Several built-in themes let you change the utility’s colors, fonts, and the size of the search-results window. Themes and other improvements Alfred 2’s themesĪlfred 2.0’s other notable change is the addition of themes.
Alfred for mac os x install#
You can also download and install workflows that other Alfred users have already built. You can construct your own workflows from scratch, by combining triggers (hotkeys, for example), inputs (such as keywords), and actions (open file, reveal file, run script, and so on), and you can output results into processes that can be as simple or complex as you wish. Workflows can include a variety of scripted and programmed components-there’s even support for Perl, PHP, Python, and Ruby, as well as shell scripting and AppleScript.Īlfred 2.0 comes with a small selection of sample workflows, as well as templates you can use as the basis of your own. Workflows can be simple (launch a single file via a hotkey) or complex (use a keyword to initiate multiple Web searches for a given search term). So, for example, you can now set up a workflow that will search for recently used documents in your Dropbox folder whenever, and you can assign to that workflow the keyword dropbox. Workflows are bit like the extensions that were introduced in Alfred 0.99, providing customizable actions to which you can attach hotkeys or keywords. Workflows Building a workflow in Alfred 2 That hotkey functionality is still available, but it’s subsumed by version 2’s marquee new feature, workflows. A file buffer, for example, lets you find multiple files in sequence, adding each to the buffer with a quick keyboard shortcut, then perform the same action (copy, move, whatever) on all of the files at once.Īll of that is still there in Alfred 2.0, but one thing is missing: Alfred 1.x had a separate preference tab for creating global hotkeys. Since my previous review, Alfred 1.x extended its core functionality in some really useful ways.
Alfred also has an iTunes controller and text-snippets capabilities, a la TextExpander. Alfred can also search your contacts, clipboard history, and dictionary it can perform standard and advanced math calculations and it offers a library of keywords for controlling your Mac ( logout and emptytrash, for example). There are similar shortcuts for Bing, Yahoo, Gmail, Twitter, Amazon, and more. For example, typing g followed by a search term, for example, initiates a Google search for that string of text. Using keywords, you can find more than just apps and files.
Alfred for mac os x update#
This recent major update introduces a feature called workflows for performing more-complex series of actions.
It did more than OS X’s built-in Spotlight feature-if not quite as much as other launchers such as Butler, Launchbar, or Quicksilver-without a lot of monkeying around.īut almost as soon as I wrote that review, Running With Crayons, the utility’s developer, began monkeying around with Alfred, adding powerful new features such as global hotkeys (which let you assign permanent keyboard shortcuts to files, apps, Web searches, and other things) and extensions (which let you quickly run AppleScripts, Automator workflows, complex file searches, and more) to the essentially simple app. When I first reviewed Alfred, the app- and file-launching utility, back in early 2011, I praised it for its simplicity: You’d invoke the utility with a shortcut key-combination, type the first few letters of an application or file’s name, and Alfred would find what you wanted and open it.
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