Alfred – Macinations

August 23, 2021

⌘ Alfred or Keyboard Maestro? Productivity at it’s finest.

Since they overlap, which tool should you get, Alfred or Keyboard Maestro? Yes to both. Even though they share some features, they provide enough different and complimentary functionality that you won’t regret using both. Use Alfred to quickly launch apps, find files, and perform focused searches. Use the Workflows feature to unlock snippets, clipboard history, quick calculations, access to handy system functions, and customized autocomplete. Those features are built in and ready to use. If you want a bit more power, download application workflows or spend a little time with Shell, Javascript, or AppleScript, and write your own. This is a bit more complex, but can yield some incredible results. Even with a small bit of AppleScript, you can accomplish a lot. Just as easily, call out to Java, Groovy or Python for more complex tasks. Next, use Keyboard Maestro to build custom workflows and application macros. Add batch processing to applications that don’t natively support it. Use the building […]

January 4, 2021

How I use Alfred

As first glance, Alfred is a program launcher. That's entirely true, but doesn't speak to the productivity and efficiency Alfred brings. There is a lot more to the story. Further, when reading what Alfred can do there are references to Keyboard Maestro. While similar, and overlap in functionality, they are quite distinct in how they work. I have both, use them both daily, and do different tasks with each. From the start, Alfred has a lot shortcut functionality built in. This comes in the form of hotkeys and trigger words. When the Workflow feature is unlocked, Alfred can be extended in all sorts of ways. Keyboard Maestro has some of this function built in functionality where it can launch apps, control system settings and perform actions based on hotkeys and trigger words. It closely resembles the built in Automator tool and has the same building blocks to build your own solutions. But, back to the original point. Alfred is fantastic […]

June 24, 2020

Setting up a secondary keyboard for macros

After setting up several keyboard shortcuts within Alfred and Keyboard Maestro, it became clear that I was putting together some bizarre key combinations and odd hand gestures to make sure I wasn’t interfering with other applications. Then it occurred to me, don’t video and audio editors have dedicated keyboards for shortcuts? Can the same thing be done for keyboard macros? The answer is, yes it can. And rather easily too, using a standard keyboard and Karabiner Elements. You don’t have to buy a specialty keyboard or programmable keypad or anything else. You can use any USB keyboard you have lying around. I have dozens from all the Windows machines I’ve ordered throughout the years. This also works for a Bluetooth keyboard, so it doesn’t have to be wired. The easiest way to configure this is install Karabiner Elements and go to the devices tab. Turn off all the other keyboard except the secondary one you plan to use for macros. Then […]

June 19, 2020

Three months of working remotely

I've crossed over the three month mark of working from home. And despite circumstances, I'm thoroughly enjoying it. By not being stuck in traffic I have so much more time available. I've been able to exercise with more frequency and still have plenty of time in the evening to play games, watch a movie, or work on side projects like Affinity, Inkle, or doing fun research with DevonAgent. Not to mention, I've saved a ton of money by not eating out and not buying gas. No sympathy for the oil companies I'm afraid. I've also been working on getting my organization groove on. I've made dozen of changes and improvements to my notes, folder and database structure within DevonThink. I've even moved a lot of documentation into DevonThink that was lingering in different folders on the drive. Everything in one place, very tidy. I've created several new Alfred and Keyboard Maestro workflows which have been some nice little timesavers. (Clicking […]

May 24, 2020

Integrating DevonAgent Pro with Alfred

DevonAgent Pro is one of the greatest search engine tools I’ve used and I want to integrate that power into Alfred. I want to use Alfred’s search bar to pick a search type and pass over the parameters. Turns out it’s not that hard, just not well documented. To make it all work, you need the following two commands: – x-devonagent://runPlugin?identifier=com.devon-technologies.images.plugin&query={query} – x-devonagent://runSearchSet?name=Deeper&query={query} The first command uses a DevonAgent Plugin to perform the search, the second uses a Search Set. To use these in Alfred, use the Web Search function under the Features tab. Enter the above command in the Search URL field. Also, select the option for Encode Spaces as %20. Now you can set up separate keywords to use different kinds of searches, which could be for images, deep dive searches, code searches, a specific engine, or anything else DevonAgent supports. To give a bit more of an explanation of the commands, we’ll start with Plugins. You can […]

⌘ Alfred or Keyboard Maestro? Productivity at it’s finest.

How I use Alfred

Setting up a secondary keyboard for macros

Three months of working remotely

Integrating DevonAgent Pro with Alfred

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