Alfred workflow UI problems with iCloud sync
Check out this drag-and-drop behavior:
That is some busted-ass shit. At first, I assumed it was an Alfred bug and just tried to live with it. But it became so obnoxious that I decided it must be something else. Some quick Googling revealed this forum thread. AHA!
(The video is not mine. I borrowed it from that thread.)
It’s caused by storing your preferences with certain sync services, apparently including iCloud and Dropbox. It was driving me nuts, so I had to find an alternative.
Git to the rescue
I decided to move Alfred’s preferences out of iCloud and into my dotfiles git repo, which I already keep in sync across my machines. I’m using the robust simonthum/git-sync tool, which I’ve used successfully in the past, to manage the sync mechanics.
I also built an Alfred Workflow to make it quick and easy to do one of the following:
- run
git-sync; or - view
git status, enter a commit message, and then rungit-sync; or - open my terminal in the dotfiles repo. (If anything gets wonky, I usually want to do this.)
Now I can quickly pull the latest changes, or commit and push the change I just made, with minimal context switching.
Sidebar: I’m using Alfred’s new Text View to display the git status output, and it’s working nicely.
My feels
So good. First, using the Workflow editor without this problem is like a dream. It’s amazing how good “normal” can feel when you’ve been living with shitty.
I like simplicity. In some respects, it’s simpler to have a cloud service take care of sync. Most of the time it just works, and you don’t have to think about it.
On the other hand, iCloud sync is a black box. I don’t know how it decides when to sync or how long the delays might be, how it handles conflicts, whether or how I might lose data, etc. I know many people have had problems with these things.
From that perspective, git is simpler. I’ve been using git for over a decade and know roughly how it behaves. There’s a massive community around it that has answered virtually every question you could ever want to ask. So long as I remember to commit and push my changes (this is the risky part, but I’m pretty good at it), git wins some of the simplicity arguments.
In sum, I think the simplicity factor is a wash.
I like version history. You don’t get any with iCloud sync. Git’s a nice win there!
The Bear team is working on it. I can’t find it now, but I saw a forum thread where a Bear rep said they’re eager to work on improving the sync situation now that they’re all done with the v2 release. I’m looking forward to that. In the meantime, git is feeling like a fine compromise.