We're often asked what tools we use everyday for creating and managing Alfred, so we'll share a few of our favourite tools and services in this post series.
A few years ago, we started using CacheFly as our CDN, or content delivery network. It's pretty simple, with a CDN, our Alfred resources are copied to servers in useful locations around the world so that when you click the download button, not only is Alfred's update located physically closer to you (so it's less likely to be affected by online traffic), it also has high availability.
CacheFly has 100% availability SLA – it doesn't really get any better than that!
We use CacheFly to host quite a few resources, including the Alfred download zip, website resources, images for emails, the auto update xml and online help files. What's more, all of these resources are already being distributed using https on a subdomain of Alfred which means no changes are needed when we migrate our websites to https in the next few weeks.
Previously, CacheFly offered subscription plans at fixed prices, but we've heard that they've started offering a Pay-As-You-Go service with no contracts. [This isn't an affiliate link or an advert, it's just because we've loved using them!]
So if you've been toying around with the idea of hosting your content on a CDN, this would be a great time to try out CacheFly.
In this series, we are taking a look at how some users have adopted Alfred in their workplace. They'll give us a glimpse of how they use Alfred, how they stay productive and what it's like working for some of the companies we know and love.
Here, James Bull from Shopify, shares how he gets stuff done with the help of Alfred workflows!
Who you are? What keeps you busy?
Oh hey there! I'm James, a Design Lead at Shopify in Ottawa, ON. All kinds of things are keeping me busy these days, one of my favourites is pushing our design team to do the amazing work they do at Shopify.
We’ve been working really hard to make a commerce platform that’s beautiful and easy to use. The team never ceases to amaze me, whether its new interaction patterns on our mobile POS apps, or rethinking how our web admin looks and functions. You can check out what the team is up to on Dribbble.
How long have you been using Alfred?
It’s gotta be 3 years, or possibly more. I started out with the un-paid version, but it wasn’t long before I upgraded with the Powerpack and got all the amazing features that come with it. Custom workflows FTW!
What aspects of Alfred make your workday easier, smoother, more productive, etc?
It's crazy to think, but I probably use Alfred 100x or more in my day. The custom workflows, web searches, clipboard history, file search, app launcher, preference syncing, spell check, dictionary support, and more make it so damn useful.
When OS X Yosemite launched last year with an improved Spotlight, I thought I’d test it out. Apple touted it as the enhanced app launcher we’ve all been waiting for. Spotlight lasted a whole 32 minutes before switching back to Alfred.
Are there workflows you’ve created or imported that you’d suggest/recommend?
I thought you’d never ask. The most powerful feature for me are the custom workflows, and being able to configure them with our internal tools at Shopify. Most of it involves searching our internal wiki and platform documentation, but the potential is limitless. Here are a few of my favourites:
Dev Doctor: a fantastic developer documentation workflow, easily look up css and js documentation with a few keyboard strokes
OS X Toolbox: a workflow to perform common system tasks, hiding/unhiding system files, relaunching finder, things like that
GIF & Dropbox Workflow: a little outdated, but can be manually updated and tweaked to work really well. you’ll be a Slack superstar in no time.
James Van Der Meme: a gif workflow based off the James Van Der Meme Tumblr
Foursquare & Yelp Search: great to settle office lunch debates
Water Theme: A great theme from James Bryant
I recently discovered Packal as well, so I’ll be cruising the categories for my next favourite workflow!
Thanks James for sharing your favourite workflows and tips with us!
We pride ourselves on new releases that are not only feature-filled but also stable and bug-free. In yesterday's release, a small issue slipped in that affected Python-based workflows specifically. As such, we're putting out a little update today to ensure that anyone using these workflows can continue to have a pleasant, smooth experience.
This release also gives you a chance to see the new update notifier, which you'll see as a little tab in the bottom left of Alfred's box. The feedback we've had so far from you is that you're as happy as we are with this new way of letting you know that there's a new Alfred update. It's a much more subtle way to be notified!
Bonus feature: Search & sort your URL History
Did you know that Alfred can remember the URLs you've pasted in, for easy access later? You can enable this feature in Alfred's preferences under Features > Web Search > URLs / History.
While this feature has existed for a long time, we've sneaked in a super useful improvement in this release; You can now search and sort your URL history, making it even easier to locate websites you previously opened via Alfred to make it easier to remove results.
To search, use the search box to filter down your results. To sort, click on the URL or Last Accessed column header to re-organise the results.
Once you've found the URL you want, select it and hit backspace to remove a single URL, or press the minus symbol that will appear in the bottom right.
Take a look at the change log for more detailed release notes.
