So How Do I Upgrade from V1?

[jdfwarrior]

Hi, everybody!

I am an Alfred v1 user and bought the v1 Powerpack, is that license still valid for the c2 Powerpack or do I have to buy the new one? 

Thanks beforehand

Peter

 

That depends on the license type that you purchased and the date that it was purchased. If you are a mega supporter, then the upgrade is free as it provides lifetime upgrades for free. If you have another license type, if you purchased a license AFTER Dec 1, 2012, the upgrade is free. If you purchased before Dec 1, 2012, then you would need to purchase an upgrade for Alfred. Other license types only provided free updates for Alfred 0.x - 1.x.

[ecpete]

That depends on the license type that you purchased and the date that it was purchased. If you are a mega supporter, then the upgrade is free as it provides lifetime upgrades for free. If you have another license type, if you purchased a license AFTER Dec 1, 2012, the upgrade is free. If you purchased before Dec 1, 2012, then you would need to purchase an upgrade for Alfred. Other license types only provided free updates for Alfred 0.x - 1.x.

Ok, thx a lot for the quick response!!

[leefur]

I hear – and appreciate – what you're saying about the extensions being pretty easy to re-create using workflows. But just to be clear, Extensions only cover a small percentage of what I would have to transfer – I never used them very much. I'm thinking more about the Features screen, as well as General, Appearance, and Advanced. I get that they might be totally different under the covers, but to we end-users the bulk of the contents of these screens is the same (though perhaps re-structured).

 

Again, thanks so much for listening and everything!

[sawyersmith]

This is disappointing, wish I'd seen this post before upgrading. I think you need you need to make it clearer on your site about the lack of an efficient migration from v1 to v2, seeing nothing I assumed that my old setup would be maintained in the new version. That was a shock to see a different application name and realise that preferences would not transfer over. Having to dig into the forums to discover that I'll need to manually set everything up again is not very transparent.  I love Alfred, but having to go through my scripts and manually 'cut-and paste' them takes the shine off. 

[Masuri]

Wow. This is really bad. I just wanted to upgrade quickly and was totally confused that there is no migration and both versions can run side-by-side. This is a no-go for me, sorry. I will not pay money for some small improvements + 1 hour work to set everything up again. Maybe with v3 when there are some cool features... 

[Andrew]

Wow. This is really bad. I just wanted to upgrade quickly and was totally confused that there is no migration and both versions can run side-by-side. This is a no-go for me, sorry. I will not pay money for some small improvements + 1 hour work to set everything up again. Maybe with v3 when there are some cool features... 

 

v2 isn't small improvements, it's a complete rewrite of every single feature including the incredible new workflows feature. This is also why v1 doesn't automatically update to v2.

 

You are quite welcome to stay using v1 though (I can see you haven't upgraded to v2 yet).

[R4z3r]

v2 isn't small improvements, it's a complete rewrite of every single feature including the incredible new workflows feature. This is also why v1 doesn't automatically update to v2.

 

You are quite welcome to stay using v1 though.

 

I have to say, at first I was annoyed. Workflows though has already been amazing. And for anyone complaining, there is a workflow, to migrate over custom searches, etc. It's really not that bad, and starting fresh let's you fix some bad habits and learn some features you weren't using before.

[bbrown]

bbrown - we aren't linking to some guys blog - David is part of the Alfred team and created these migrations for our users.

 

I'm going to spell this out for you because I can't believe how obtuse you're being about this. (Note also that I have a tremendous amount of respect for you and your software. I've purchased LaunchBar in the past and was a die-hard power user of Quicksilver until Alfred came along. Your user interface in v1 was brilliant and utterly intuitive.)

 

When I read in The Verge that v2 was out of beta. I immediately went to the site to download it. I was expecting something on the front page indicating "hey v1 user, here's how you get v2." What I got instead was nothing at all. I thought, "hey maybe I should just download it." So I clicked on the download link and finally saw something for v1, which was about getting upgrade pricing for the Power Pack. I knew that I'd want that so I went ahead and bought it.

 

By then my download had finished, so I ran Alfred. Huh, looks exactly the same. Went to /Applications and saw "Alfred 2." I thought that was strange, but I'm easy-going. I started it and looked through the preferences that come up. Everything's empty and even my minor choices weren't observed.

 

So I go to Alfred support. No mention there, no search results, nothing. Okay, maybe it's in the forum. Click over there and there was one thread about upgrading (at the time). I read through all of that and the last reply was from 2/28. It was from David Ferguson and it was from the beta period. He said that maybe they'd come up with a migration workflow to include in the final release. No link to his personal blog, no indication that it made it into the final release.

