Search StackOverflow

[deanishe]

StackOverflow Search for Alfred
 
Search for answers on StackOverflow.com from Alfred 2.

 

 
Download
 
Get StackOverflow for Alfred from GitHub or Packal.
 
Usage

• .so <query> — Search StackOverflow.com for <query>. See below for syntax.
  • ↩ or ⌘+NUM — Open result in default browser
  • ⌘+L — Show full question title in Alfred's Large Text window

Query syntax
 
By default, words in <query> will be search for in the title of posts. To specify a tag, prefix it with ., e.g. python will search for python in the post title, .python will search for the tag python.
 
Results
 
Answered questions will be shown first in the list of results (and have a tick on their icon).
 
Licensing, thanks
 
This workflow is released under the MIT Licence.
 
It is heavily based on Alfred-Workflow, also MIT-licensed.

Edited December 29, 2014 by deanishe

[politicus]

@deanishe Great workflow. Thanks for sharing!

 

Got this error message when typed the query "osx apple":

Starting debug for 'Web Dev StackOverflow Search'

[ERROR: alfred.workflow.input.scriptfilter] Code 0: 10:09:55 workflow.py:2194 DEBUG    Update check not due
10:09:55 workflow.py:1945 DEBUG    Workflow version : 1.0.0
10:09:55 workflow.py:1598 DEBUG    Loading cached data from : /Users/user/Library/Caches/com.runningwithcrayons.Alfred-2/Workflow Data/net.deanishe.alfred-stackoverflow/__workflow_update_status.cpickle
10:09:55 workflow.py:2142 DEBUG    update_data : {u'available': False}
10:09:55 so.py:127 DEBUG    query : u'osx apple'
10:09:55 so.py:58 DEBUG    Cache key : u'osxapple' [] -> u'osxapple'
10:09:56 so.py:92 DEBUG    [200] https://api.stackexchange.com/2.2/search?sort=relevance&pagesize=50&site=stackoverflow&order=desc&intitle=osxapple&page=1
10:09:56 workflow.py:1634 DEBUG    Cached data saved at : /Users/user/Library/Caches/com.runningwithcrayons.Alfred-2/Workflow Data/net.deanishe.alfred-stackoverflow/osxapple.cpickle
10:09:56 so.py:158 DEBUG    0 answers for u'osxapple', tagged []
10:09:56 workflow.py:2124 DEBUG    Set last run version : 1.0.0
10:09:56 workflow.py:1969 DEBUG    Workflow finished in 0.407 seconds.

Workflow version: 1.0 (downloaded from Packal).

[deanishe]

That's not an error.

Alfred currently wrongly prefixes any output to STDERR with ERROR.

Edited January 5, 2015 by deanishe

[politicus]

How do you explain I got zero results to the query "osx apple" using your workflow while I got 9659 results using stackoverflow.com?

[deanishe]

Because the workflow uses the API, which is not the same as the search function on the website.

 

Read the instructions in the OP: Typing "osx apple" will search post titles. You need to type ".osx .apple" if you want to search for posts tagged with "osx" and "apple" (which returns plenty of results).

[politicus]

Thanks for the clarification. 

 

I red the instructions BUT was not sure how stackoverflow worked ( Did they use tags, titles, both ?).

 

And yes, I have plenty of results using .osx .apple 

[deanishe]

Well I'd say "osx" is much more likely to be a tag…

 

Generally, I've had more luck with tags, but you have to mix and match. Unfortunately, there's no way to replicate the search function via the API.

 

You got 50 results: that's the maximum number the workflow will retrieve (I think the API maxes out at 100).

[Wildcard]

This is pretty cool!  Do you have any plans to make it accept an argument of which site to search?

 

I looked into the Python code and I see that the "SITE" parameter can be modified, but since I am a routine visitor of unix.stackexchange, apple.stackexchange, superuser, stackoverflow, occasionally askubuntu, it would be nice if I could search any one of these...without making 5 copies of the entire workflow just to edit that one parameter!

 

P.S.: I'm willing to attempt this myself, but I am a beginner with Python so I would need some tips, preferably from the original author.  Now if it were in bash, I would have already edited it myself.

Edited September 25, 2016 by Wildcard
Clarify I'm willing to try myself

[deanishe]

40 minutes ago, Wildcard said:

This is pretty cool!  Do you have any plans to make it accept an argument of which site to search?

 

No. I don't use any other StackExchange sites personally, and it's a significant amount of work to add useable support for all possible StackExchange sites.

 

It'd probably be easy enough to build a multi-stage workflow with Alfred 3 that lets you choose the site first then search it (replacing SITE with a workflow variable).

 

But that would suck for what I use it for, and to do it "properly" would be far more work than I'm every going to invest in the workflow.

[Wildcard]

Cool; makes sense.  If I ever do anything with it I'll post it here, but I agree it's probably more work than it's worth.

[deanishe]

Unless you use literally loads of StackExchange sites, making a copy of the workflow for each site is a good solution. I don't envisage the workflow getting updated unless the SE API changes.