Clever File Naming worflows (for spotlight search)

[benjamin74]

Hello guys,

 

After reading a few interesting posts on clever file naming tricks for fast spotlight searches :

 

http://www.macworld.com/article/1167126/how_i_name_files_on_my_mac.html

 

http://getmethod.com/blog/2012/6/30/the-best-way-to-name-your-files.html

 

I was wondering whether someone already investigated the creation of such "clever" file naming wordflows ? I searched in Packal but didn't find what I want.

 

Just as a start : anyone as an idea on how to copy a timestamp (e.g. %Y-%m-%d) in the clipboard with Alfred ?

 

Thanks,

 

Cheers,

 

 

[rice.shawn]

Well, if you want quick way to copy the date, then you could make a workflow that has a hotkey that leads to a bash script that leads to a copy to clipboard action.

 

The bash script would just need to be something like

date +%Y-%m-%d

For more on the date command, see the man pages.

[dfay]

I use a lot of the approaches described in the articles....including using TextExpander instead of Alfred for things like date-stamping.  I have a TextExpander snippet for each project I'm working on, which I include in the filename of related files.  Then I can search in Alfred by typing find <snippet> and Alfred will return all the files in that project.

 

You can recreate a lot of TE's functionality in Alfred using bash scripts and Alfred's snippets but I'd recommend getting TE as well and using it with Alfred, allowing each tool to do what it does best.

Edited May 1, 2015 by dfay