Since Alfred Remote was released in late January, you've been creating fantastic Remote pages and workflows. In this new release, we've given lots of love to Alfred Remote and workflows, making some great additions to give you even more room to be creative.
We've highlighted a few of our favourite new features and improvements in this post, or you can take a look at the change log for the full list of changes in 2.7.
New features for Alfred Remote
You can now easily dispatch key combos from your Remote. For example, create a Remote action for global actions like Hide and Minimise so that you no longer have to remember the hotkeys.
Even better, if you use specialist software with complicated or awkward key combos, you can create a whole page for this app's hotkeys!
If you connect your Remote to multiple Macs, we've added the ability to selectively hide pages. As a result, pages you've created to use on your work Mac can be hidden when you connect your Remote to your home Mac, or vice versa. Just right-click the page and choose "Hide from this Mac". From this same menu or by right-clicking on an action, you can also reset any item icons and labels you've changed back to their defaults.
In the list of actions available for Remote, we've added the OS X Preference panels, so that you can get to any of the preferences you need to access quickly.
Workflow improvements
We've made a number of improvements to workflows, making it easier for our wonderful community of workflow creators to bring their ideas to life. Amongst these, we've added flexibility to allow workflow "Run Script" actions and outputs to run concurrently or sequentially, improved reliability for keyboard layout changes and added useful defaults for script queries.
A new update notifier
We've changed Alfred's update notifier so that you no longer get a pop-up on your screen - which was sometimes inconvenient if you were in the middle of a presentation or task, and the timing wasn't right to update.
Now, Alfred will instead show you that an update is available by adding a little tab to the bottom left of your search box. You'll be able to carry on with your work until you're ready to update.
As ever, Alfred remains lightning quick and very lightweight, so once you click the update notification, you'll be up and running with the latest version in three seconds flat!
In this series, we are taking a look at how some users have adopted Alfred in their workplace. They'll give us a glimpse of how they use Alfred, how they stay productive and what it's like working for some of the companies we know and love.
Here, Mattias Arrelid, Director of the Spotify SDK, shares how he uses Alfred while working on the latest version of Spotify - a service that fuels us with music every day while we work!
Who are you, and what keeps you busy?
My name is Mattias Arrelid, and I'm on a (never-ending) journey to make Spotify infrastructure better™ across all our supported platforms. Lately, this has manifested itself in some much needed tightening of our build & release infrastructure empowering our mobile & desktop apps, as well as some mentoring for one of my teams who is replacing the beating heart that is our player interface that all our features (radio, search etc.) use to play things inside our apps. Exciting times!
On my desk, an Aeropress and some coffee, gloves (yes, this is Sweden), a MacBook Pro Retina 13" (which may just be replaced this month) and a Cinema Display.
How long have you been using Alfred?
That's one fine, albeit tricky, question right there. Looking through my archived e-mails, I see the first newsletter from you in late February 2011. That said, I was obviously a cheapskate until late 2012 - that's when I bought the Powerpack. To compensate, I opted in for the Mega Supporter option once I gave you my money...
What aspects of Alfred make your workday more productive?
The workflows, period. Being a big fan of Quartz Composer and scripting in general, it feels pretty damn amazing to have almost limitless functionality at the tip of your fingers at a cost that's close to zero in terms of setup and complexity.
I don't even want to think about how much time people spend repeating dull operations in their everyday work-life, when they could be using workflows instead.
Are there any workflows you've created or imported that you'd recommend?
Since I'm always running the latest and greatest internal Spotify builds, I've constructed a small set of workflows that easily lets me perform common debugging operations. One is starting Spotify with a certain cache and/or username - this has proven itself very valuable when it comes to error reporting, since you always want to prove your bug on a clean install of the app/version combo in question. Combine this with another little script that parses the Info.plist to pick up the version number and place it in the clipboard - I don't even want to know how many times I've used this when reporting/confirming bugs in Jira...
Another workflow I've been tinkering around with is one that allows me to easily message/call people using my iPhone. I guess Continuity wasn't that bad after all, especially combined with the powers of app URIs (that lets you invoke iMessage/Facetime with your contact's details). I know something similar is available publicly already, but I wanted more granularity in what operation to perform (like FaceTime with or without video).
Another gem that I can't live without is the IMDb workflow. I love their database, and this workflow gives me the option to just bypass their not-so-nice search box and find the right movie directly from within Alfred itself.
Thanks for answering our questions, Mattias. May Spotify continue to fill our ears with great tunes (and weird back-catalogue tunes too) every day as we work and play!
Want to make your team productive too with the Powerpack? Take a look at our corporate licensing scheme and drop us a line to find out more.
