Support alternative keys for auto-completion

[Gary King]

I use the Tab key to action items, so I'd like it if it was possible to choose an alternative key to auto-complete searches. The Ctrl key would work for me, for instance.

[deanishe]

CTRL is one of the modifier keys you can use to perform alternate actions on results.
 
ESC would be a better choice, but why can't you use RETURN to action items?

[Gary King]

Well I use the Return key to open items like applications, files, and folders.

[deanishe]

Oh right, I see what you mean.

[rice.shawn]

ESC is a poor choice because it violates its (almost-) system wide functionality of canceling / dismissing.

[deanishe]

I was getting confused again. I meant OPT+ESC, which is the system default completion key.

[vitor]

I’d really welcome this feature as well. Using ⇥ to action items is way more natural to me, and I action items way more often then autocompleting. Occasionally, though, It would be useful to autocomplete something, and I can’t the option doesn’t exist (since ⇥ is taken).

[aterwarl]

This option is very much needed. 

 

From what I understand, Alfred makes it possible to set ⇥ as an alternative key to show the Action panel -- which seems quite natural for users coming from Quicksilver. But since there is no way to use an alternative key for autocompletion, this creates a conflict: using ⇥ to show the Action panel makes it impossible to use autocompletion.

 

Note that this conflict could be avoided without even having to set an alternative autocomplete key, by simply considering multiple ⇥. The first ⇥ could be reserved for autocompletion; but once autocompletion is done, the second ⇥ could bring up the Action panel.

[Andrew]

I've added a ticket to consider what can be done about this. I agree that there should be an alternative mechanism for autocomplete if the tab key has been used for actions.

 

Note that this conflict could be avoided without even having to set an alternative autocomplete key, by simply considering multiple ⇥. The first ⇥ could be reserved for autocompletion; but once autocompletion is done, the second ⇥ could bring up the Action panel.

 

While this is a good idea in theory, some of the 3rd party workflow script filters will give you different results after auto completing with tab which, means you wouldn't be able to get to the action.

 

It may simply be another key combo.

[Andrew]

I'm just having a play with this now and have decided that if you set tab to show actions then backtab will auto complete (i.e. shift+tab). This will be documented in the subtext under Alfred's Features > File Search > Actions > Show Actions prefs.

 

This will be in the next release

 

Cheers,

Andrew

[Gary King]

I'm just having a play with this now and have decided that if you set tab to show actions then backtab will auto complete (i.e. shift+tab). This will be documented in the subtext under Alfred's Features > File Search > Actions > Show Actions prefs.

 

This will be in the next release

 

Cheers,

Andrew

 

That doesn't sound intuitive to me. Shift-tab is usually meant to do the exact reverse of what Tab does; for instance when navigating menu items, Tab goes to the next menu item and Shift-Tab goes to the previous one. So Shift-Tab so instead go from the Action pane back to the results list.