The one in which you control iTunes with keywordsWith the 0.9 updates to the Powerpack, it’s gotten even easier to control your iTunes music library and navigate to the best music.
Whether you are in the main Alfred window or inside the iTunes Mini Player, you can now use keywords to play or pause the currently playing song, select next or previous track or play a random album. With keywords you can also quickly and easily toggle volume to maximum, half or completely mute your music.
You can customise these keywords in Preferences > Features > iTunes > Keywords.
Tracks
The one in which you change the default fallback searchesMake Alfred truly reflect your needs and the places that you search most often.
With the Powerpack, you can change the three default fallback searches that show up for queries that do not correspond to a predefined keyword (by default, Alfred will offer searching Google, Wikipedia and Amazon).
To set your own up, go to Preferences > Features > Fallback Searches and customise your three choices, using both the list of pre-defined web searches as well as any of your custom searches.
You can also specify whether you want fewer than three fallback searches. Your top-most fallback search will be, within Alfred, considered your default search engine.
Now you’ll have the links/search engines that you use most often right there when you need them.
The one in which you navigate time zonesIf you’ve ever had to set up a meeting with someone on the opposite side of the world, you know just how tricky it can be to get the time zones right.
Here’s a little tip for setting up a custom search to access a great world time zones site.
Go to http://www.worldtimebuddy.com/ and customise the list of cities that you’d like to see times for. After you’ve selected your cities, copy the URL and enter it as the Search URL for a new custom search in Alfred.
Now a quick check is just a keystroke away!
The one in which you call someone via FaceTimeDon’t forget that you can use the custom search functionality in Alfred not only to search websites but also to interact with some of the apps on your Mac.
Here’s a way to set up a custom search with which you can then easily call your contacts using FaceTime:
Search URL: facetime://{query}
Keyword: ft (or whatever you prefer)
In which case you could then type “ft email@email.com” and call your friend :).
Anna's Alfred Hat Tips: The one in which you exclude files and folders from Alfred’s results:...
The one in which you exclude files and folders from Alfred’s results: overviewWe try to make Alfred results as relevant to you as possible and giving you many ways to control what shows up and what doesn’t show up when you search using Alfred.
Here’s a little overview of the different ways you…
The one in which you teach Alfred (a lesson)Alfred really is a clever butler and learns your preferences with just a few searches. If you consistently use the same keyword for specific applications or file searches, Alfred will remember and sort the results based on this internal knowledge.
In the example above, I’ve been using the keyword “S” to open Skype and “Sk” to open Skitch. Similarly, I could train Alfred to always offer Google Chrome first when I type in “C” and iCal when I type in “Ca”. All it takes is launching your app a few times with your desired keyword and Alfred will learn to predict what you’re most likely searching for.
Isn’t he a clever one!
Anna's Alfred Hat Tips: The one in which you track packagesEvery little helps. It can be the...
The one in which you track packagesEvery little helps. It can be the seconds/minutes that you save during the day and whose accumulation ultimately saves you precious time and productivity. So why not make use of Alfred even for little tasks?
Let’s take the example of tracking packages. With…
The one in which English is not your native languageI’m a Czech living in the UK and even though I’ve been here for over 3 years, I still find myself facing moments when a phrase or a piece of vocabulary catches me off guard.
So here are a few tips for using Alfred in the foreign (or not so foreign) lands:
- Google Translate web search - my keyword is set to “tr” (change this under Preferences > Features > Web Searches), great for quickly checking the meaning of sentences or phrases in almost any language
- Set a custom search for your own favourite dictionary - If there’s a dictionary in your native language that you prefer, why not set a custom search for it? Here’s a tutorial from one of our users on how to do this (Thanks @jdfwarrior)
- “Spell” keyword - This has saved me embarrassment plenty times. In fact, I just pasted “embarrassment” into this tip straight from Alfred ;)
- “Define” keyword - Useful even for native speakers for checking you’re actually spelling what you think you’re spelling.
The one in which you launch multiple apps or filesWorking on a project and want to launch all files that pertain to it? Have a list of apps that you need to fire up any time you start work on this project?
You don’t need to open these one at a time.
Assign the same Spotlight Comment to each of these apps or files (do this under “Get Info” when you Ctrl-click on them or see our help page for troubleshooting) and then set a keyboard shortcut in Alfred that will Action all visible results (under Preferences > Keyboard > General - towards the bottom).
For example, as a writer I may want to launch Scrivener, Evernote, Google Chrome and Reeder to get my creative juices flowing! Adding the Spotlight Comment “wwrite” will then allow me to search just for these (see screenshot above) and hitting Cmd+Return will launch all of them at once.
Note: If you want to mix launching apps and files together, make sure that you’ve got the appropriate file types selected to show in Default Results, otherwise you’d need to use keywords “find” and “open” to search for documents.
alfredtips:
The one in which you add applications’ iconsBy now you probably know that you can add customised icons to your Extensions and custom searches.
Here’s a quick way to copy the icon of one of your apps to use in Alfred:
- Search for the app whose icon you want to use in Alfred
- Right-click to call up list of actions and select “Get Info”
- Click on the icon in the top left corner of the “Get Info” Panel and press Cmd-C
- Open Alfred’s Preferences and click to add a new custom search/extension
- Click inside the icon field in the popup window for adding your new search/script
- Press Cmd-V to paste the icon
