First look: Alfred 2.0 adds Workflows, customizable themes
As my mother always told me, the three things you don’t discuss at the dinner table are money, politics, and launcher applications. But we aren't at the dinner table, so I’m not afraid to tell you about the latest update to my launcher app of choice: Running with Crayons’s Alfred 2.0.
The original Alfred was a wildly capable application that not only let you launch other programs on your Mac via your keyboard, but also allowed you to do things like perform Web searches directly from its window, store snippets of frequently-used text for quick access, and even control your music playback in iTunes. The good news is all those features remain in Alfred 2.0.
One feature has fallen by the wayside, however. Alfred also offered Extensions that would let you perform a variety of other sometimes complex functions via AppleScript and Terminal scripting, as well as interact with groups of files and search filters. But though Extensions are gone in Alfred version 2.0, the app’s developers have taken the idea behind them and turned it into something even more powerful: Workflows.
Alfred 2.0's Workflows allow you to automate some truly powerful tasks.
If you associate the term “workflow” with OS X’s own Automator, you’ve pretty much hit the nail on the head. Alfred’s Workflows are a lot like that built-in Mac feature, allowing you to create powerful, multipart processes that can do everything from offering live search result suggestions from a website to showing you your local weather forecast.
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