Standard workflow repo just like homebrew

[a-b]

I think it will be beneficial to all Alfred community to create common Github repo with all formulas (or formulas as git submodules)

similar to the https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew/

Edited March 17, 2014 by a-b

[deanishe]

There's already Packal (see the thread pinned at the top of the forum), which is a more user-friendly version of this. Poking through Ruby scripts/JSON files in a GitHub repo isn't something many Alfred users would be comfortable with (unless you're planning to write a workflow as an interface to it).

And it would presumably require workflow authors to create formulae. Phyllisstein already tried something silimar with Alleyoop, and a good number of workflow authors had difficulty creating correctly-formatted JSON files (a lot of us are fairly new to coding).

If you'd be willing to put in the effort to maintain the central repo and support authors in using it, I dare say it might be a useful resource.

I, for one, would be unlikely to use it for my workflows unless it required absolutely minimal effort to publish to: it's already more than enough work keeping my workflows updated on this forum, GitHub and Packal.

[vitor]

I, for one, would be unlikely to use it for my workflows unless it required absolutely minimal effort to publish to: it's already more than enough work keeping my workflows updated on this forum, GitHub and Packal.

Precisely. And even after publishing some editing is needed, as Packal links back to the forum thread, and in Github and the forum I link to the other two.

Packal already uses github, so that part is covered anyway, but it uses it likely out of convenience. Having a single Github repo with all the workflows isn’t beneficial on its own, as downloads to workflows are useless in a vacuum — you need some context as to what they do and how they work.

[deanishe]

Precisely. And even after publishing some editing is needed, as Packal links back to the forum thread, and in Github and the forum I link to the other two.

 

Oh, the ruddy dance when you release a new workflow. Post on the forum. Post on Packal. Go back to the forum to add the Packal link. Go back to GitHub and add the forum link. Rebuild the workflow because the help file should also contain links to the forum thread/Packal. Upload the new workflow file to Packal.

 

Thankfully, your Markdown->BBCode workflow saves a lot of work in posting to the forum. I just edit the GitHub README a bit and convert it. That has saved me a lot of time.

Edited March 17, 2014 by deanishe

[rice.shawn]

Precisely. And even after publishing some editing is needed, as Packal links back to the forum thread, and in Github and the forum I link to the other two.

Packal already uses github, so that part is covered anyway, but it uses it likely out of convenience. Having a single Github repo with all the workflows isn’t beneficial on its own, as downloads to workflows are useless in a vacuum — you need some context as to what they do and how they work.

 

I used the Github as the storage backend for a few main reasons: (1) to offload some of the stress from the Packal server for the upgrade workflow (which is way overdue — my bad), and (2) to have a redundant backup for current files as well as a revision history. Packal itself has the revision history embedded into it, and some rollback features for the workflow authors. (3) I've seen repos come and go. I'm planning on keeping Packal up for as long as Alfred exists, but, if for some reason it disappears, all of the important data will still be there for someone else to take over (although I do hope that no one does this anytime soon because I've put so much work into Packal and maintain it out of my own pocket). So, Vitor is mostly correct when it comes to convenience.

 

Alleyoop was great, but it was truly buggy because of the problems that Dean mentioned with the user-generated JSON, and it also needed to make so many calls to query the workflows because each was stored in a different place. Having everything centrally will speed up that performance nicely. Alleyoop was great, but Daniel, who wrote it, always looked at it as a stopgap. Actually, I approached Daniel about setting up Packal early on, and we had some great conversations about it, but other life commitments took him away from the project.

 

I also designed it because the need for the context with the workflows. Alfredworkflows.com suffered from this lack of context for workflows. The long list was great, but it was inherently limited.

 

Since Packal, and any sort of repository, is only as good as its user-contributed content, I want to make it as easy for workflow authors to keep their work updated. It is an extra step for everyone, but I do think that it does have many benefits for Alfred users and workflow/theme creators. I still have a lot of work to do on the site to make things easier for workflow authors especially, and the only thing keeping those from being my first-priority is a lack of time from other exigencies in life.

 

But do keep expecting to see improvements on it.