Feature Request: Start/Stop Hazel by shortcut

[jraduenz]

Hi,

at the moment it seems there is no way to stop or start Hazel by keyboard shortcut.
It would be great if you could make this work.

I'm using Hazel numerous times every day and sometimes need to stop it, which would be easier by shortcut.

tl;dr: Luxury problem

[Mr_Noodle]

Why do you need to stop it so often?

[jraduenz]

My company builds plugins for Adobe InDesign. I'm testing this plugins. We are building several plugins every day. I download them, and Hazel deletes old versions from my plugins folder, moves the downloaded plugin to the plugins folder, unzips it and restarts InDesign.
But a few times a day I have to deliver a plugin to customers or colleagues. I have to stop Hazel now because in this case I need to move it to a different location and don't need InDesign to restart and so on.

[Mr_Noodle]

Not sure if this will work for you but if you can apply a color label to the plugin before it gets to Hazel, you can use that to route things appropriately.

Also, not sure if this will work but if you go to your Keyboard preferences and click on "Shortcuts", you can define keyboard shortcuts for menu items. I think it only applies to the main menubar and not the menus for menubar items but it's worth a shot.

[sjk]

… but if you go to your Keyboard preferences and click on "Shortcuts", you can define keyboard shortcuts for menu items.

Do you mean the Application Shortcuts pane of the Keyboard Shortcuts tab under System Preferences > Keyboard? I couldn't find any way to add shortcuts for Stop Hazel and Start Hazel there. Maybe something like Keyboard Maestro or something less pricey (if just for this purpose), e.g. AppleScript-fu, can do it.

[nikivi]

I also vouch for ability to add a shortcut or a terminal command that would allow to start/stop Hazel. Ideally from the same shortcut/command.

My use case is that I have a Hazel rule that automatically commits files when I make any changes to them. I want to be able to very quickly stop Hazel from running. Sometimes I want to save and preview the rendered markdown I changed without committing. Ability to start/stop Hazel from running with a hotkey would be perfect for this.

I really hope you consider adding this feature. Thank you.

[Mr_Noodle]

Will consider it but in the meantime, you might want to add conditions to your rules to accommodate this. For instance, you can use color labels to either indicate which files you want to match or alternatively, color the files to indicate that these files shouldn't be processed.

[NaOH]

Quitting and launching Hazel can be done with AppleScript:

Code: Select all

set appName to "HazelHelper"

if application appName is running then
   tell application id (id of application appName) to quit
else
   tell application id (id of application appName) to activate
end if

Combine that with something like Keyboard Maestro (paid) or FastScripts (free for a limited amount of keyboard shortcuts) and Hazel's running status could be toggled by the user with a keyboard shortcut.