Ask User for Additional Input (Empty Keyword Not Working)

[APS]

Hello everyone,

 

Longtime Alfred user (and longtime Forum lurker) here. It was time I joined the community officially :)

 

As my first post, I was wondering if anyone could help me with a bug/issue I'm having with Alfred 5.5 and empty keywords.

 

For a few of my workflows, I follow-up a Keyword input or List Filter object with an empty Keyword input as a method to “ask” a user for additional information (and then I save that input with a subsequent Args/Vars utility). I’ve seen this method detailed in the past as the best way to store additional information during a workflow (see this thread as just one example). And I’ve successfully been doing it this way for years. However, after the 5.5 update, it appears like this method doesn’t work anymore. When my workflows hit that step, nothing happens now (the Workflow essentially stops dead in its tracks).

 

I've attached an Exmaple workflow that illustrates the issue. Please take a look.

 

Has anyone experienced this as well? Or perhaps this is a deprecated technique now? If so, is there an alternative way to ask a user for additional information during a Workflow? (Though I’m well-versed on writing scripts, that seems like overkill and cumbersome; I liked the ease and simplicity of using an empty Keyword.)

 

Thank you for your time and assistance in this matter. It is much appreciated.

 

APS

 

[Stephen_C]

Welcome to the forum.

 

What you wish to do does in fact work perfectly and I use it frequently. Forgive me for giving an example of its use in one of my own workflows on the Alfred Gallery: Find and Replace Text.

 

It's a little difficult to diagnose your problem from the screenshots. If my example doesn't help sort it please upload on a file sharing site (or Dropbox) your workflow and someone willl take a look at it for you.

 

Stephen

[APS]

Hey Stephen, thanks for your response!

 

I downloaed your (excellent) Workflow and, like you said, it's working perfectly fine. Furthermore, I downloaded the Simple To-Do List workflow by the Alfred team in Gallery (used to help Alfred users learn how to use varius workflow objects) and that too has empty keyword objects working correctly.

 

And yet, my workflows are not functioning anymore.

 

I think you're right; uploading and sharing my Workflow will probably help daignose what exactly is going wrong:

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/jq90l144aoug9wgo6d5li/Example.alfredworkflow?rlkey=t8vudfv9qkwmbhaa7pyrbwv20&st=hzgsqmx7&dl=0

 

I really appreciate all the help :)

[Stephen_C]

That works perfectly for me! Just type a space following the keyword at the start and type your first value. Press ⏎, continue, type the second and both display in large type.

 

Edit: If it still doesn't work for you, are any other workflows working, and where are you storing your Alfred preferences?

 

Stephen

Edited Sunday at 04:59 PM by Stephen_C

[APS]

Huh, yeah it still not working for me.

 

Your workflow and the 'Simple To-Do List' example workflow--both of which empoly emtpy keywords--are working fine. But any Workflows I have made in the past or create now doesn't work. Very strange.

 

Even stranger is this: if I connect the keywords objects together (see picture below), it works. That's actually the only way I've gotten it to work, but that flow is inoptimal and unexpected.

 

Oh, and my Alfred preferences are stored in local folder on my Mac.

 

Edited Sunday at 05:58 PM by APS

[Stephen_C]

Well, I have to admit that I'm baffled. I've not come across anything like this before. As a final check would you please confirm exactly what versions of Alfred and macOS you are using (even though at present I can't see that would make much difference).

 

Stephen

[Vero]

@APS Your workflow is working fine for me too. 

 

Could you please provide your Diagnostics file, which you can get by typing "?diagnostics" into Alfred? You can then email it to our info@ address and I can take a look in more details. Please include a link back to this thread so that I can associate the diagnostics to the right conversation

[vitor]

@APS Double-click the connection and set the Window Behaviour to “Don’t close the Alfred window on actioning result”.

[APS]

@vitor Vitor, your suggestion works!

 

And after further testing, adding a delay between the Args/Var and the empty keyword input (even as low as 0.1 seconds) also solves the issue.

 

Given these solutions, I'm curious as to what the underlying problem is. Is Alfred 5.5 more efficient than prior versions and is tripping over itself? But then why is my machine the only one affected here? (FYI I have a MacBook Pro with M1 Pro.)

[Stephen_C]

I must say I don't really understand why Vitor's solution works (although it's clearly the proper thing to do in the circumstances of your workflow to stop Alfred's window flickering between inputs…as the link in Vitor's post explains). There is clearly something else going on given that both Vero and I could run your example workflow without modification.

 

Perhaps I should say that I'm using an M2 Mac and don't need to add any delay to make your workflow work so there's something odd about your setup. I'm sorry not to be more constructive with my suggestions for fully resolving the issue.

 

Stephen

[vitor]

When you action an input, Alfred asks macOS to hide its window. But then in your case it’s almost immediately asking for it to open again. At that point, as @Andrew put it:

 

On 11/13/2023 at 11:30 AM, Andrew said:

Depending on timing, and system load, and OS version, the direction of the wind, whether you had a coffee that morning, you may be lucky and macOS re-shows the List filter Keyword instead of prioritising the request to close the window.

 

So the answer is “don’t worry about it”. If it shows or not happens due to stuff out of Alfred’s control. The option telling Alfred to not close the window is the proper solution because it’s explicit about what you want and Alfred can adapt its behaviour (i.e. not ask macOS to hide the window). Your delay idea worked because it changed the timing of the interaction.

 

23 hours ago, APS said:

Even stranger is this: if I connect the keywords objects together (see picture below), it works.

 

Well observed! That’s because in that specific situation Alfred sees two connected Inputs and can correctly infer what you want and change its behaviour. But again, the proper solution is still to be explicit and tell it not to close.

 

Hope that properly addressed your curiosity. Good job with all the testing to try to figure it out.

[APS]

This is all so great. I actually was unaware of the Window Behavior settings (well, I was somewhat aware of it, but thought it was checked for flickering issues), but that clearly is the right solution here. It explicitly tells Alfred to look out for subsequent steps and acts accordingly. Duly noted henceforth!

 

But what's so great is not only the solution to my problem, but honestly the incredible, thoughtful help I received from Stephen, Vero, and Vitor. Alfred is probably my favorite (and most used) 3rd Party app; it naturally follows that the lovliness of the app is a reflection of the amazing devs behind it and that this lovliness extends beyond its bounds to create a wonderful community around it.

 

Cheers all around!