Using hazel for kinkless desktop rules

Hi,

i saw the use of hazel at the kinkless desktop screencasts of Ethan Schoonover and like ist so much i downloaded hazel directly. The rules seem to work as they should but it takes about 20 to 30 seconds till hazel sets the label of new items in the inbox to green label. All other rules have the same problem. Is this the normal "reaction time" of hazel? I would have expected i changes the labels quicker. I hope to gebt some feedback here in the forum. I use a MacBook Pro with Mac OS 10.5.2 and the newest version of hazel.

By the way, fascinating software! I like it very much! Thanks for feedback!

It depends on the type of rule and if the file is in a subfolder or not. For something time based, then there will possibly be a delay. For something that changes the folder that Hazel is monitoring directly (i.e. not in a subfolder) and that Hazel can act on immediately (i.e. not after some time-based criteria) will happen right away. Otherwise, Hazel will catch it when it scans periodically. Leopard does provide better file notifications than Tiger but Hazel is currently supporting both OS versions.

In this particular case (the rule to color files gree), Hazel may react much more quickly when I switch everything over to Leopard (I need to check whether checking the date last opened triggers a notification on Leopard). In any case, it's unclear when Hazel will go Leopard-only so for now, you may get a delay.

Thanks for your quick reply.

The rules run directly in a folder, which is on the desktop. If i download a file the rule says it should set the label of this file to green. But nothing happens. If i look in the preview for file matches Hazel displays it right (set label to green) but the label does not change. If i click "run rules now" it sets the label correctly to green. If i add another file the same happens. So Hazel seems to detect the files right but does not execute the matched rules.

Is there anything that slows down Hazel?

You can check the logs (go to the "Info" pane and click "View Log") and see if there is anything happening there.

One thing to note is if you are testing by dropping the same files into the folder over and over, Hazel will only color it the first time. It remembers what rule it last ran on the file and won't run it repeatedly. The reason it works when you do "Run Rules Now" is that it forces it to re-run any rules even if they already were applied to that file.

If this is not the case, then let me know what you find in the logs.