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Comment by mangeletti | Hacker News Reader

Alfred is absolutely the most game-changing app I've ever been introduced to. I only use it for finding files, searching, opening a page by direct URL, defining words, calculator, translation (via Google), launching apps, and quickly jumping to apps that are already open. It's probably saved me hundreds of hours in clicking around, etc.

I've never purchased the paid version (been using since 2011), but I support them by searching Amazon (results are via affiliate link) when I buy things.

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+1 for Alfred. Must have. A few workflows i use:

- FastDiff (quickly diff selected finder files) - Hash - https://github.com/BigLuck/alfred2-hash - Menu Bar Search - https://github.com/ctwise/alfred-workflows/tree/master/menu-... - Recent Items - http://www.alfredforum.com/topic/713-recent-items-42-for-alf... - Strip clipboard text formatting - https://github.com/notDavid/alfred-workflow-stripClipboardFo... - Transmit - https://github.com/ramiroaraujo/alfred-transmit-workflow - Tunnelblick - Synonyms - https://github.com/notDavid/alfred-workflow-synonyms

Just fyi, Shift + Option + Command + V pastes unformatted text.

i don't have that many fingers

use a decent OS. I can do it with middle click.

In what way is a middle click dependent on the OS? And in what way is moving your hand away from the keyboard to click a mouse better than simply hitting a key combo?

The OS does decide what to do upon middle-click. In X11 (which handles input events and actions on most desktop Linuxes), middle-click pastes text selection.

Shift+Insert is the keyboad equivalent of middle-click, BTW. Apple (or the ecosystem) doesn't have a monopoly on keyboard shortcuts; in fact, it has been my experience that Apple UIs focus on touchpad usage too much, to the point of completely ignoring and skipping keyboard shortcut support.

agreed. i bet even Mozart would have difficulties positioning his fingers like this ;-) Of course you could also assign another shortcut to this with BetterTouchTool or something.

By far my favorite Alfred integration is with Dash, the offline documentation viewer: https://kapeli.com/dash

I have an Alfred workflow with a hotkey of COMMAND+OPTION+CTRL+P that searches Dash. I then type whatever it is that I'm searching for and Alfred displays the likely matches sorted by the docset preference order in Dash. It makes me feel psychic and I can't imagine working without it now.

It's the first feature I show people who ask, "Why use Alfred instead of Spotlight?"

Just installed Dash and it's awesome! Thanks

There's a Windows version called Zeal that's great if you're not on OSX.

I've installed Alfred before but just kept using Spotlight. I never saw why it amazes so many people.

What does it do that Spotlight can't?

See my comment above. For me it seems more accurate.

there is a lot of features in Alfred, but my absolute favorite is the workflows [1]

I use Alfred workflow with dash [2], so i can type "go fmt.Println" into alfred, and jump straight to the man-page.

I also use Alfred workflow with SnippetsLab [3], to open my personal notes in a similar fashion.

    1: https://www.alfredapp.com/help/workflows/
    2: https://kapeli.com/dash

Dash is also an absolutely wonderful app, for having all your coding docs on-the-go. Since I am often without internet access, Dash lets me continue working. It even has offline stack exchange if that rocks your boat.

    3: https://www.renfei.org/snippets-lab/

SnippetsLab provides a very much awesome way of organizing all your snippets of code / notes, etc.

This way of navigating means I have to use the trackpad pretty infrequently.

My only complaint about these tools, is that I'm stuck in Windows at work :-(

For another software I use daily and can no longer live without, it would be tmux.

Would you mind sharing your Alfred dash workflow?

Edit: Found it. For those interested, you need the Alfred Powerpack and Dash installed. Go to Dash Preferences -> Integration & click 'Alfred'.

I use the paste manager A LOT. But that might be only in the paid version.

Ditto. Can't function without the clipboard history.

It isn't so annoyingly stupid like Spotlight. For months, I open a single file called TODO.TXT via Spotlight. I enter T..O..D.. and select TODO.TXT from the list. I don't search for anything else with Spotlight that begins with TOD or even TO. But Spotlight for whatever reason decides that for every second or third search attempt, it must show me an entirely different file than the one I opened a thousand times by pressing exactly these letters.

It is hard for me to grasp how in 2016 a piece of software can be so ignorant to such a simple behavior.

But: It took me a few attempts to start using Alfred. I personally only use it to open files and programs and to search in files. The default behavior with pressing space twice is very annoying if you want to open text files. So I tweaked the settings a bit and now it works for me:

Default Results:

    Essentials: - all unchecked but *Applications*.
    Extras: only check: Folders, Text Files, Documents, Images.

Search within files by starting your search with the word in like "in FOOBAR".

That's what works for me and replaced Spotlight.

I prefer using Spotlight from the command line: https://gist.github.com/senderista/1246300

It can be "taught" to do things. If you want to open something with 1-2 letters you can just repeat yourself a few times (2-4?) and it will learn and remember. Spotlight just does not do this.

That is strange, Spotlight seems to do this for me. I rarely have to type more than 1-2 characters. YMMV.

+1 for Alfred. I have Spotlight completely disabled/hidden because Alfred is just faster and more full-featured.

The paid version is totally worth it for how much time it saves me. I also really enjoy the theming and file management features (which are paid only).

I activate Alfred with my caps-lock key. That way spotlight is still in the usual place. It take a key-mapping app called Seil to make it work, but it's really great.

Sometimes I think Chromebooks stole my idea. :p

I use CTRL CTRL, and I have my command and control keys switched, so it's really CMD CMD on the left corner of my keyboard, which is very convenient, but caps lock is a great idea also.

I only use Seil/Karabiner for re-mapping caps lock but they have been pretty reliable for me :).

About the only Alfred feature I use is multiple item clipboard, and that alone is worth the price of the license for me. I'm going to dig into the other uses that folks have suggested here.

I currently use Launchbar, does anyone have any good examples of where Alfred might be better?

What are some Alfred workflows that you'd recommend?

see my comment above for alfred workflow tips

Ah, only runs on Apple OS's, not Windows. bummer.

I tried Alfred and thought it kind of redundant until one day my sizable collection of PDFs flooded Spotlight's indexer, and I couldn't find any of my apps via Spotlight's search.

Alfred's indexer is superior to Spotlight's, and is much saner in what it prioritizes for viewing over what it doesn't.

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