 

At this point, I realized I was entirely on my own and wrote my posts. Later in the day David Ferguson linked to his workflow, which is very handy. I received your defensive responses about how different all of these settings are and how human intelligence is necessary to manually copy the extensions over because then we can really re-evaluate whether we're using the full power of the Workflow. (If you guys had just copied them in and gave me an alert that they probably needed some tweaking, I promise I would've done that. I've been doing Web applications for 14 years now and I have done quite a few migrations--heck, I even merged two separate applications into one and handled all of the data importing--so please spare me about how it couldn't have been done, especially when you also point out that you were completely rewriting the application. 80% migration and punting on the really dodgy pieces would have spared me this whole unpleasantness and the coming manual waste of time.)

 

My points are that I shouldn't have had to work this hard to a) find out that automatic migration wasn't possible, figure out that dfreg.us is a member of the Alfred team, and c) discern that his migration workflow is the official tool. If there had been a migration page, which could not have delayed the launch by more than a day if at all, then I could have gone there, downloaded the workflow, and read how you've punted on helping me with any other pieces.

 

That is what I meant by "bad form."

 

Bill

[leefur]

^ It stings, but it's accurate.

[rickroberts]

Right on. It takes a long time, a lot of effort, and trial and error to get a tool like Alfred or Quicksilver purring just how you like it, and it’s very disappointing to start all over again.

[gingerbeardman]

I hate to be saying this but, the above is right. No migration information or official support for even something as simple as my choice of hotkey simply sucks.

 

Personally, I was quite happy using Alfred 1 and now I am quite angry using Alfred 2. I'd have happily waited the extra 2 months to bypass the pain and wasted time of starting fresh with Alfred 2.

 

My initial experience with the app has been less "woah! cool" and more "woah! you have to be kidding?" which I'm guessing is not what you want your existing userbase, who are going to be spreading the word about the app, to be thinking...

[Andrew]

All I can say is that I'm really sorry, and I'm certainly not being obtuse. I am EXTREMELY sensitive about the feedback of Alfred and am very stressed and disappointed about this specific feedback. I knew that not migrating v1 was going to be an issue, but didn't realise that a small handful of users were going to be this upset.

 

There has been a HUGE amount of pressure on both me and Vero to get Alfred v2 released. I am the only developer of Alfred and have spent 9 months, 16 hours a day including weekends to completely rewrite Alfred v1 (which was built from the top down and needed a significant architectural change to pave the way for the future). It would have delayed Alfred v2's release by 2 months if I had added a bug free migration from v1 to v2, a delay which I simply did not want to entertain.

 

David stepped in and offered to create some migration tools to get the essentials copied over so we could get Alfred v2 out as soon as possible, which has been a great help, and has satisfied the absolute vast majority of users upgrading.

 

If I spent the next 2 months working on migration, by the time it's finished, most people will have migrated anyway and these 2 months could have been better spent on what love and do best... planning and improving Alfred.

[leefur]

I'm curious where you get the data to back up that we are a "small handful" as opposed to the "vast majority". Most users wouldn't put the work in that is required to find this forum. I'd argue that most users won't find David's script (which still only covers a small portion of the settings) either.

 

This marginalizing language isn't helpful. You have tons of credits with us, so you're still very much in the black I'd imagine. But you must see that this was a debit, and that every single user that has made any settings changes at all has been adversely effected.

 

To Bill's points above, some clear messaging about the required rework (and some ideas on workarounds) built into the upgrade process likely would have been enough to make your customers feel well-treated, and it wouldn't have been two months of work.

 

Your small team is amazing nonetheless, and fwiw I'm not angry or whatever. I'm a maker like you, and I chalk this up to growing pains. I hope I'm a productive, helpful piece of the process for you. Afterall, I'm a megasupporter… I want Alfred to be awesome forever.

[ctwise]

All I can say is that I'm really sorry, and I'm certainly not being obtuse. I am EXTREMELY sensitive about the feedback of Alfred and am very stressed and disappointed about this specific feedback. I knew that not migrating v1 was going to be an issue, but didn't realise that a small handful of users were going to be this upset.

 

There has been a HUGE amount of pressure on both me and Vero to get Alfred v2 released. I am the only developer of Alfred and have spent 9 months, 16 hours a day including weekends to completely rewrite Alfred v1 (which was built from the top down and needed a significant architectural change to pave the way for the future). It would have delayed Alfred v2's release by 2 months if I had added a bug free migration from v1 to v2, a delay which I simply did not want to entertain.

 

David stepped in and offered to create some migration tools to get the essentials copied over so we could get Alfred v2 out as soon as possible, which has been a great help, and has satisfied the absolute vast majority of users upgrading.

