Ellipsis in the middle of long file names in file navigation (e.g. Lorem ip…it amet)

[Tyler Eich]

In Finder, if a file name is longer than the column containing it, it is truncated with a '…' in the middle, so you can see the file extension and other important data found at the end of the name.

Alfred puts the ellipsis at the end of the column, so I can't tell whether I'm looking at com.runningwithcrayons.Alfred or com.runningwithcrayons.Alfred-2

Just a suggestion

Edited September 26, 2013 by Tyler Eich

[sr105]

++

 

Here's another situation:

 

[cpf]

+1

[deanishe]

+1

 

The end of a filename is definitely not the bit that should be hidden. The ellipsis is bound to appear in inconvenient places at times, but not as consistently inconvenient as losing the end of the filename and extension.

[Andrew]

Regarding the subtext (for sr105) Here is an example of how much path information you have lost by truncating in the middle (and seeing the filename in both the result title and subtext)...

 

 

vs the current way where Alfred truncates the tail and you see the full path and the beginning of the filename in the subtext...

 

Tyler's original suggestion of truncating middle on the title component is definitely worth consideration as this DOES mean you lose resolution of the file you are currently looking at. The truncation is controlled as a whole so this would mean centre truncation on all result titles.

[deanishe]

Seeing as the filename is already the item title, wouldn't it make more sense to just show its parent directory in the subtext?
 
For my usage, at least, the end is the worst part to truncate. When you're browsing, e.g., the chapters of a book, tracks of an album or episodes of a TV show, you often end up with a list of files all with 100% identical names because Alfred has truncated the chapter/track/episode number.
 
The way Finder truncates filenames is much more helpful (if possible, it truncates an identical part of each path).

 

Alfred: 
 

Finder:

 

[Andrew]

Seeing as the filename is already the item title, wouldn't it make more sense to just show its parent directory in the subtext?

 

That's what I'm thinking... I'll have a bit of a play with this today as 2.6.1 is due out pretty soon and I'll probably be able to get a change to this in

[Andrew]

For 2.6.1 I'm going to centre truncate the result titles and fs navigation filenames, and leave the subtext alone as there is quite a bit more to consider on that.

 

Cheers,

Andrew

[deanishe]

For 2.6.1 I'm going to centre truncate the result titles and fs navigation filenames, and leave the subtext alone as there is quite a bit more to consider on that.

Do tell

[Jasondm007]

On 3/24/2015 at 4:41 AM, Andrew said:

I'm going to centre truncate the result titles and fs navigation filenames, and leave the subtext alone as there is quite a bit more to consider on that.

 

Hi @Andrew - By chance, is there any way for users to turn off the middle/center truncation of long file names?

 

While I can appreciate why many people would prefer to have Alfred truncate long file names in the middle, personally, I'd prefer to see Alfred's results as they used to appear in the old version (i.e., without truncation and ellipses at the end). I tried digging through Alfred's settings and this forum, but I didn't find much discussion. Is there any option for this in Alfred?

 

The reason might be more specific to my own habits, but I suspect others would prefer to have control over it, too. I have tons of research-related PDFs on my computer whose file names typically follow the way they're cited. As a result, they tend to include a lot of information at the end of the file name that is not as helpful (like edition, editor's names, publication year, etc.). So, when these PDFs pull up in my results, I typically only see the author's names, the end of the citation, and the file extension. This might just be me, but I don't find this information as useful for finding the appropriate PDF.

 

As always, thanks for your help!