arg: entry
  )
end

puts({ items: script_filter_items }.to_json)

 

I offer that code, but no support for it (I tested it, and it worked).

[seishonagon]

Oh wow! Thanks!

That'll save me some mind numbing slog. To give you an example of my own script-fu, I've just spent 2 hours figuring out how to pass arguments properly to the "Run Script" action in Alfred Workflow ...

 

EDIT: for future reference (mine, specially) - don't forget to set "Argument Optional" in the script filter or the list of files won't appear

 

Edited February 28 by seishonagon

[vitor]

5 hours ago, seishonagon said:

To give you an example of my own script-fu, I've just spent 2 hours figuring out how to pass arguments properly to the "Run Script" action in Alfred Workflow

We’ve all been through it! The quintessential example is forgetting a semi-colon, though I doubt that particular example happens much with the checks we have today.

[vitor]

Major update! Your usage won’t change if you don’t want to.

First, I’ve done a big code cleanup.

Second, the list will now auto-refresh every few seconds, which is a great way to monitor for changes.

Third, I’ve revamped how the file list is cached (only applicable when sorting by added):

Previously, on every run it would read from the cache unless the directory had changed, in which case it would have to save a new cache. This means that if your directory changed quite often, you’d see little gain from caching.

Now, no caching is done by default. If you want caching, run :recentdownloadslaunchd which will install a launchd agent to watch your directory and save a new cache when the directory is modified. This means your cache will always be up to date and you’ll get the fastest run every time. This leverages technology built-in to macOS, there’s no weird hacks.

Fourth, I’ve worked around a pesky Spotlight bug when it sometimes returns (null) in a result, which is annoying if it gets saved to the cache because you wouldn’t be seeing the real path.

Finally, thanks to the above I removed the option to manually delete the cache.

To update, download the latest version (same URL) or wait a few days and it’ll prompt you to on next usage, since it uses OneUpdater.