Feature Request: Interactive Pop-Up Windows

Hey there,

I started using Hazel and it is great.
But I'm missing (or haven't discovered yet?) a feature, which let you interactive "help" Hazel to organize files.
I know, that's against the idea of "complete automatic organizing", but I don't like the fact, that Hazel does EVERYTHING without my permission.

Example Cases:
1)
If file is older than 5 days -> Delete it.
--> Here it would be nice to add a pop up window: Are you sure you want to delete these files... because otherwise perhaps some files are deleted which you just haven't seen. (And you not always notice the growl report)

2)
If file containts "image" --> Create new folder and move it
--> Here I would like to specify the folders name. I can only create the name out of given attributes, but it would be really great if the "other" attribute would make it possible to get a pop up and just write a short name in it and that this is inserted automatically.

All in all:
- Renaming: Add indivually name through a pop up
- Every Action: Add a pop up, which let you confirm the action (would be a "stronger" action than just a growl notification, and sometimes it would be usefull)

thanks

bye
xaMax

ok, I tried a little bit more, an at least for the first problem I found a work around...
you can set Growl Information for every Application itself and you can set it for Hazel, that it stays on the screen, until you click it... that's quite good...

but nevertheless, the action then has been executed - would be better, if you could confirm it BEFORE the action is executed

For your first case, you could try coloring the file red instead of throwing it away. That way, you can scan the folder and try and save the red files.

In the next version, I've added extended AppleScript support. In such a case, you will be able to "stop" execution of the rule by setting a status in your script. So, your script can bring up a dialog and decide to continue or abort depending on the button clicked.

You won't be able to return an arbitrary value, though, like some text entered into a dialog. I'll look into that but at this point it probably won't make the cut for this version.

Keep in mind anytime you do this, it will stall execution of rules on that folder until you dismiss the dialog.

thanks for your fast reply!!

Mr_Noodle wrote:For your first case, you could try coloring the file red instead of throwing it away. That way, you can scan the folder and try and save the red files.

yes, but it's more comfortable just clicking: "yes delete" or "no don't delete", than marking it read and deleting it manually

Mr_Noodle wrote:You won't be able to return an arbitrary value, though, like some text entered into a dialog. I'll look into that but at this point it probably won't make the cut for this version.

Keep in mind anytime you do this, it will stall execution of rules on that folder until you dismiss the dialog.

would be great if this comes someday... because I don't have deep knowledge in applescripts
and that the rules are stopped, for me it wouldn't matter, because mostly it's in my workflow...

(for example: you copy your new images from the digital camera, put it in a hazel-controlled-folder and all the pictures are renamed and put in another folder with a name, which you can just type in)

but let's see, what the next version brings with applescript

I'd just like to put in a vote for pop up windows integrated into hazel instead of via applescript. I personally find applescript very hard to write and poorly documented (which is ironic since it's supposed to be simple and i have no problem coding assembly, c, or php), but Hazel's user-friendly regex system has been awesome. If you made a user friendly popup system that let you fill in missing tokens that would be awesome (especially if you could provide a drop down of locations and complex things like that so i could have it move all word docs to one of 3 folders and ask me which one before they moved)

I'll consider it but I don't want to end up doing a whole GUI builder and metalanguage for constructing dialogs. It will be tricky to do it without having it blow up into a huge interface but it's on the list for now to think about.