"Trial" version of Alfred Remote ?

[ulyssesric]

Just updated to 2.6 and got confused by remote.

 

From the introduction I can only have a rough understanding of how remote works. It seems Alfred Remote can only submit a predefined, complete task, such as launch an application, or it can bring up the Alfred search box on my Mac and leave it unfinished, so that I'll have to finish the search term one my Mac's keyboard, is that right ?

 

I'm looking for a solution of remote controller that can provide interactive operation; that is, I want to remotely control a Mac to navigate through the file system, and let me choose an application to open the selected file or folder. In other words, I'd wish that Alfred Remote can bring up the File Action panel, and let me remotely select an action from the iOS. Or at lease, I'd wish for a virtual keyboard (with extra arrow and modifier key buttons) in Alfred Remote. It's ultimately stupid to bring up the Alfred search box in Alfred Remote, and than switch to another remote keyboard / mouse app like BTT remote to finish the rest task.

 

I'm not sure whether Alfred Remote is something I'm looking for, and I don't want to spend $5 for a test drive. Can we have a trial version or something ?

Edited January 28, 2015 by ulyssesric

[jdfwarrior]

Just updated to 2.6 and got confused by remote.

 

From the introduction I can only have a rough understanding of how remote works. It seems Alfred Remote can only submit a predefined, complete task, such as launch an application, or it can bring up the Alfred search box on my Mac and leave it unfinished, so that I'll have to finish the search term one my Mac's keyboard, is that right ?

 

I'm looking for a solution of remote controller that can provide interactive operation; that is, I want to remotely control a Mac to navigate through the file system, and let me choose an application to open the selected file or folder. In other words, I'd wish that Alfred Remote can bring up the File Action panel, and let me remotely select an action from the iOS. Or at lease, I'd wish for a virtual keyboard (with extra arrow and modifier key buttons) in Alfred Remote. It's ultimately stupid to bring up the Alfred search box in Alfred Remote, and than switch to another remote keyboard / mouse app like BTT remote to finish the rest task.

 

I'm not sure whether Alfred Remote is something I'm looking for, and I don't want to spend $5 for a test drive. Can we have a trial version or something ?

 

Alfred Remote doesn't provide the results panel as you are looking for but, known actions, you could essentially do the same thing. By that I mean, Remote has the ability to do some of the tasks that workflows can do, but, you can also trigger workflows from remote as well. So,  if you have a workflow to perform the task in question, you could easily a remote trigger to that workflow and have Alfred Remote execute that. Ultimately Andrew and Vero would be the ones making the call on whether or not there were a trial version but I can say that I have never heard mention of one. 

[deanishe]

Just updated to 2.6 and got confused by remote.

 

From the introduction I can only have a rough understanding of how remote works. It seems Alfred Remote can only submit a predefined, complete task, such as launch an application, or it can bring up the Alfred search box on my Mac and leave it unfinished, so that I'll have to finish the search term one my Mac's keyboard, is that right ?

 

I'm looking for a solution of remote controller that can provide interactive operation; that is, I want to remotely control a Mac to navigate through the file system, and let me choose an application to open the selected file or folder. In other words, I'd wish that Alfred Remote can bring up the File Action panel, and let me remotely select an action from the iOS. Or at lease, I'd wish for a virtual keyboard (with extra arrow and modifier key buttons) in Alfred Remote. It's ultimately stupid to bring up the Alfred search box in Alfred Remote, and than switch to another remote keyboard / mouse app like BTT remote to finish the rest task.

 

I'm not sure whether Alfred Remote is something I'm looking for, and I don't want to spend $5 for a test drive. Can we have a trial version or something ?

 

"Remote" is a misnomer. "Sidekick" is a more appropriate name.

 

Alfred Remote's forte is sitting alongside your keyboard and providing a bunch of buttons, so you don't have to remember the corresponding keyboard shortcuts.

 

There's more to it than that, but that's its primary strength. It is not an alternative to BTT Remote or the like. I mean, it can be made to do some of the stuff BTT Remote can do, but most of what BTT Remote can do is (currently) easier in BTT Remote (e.g. there's no way to simply map an action to a keyboard shortcut in Alfred Remote: you have to write an AppleScript script to simulate the keypress and link the action to that).

 

It's certainly not a solution for controlling your Mac from the sofa.

[ulyssesric]

"Remote" is a misnomer. "Sidekick" is a more appropriate name.

 

That remind me of a fancy alternative app called "Actions". That project was abandoned a while back. "Actions" handles triggered actions on remote end, that is, by sending a bunch of simulated keystrokes in sequence. However, Alfred can do much better than that.

 

It's very easy for Alfred to be the solution for controlling Mac from sofa; the only thing they need to do is to make "Keystroke" as remote trigger or a standard action. People can do that now with workflow that calls oscascript, but it's insanely tedious to assign each hotkey via workflow.

[deanishe]

That remind me of a fancy alternative app called "Actions". That project was abandoned a while back. "Actions" handles triggered actions on remote end, that is, by sending a bunch of simulated keystrokes in sequence. However, Alfred can do much better than that.

 

Yeah, that's what Alfred Remote most put me in mind of.

 

It's very easy for Alfred to be the solution for controlling Mac from sofa; the only thing they need to do is to make "Keystroke" as remote trigger or a standard action. People can do that now with workflow that calls oscascript, but it's insanely tedious to assign each hotkey via workflow.

 

It's not easy, it's tedious, like you say.

[Andrew]

I'll be adding easier ways to dispatch key combinations in a future release of Alfred, so this should be made much easier