Check if another Workflow is installed

[smarg19]

I need this functionality recently, and put this little function together. Thought I'd share it in case any one else ever needs it. Basically, I have a couple of workflows (ZotQuery, Skimmer, and SEND) which have overlapping functionality. Instead of copying code so that each can do everything the other does, I wanted to open up certain functionality within one (ZotQuery in this case) if another workflow is installed. So I wrote this little Python function that will check to see if a certain Alfred workflow is installed. It takes a workflow name as input and will output a Boolean true or false. 

def check_for_workflow(name):
	import os
	import plistlib

	workflows_dir = os.path.dirname(os.getcwd())
	all_wfs = os.walk(workflows_dir).next()[1]

	for wf in all_wfs:
		plist = workflows_dir + u"/" + wf + u"/info.plist"
		if os.path.isfile(plist):
			plist_info = plistlib.readPlist(plist)
			wf_name = plist_info['name'].lower()
			if wf_name == name.lower():
				found = True
				break
	try:
		found
		return True
	except:
		return False

Shout out to Shawn Rice for the conceptual backbone to this code. 

 

Hope someone else finds it useful.

stephen

[deanishe]

FWIW, you should probably be looking for bundle IDs, not workflow names. There's a much greater chance of names being the same than IDs (though conversely, there's a greater chance of a workflow not having an ID than not having a name…).