 

If I spent the next 2 months working on migration, by the time it's finished, most people will have migrated anyway and these 2 months could have been better spent on what love and do best... planning and improving Alfred.

 

Andrew, you've made a great product and I'm quite happy with what you created. The workflows are a huge improvement over Alfred v1 and so are the rest of the improvements you've made. Personally, I feel that the increase in capabilities means that people need to re-examine their settings for Alfred v1 in light of Alfred v2. Even the little things like Google web search now have far more capable workflows that show suggestion results. I feel you did the right thing by releasing now. Many thanks.

[Andrew]

I'm curious where you get the data to back up that we are a "small handful" as opposed to the "vast majority". Most users wouldn't put the work in that is required to find this forum. I'd argue that most users won't find David's script (which still only covers a small portion of the settings) either.

 

This marginalizing language isn't helpful. You have tons of credits with us, so you're still very much in the black I'd imagine. But you must see that this was a debit, and that every single user that has made any settings changes at all has been adversely effected.

 

I am not using marginalising language, the data is in the sales figures. +95% of the sales since Alfred v2 was released a few days ago are new users who didn't need a migration. These are the users who have been holding off from buying Alfred because they have been waiting for Alfred v2, this is part of the pressure which has pushed Alfred 2 to be released because without the sales or income, Alfred couldn't exist.

 

Added to this, we have had an overwhelming amount of excited feedback from upgrading users via email and tweets praising the new workflows, with people sharing with us how they have managed to enhance their workflows during the migration process.

 

This thread and a handful of tweets on this subject represent the only negative feedback I've really ever had about Alfred. I fully understand where the issue has been, I have said I'm sorry and I'm definitely going to take that into account in moving forward, but for now, I'm going to step out of this thread.

[Vero]

I'm curious where you get the data to back up that we are a "small handful" as opposed to the "vast majority". Most users wouldn't put the work in that is required to find this forum. I'd argue that most users won't find David's script (which still only covers a small portion of the settings) either.

 

Lee, Matt, Rick, Bill -

 

In addition to what Andrew has already said above, here's the kind of feedback we have received from this quantifiable "vast majority" of users who have upgraded from v1 over the past few days:

• @alfredapp I spent the entire evening installing and setting up my new v2. I mean that in a good way. Love the workflows!
• I love the new @alfredapp 2.0. Very sleek and the possibilities of workflows keeps me awake at night trying to think of cool things to do.
• workflow feature from @alfredapp is just absolutely mind blowing !
• with all these workflow, it make @alfredapp amazing and way more than simply find apps and files, but almost everything you can thing about
• @alfredapp 2.0 is fantastic! The new Workflows feature is awesome beyond belief!!
• installed @alfredapp version 2… like it. and the new workflow… endless creativity. great update guys
• @alfredapp V2 is brilliant. Was scared about update. But V2 is still KISS yet highly customisable. You kept the spirit. #standingovation.
• I was not sure whether is upgrading to @alfredapp 2 really worth the money, but then I saw workflows in action.. #infinitepossibilities
• Upgraded my @alfredapp license for v2 about ten minutes after learning it was available. Workflows are truly the final piece of the puzzle!

I understand your disappointment. I absolutely appreciate that you value your time, and that you find it difficult to swallow that v2 is different enough to warrant the investment of time it takes to upgrade your existing workflows. I wish I could convey the extent to which both Andrew and I take each and every piece of feedback at heart, and this isn't a decision we took lightly.

 

I'd really appreciate if we could move on from this now, as Andrew and I really need to start focusing on improving Alfred v2, just as v1 grew and improved. Thanks guys.

[R4z3r]

I think that while some are upset, and I was at first, it's because they resist change personally. At the end of the day, re-examining how you use the app is worthwhile. With new additions, tons of changes, and whatnot, it was a refresher for me on what Alfred could do. While I was annoyed, it has added to my knowledge and increased my usage. Was it "a waste of time"? No. Basic settings are easy to copy over. Open both preferences next to each other and it takes like...20 minutes? More if you have more custom searches. But basic migration can be done by users, combined with David's scripts, I think it's a great decision that was made. Don't attack the developer for releasing a quality product that is significantly redesigned. You don't have to update today. You can do it when you have time.

Great work to the developers. Keep it up.

[bbrown]

I was trying to be helpful to your small shop.

 

In my professional life, someone taking the time to patiently explain a complaint and offer a simple solution (adding a page linked off of Support is not a two-month endeavor and can take place concurrently with all the finishing touches) is a gift. Getting defensive and pooh-poohing that gift is exactly the wrong way to handle things. Instead of a "you're right, we didn't want to expend the time and effort to make a full migration possible but thanks for the suggestion of a migration page we'll look into that" you shot back with "everyone loves us" and "you guys are outliers in your problems."

