Selectively disable Alfred for certain applications

[patgilmour]

I use CMD+Space to activate Alfred. Works great (and the minimal space between the keys is perfect for my left thumb's damaged ligaments).

 

However, when using Adobe Creative Cloud, I'd really like to reserve CMD+Space for standard Adobe zoom function.

 

So, is there a way to selectively disable the Alfred keyboard shortcut for certain applications?

 

Thanks!

[jdfwarrior]

I use CMD+Space to activate Alfred. Works great (and the minimal space between the keys is perfect for my left thumb's damaged ligaments).

 

However, when using Adobe Creative Cloud, I'd really like to reserve CMD+Space for standard Adobe zoom function.

 

So, is there a way to selectively disable the Alfred keyboard shortcut for certain applications?

 

Thanks!

 

Unfortunately not. You could try setting Alfred's hotkey to a Cmd double tap. That would still be relatively easy and would maintain the hotkey you need in CC.

[Andrew]

One option could be to set the default Alfred hotkey to something obscure, then setup an Alfred Workflow with Hotkey -> AppleScript. The hotkey could be your Alfred hotkey of cmd+space configured to not be active when Photoshop is active... then the AppleScript action could be:

 

tell application "Alfred 2" to search

 

To make this as speedy as possible, right click in the hotkey field and set the trigger behaviour to "pass through modifier keys"

 

Hope this helps!

 

Cheers,

Andrew

[patgilmour]

Thanks for the useful answers, guys.

 

I'm giving Andrew's solution a go though there is an absolutely tiny lag that is spoiling my purist Alfred experience.

 

It may be time to retrain my CC habits - Alfred is way more important to my day-to-day work.

[patgilmour]

Actually, Andrew, your solution is working remarkably well. Will feedback after a day of using it..

[Andrew]

Actually, Andrew, your solution is working remarkably well. Will feedback after a day of using it..

 

Did you change the trigger behaviour like I suggested... that should remove the lag (unless there is AppleScript lag)

[patgilmour]

Using Andrew's solution above, I see no performance difference at all compared to Alfred's default search, so I'm sticking with it for now. Here's the deal:
 
- Alfred's default Hotkey is now set to ctrl+space - not obscure at all but seeing as I use Alfred for everything I wanted the "alternative" close to my fingers
- The workflow options follow Andrew's instructions above.
- I added InDesign, Photoshop, Illustrator and Acrobat to the "don't have focus" "Related Apps" tab
- The "Run NSAppleScript" script is as follows:
 

on alfred_script(q)

  tell application "Alfred 2" to search

end alfred_script

 

Does the "Cache Compiled Applescript" option make a speed difference for a script this size? I don't know but I don't see a difference so I'm leaving it disabled. (Edit: enabled now - see Andrew's comment below).
 
And that's it. As a user I see no change: CMD+Space invokes Alfred as usual but when I'm in Creative Cloud I don't keep making a mess of things by adding spaces by accident.
 
Until I can finally dump Adobe's over-priced, ugly, bug-ridden, inconsistent and crappy software suite, I think this is the way to go!
 
Thanks for the help.

Edited February 5, 2015 by patgilmour

[Andrew]

Does the "Cache Compiled Applescript" option make a speed difference for a script this size? I don't know but I don't see a difference so I'm leaving it disabled.

 

This will more likely affect inconsistent latency, and for a tiny script like this, I would have it cache the complied AppleScript as it will only use a few more kb of memory.

 

Glad you are happy with the solution

 

Cheers,

Andrew

[geoff]

I realize this is a very late response and the OP has probably adapted to the solution that was suggested. Perhaps it can benefit someone else.

 

What I've always done in Adobe apps to get around this is to use SPACE+CMD for the zoom tool, not CMD+SPACE. It doesn't trigger Alfred and still activates the zoom tool. Ditto for SPACE+OPT+CMD to zoom out.

[patgilmour]

Interesting - so you set SPACE+CMD in the Adobe app Keyboard Preferences?

[geoff]

Nope. There's nothing to change in settings. It just works in Photoshop, Illustrator, etc. to hold space and *then* command.

[patgilmour]

Interesting - I've been using that for a long time in Acrobat as it's the only sure way to get the Zoom Tool up. Didn't think to try it in that order in Photoshop etc. - works well. Thanks for point this out!

[geoff]

My pleasure!