 

You are 100% correct in saying that it wasn't worth two months of delay and that it only affected people with heavy customization. No one is arguing with either of those statements. If you had had a notice saying that the migration workflow was it and that there would be some minor manual work to get the rest into v2, this thread would not exist. I'd have been annoyed at the extra work created by a great productivity tool but I'm not against it as such if I had known upfront (or near front) that it was there.

 

That's the lesson here for v3: communicate with your loyal users where they can reasonably expect you to communicate and nearly everything's palatable. You can choose to take heed of that or you can shoot the messenger. I'm done trying to get you to see this.

 

I will be manually migrating everything this weekend and I look forward to getting to know these vaunted new features.

 

Bill

[jdfwarrior]

I was trying to be helpful to your small shop.

 

In my professional life, someone taking the time to patiently explain a complaint and offer a simple solution (adding a page linked off of Support is not a two-month endeavor and can take place concurrently with all the finishing touches) is a gift. Getting defensive and pooh-poohing that gift is exactly the wrong way to handle things. Instead of a "you're right, we didn't want to expend the time and effort to make a full migration possible but thanks for the suggestion of a migration page we'll look into that" you shot back with "everyone loves us" and "you guys are outliers in your problems."

 

You are 100% correct in saying that it wasn't worth two months of delay and that it only affected people with heavy customization. No one is arguing with either of those statements. If you had had a notice saying that the migration workflow was it and that there would be some minor manual work to get the rest into v2, this thread would not exist. I'd have been annoyed at the extra work created by a great productivity tool but I'm not against it as such if I had known upfront (or near front) that it was there.

 

That's the lesson here for v3: communicate with your loyal users where they can reasonably expect you to communicate and nearly everything's palatable. You can choose to take heed of that or you can shoot the messenger. I'm done trying to get you to see this.

 

I will be manually migrating everything this weekend and I look forward to getting to know these vaunted new features.

 

Bill

 

Bill,

 

We do apologize for the confusion and the miscommunication. We do appreciate the recommendation and will definitely take these things into consideration in future releases. I'm not sure what it would be because you are obviously an experienced user, but if there is anything that I can help or assist you with during the setup/migration, don't hesitate to ask. I'd be more than happy to help you in any way that I can.

 

Thanks again

[kevwil]

I can't offer much that Bill hasn't already stated very eloquently. But I will say this:

 

Change for improvement's sake is usually accepted by most everyone, sooner or later. After all, it's better, right? If a new version is four times faster or does a dozen new things, or even if it just no longer sucks donkey b@#$s crashes, that kind of change is pretty easy to get behind.

 

Internal changes are very tough to pull off without incident, unless the transition is painless. I'm reminded of Apple switching CPU architectures, and how smooth Rosetta made it. Rosetta wasn't easy to do, and it probably added quite a bit to the delivery timeline, but it was needed because they were basically telling people they were going to have to buy new hardware soon - a tough pill to swallow. Even people who embrace change will find this stuff disagreeable at times.

 

I didn't know anything about V2 until today, so needless to say I would have been fine with waiting the extra two months. I'll wait to upgrade until the road ahead is cleared of land mines and wild beasts, and paved.

 

You folks have a great app here, with passionate customers. I hope the bumps in the road don't get too deep for you.

[Andrew]

I'm currently working on 2.0.1 which should address some of the issues discussed here

[Ptujec]

 

Thanks, got it.  Bummed my Things and QuickCAL scripts no longer work. Anyone know where I can get new ones

that work with version 2?

 

Here is some help for you:

https://twitter.com/quickcal/status/312588284415053826

[Vero]

 

Thanks, got it.  Bummed my Things and QuickCAL scripts no longer work. Anyone know where I can get new ones

that work with version 2?

 

And here is a Things workflow created by another user: http://www.alfredforum.com/topic/952-things-app-tasks/

 

Thanks for the QuickCal one, Ptujec

[Vero]

We have just released v2.0.1, which provides an in-app way to import almost all of your settings - and explains why your workflows and themes need to be manually migrated. 

 

You can either download it from the homepage (http://www.alfredapp.com/#download) or you can update in-app from the General prefs tab. When you update to v2.0.1, you'll see an "Import settings" button on the General tab. You can select which setting groups you'd like to import, and web searches & clipboard snippets will respect any items you've already manually created in v2.

[bbrown]

We have just released v2.0.1, which provides an in-app way to import almost all of your settings - and explains why your workflows and themes need to be manually migrated.

 

This is outstanding and the migration page is exactly what I would have wanted.

 

Thank you very much!

 

Bill