The thing is, KM's text editor, in these actions, is only 5 lines tall, and sometimes that's not enough to work comfortably ( 5 update: this is no longer true in KM 5 whose text fields grow as you type). I use a lot the Execute AppleScript and Execute Shell Script actions, storing my scripts in KM (as opposed to having them in a file and just pointing KM to this file). The first couple of macros is for KM itself. But I also have some macros that are more generalist and could be used by others. Lots of them are made to simplify or automate tasks that are specific to me or to my workflows and would be of no use to anyone else. The separator trick doesn't work with them, though. Since KM 5, you can use a dash as macro name, which is displayed in the menu as a separator.ĥ Also new in KM 5, AFAIK, is the possibility to prefix group names in the same way, so you can reorder them too in the menu. The second trick is to use those prefixes to make separators out of empty macros, like "10)-" and "20)-" above. Here's what that Text submenu looks like from KM Editor: ![]() The first trick is that you can prefix a macro name with a number, followed by a closing parenthesis, and that prefix will be used for sorting the macros but won't be displayed in the menu or in palettes (thanks again to Peter for implementing that feature when I was the only one bugging him about it!). But there's also a couple of tricks to organize the menu items themselves, like in the Text submenu below. Along with using and naming groups as I explained above, it allows me to organize the menu nicely. My preferences for displaying the Status Menu are set to "Always Show Status Menu" and "Display Status Menu: Hierarchically" (from the General pane of the Preferences window). It makes it even easier to find the group you're looking for: That way I always know where to look for a given macro, and my KM menu and editor are neatly organized.Ħ In KM6 you can give icons to groups and macros, which is pretty cool. "TAB SWITCHERS", where I keep the macros to switch between tabs in Safari and Fluid instances (I often use KM to remap hotkeys that are unpracticable on my AZERTY keyboards), or "RESTARTER" where I keep macros that run when an application launches to restore its windows. The last kind of group is named all in capitals, like "SWITCHERS", where I keep the macros to switch between applications and windows. For example "Clipboard" contains all my macros that deal with clipboards, "Text" contains only macros that affect text selections, "Launch" contains macros that launch applications or documents, and so on. I have a different group for each kind of task. The groups of the second kind are named the usual way (for example "Clipboard"). Mail submenu in the second screenshot below).Application Name" displayed at the top of KM's menu (for example, see the.Application Name", so with the menu preferences I use (see below), for each frontmost application the macros specific to that application appear in a submenu named something like ".groups that are available in all applications but aren't displayed in the menuĪll the group of the first kind are named like ". ![]() groups that are available in all applications (AKA global groups) and displayed in the menu.groups whose macros are available in a given application and displayed in the menu.To organize all this, I have three different kinds of groups: And macros that are used too rarely to have a hotkey are in the menu too, of course. Most of my macros have for triggers a hotkey and the status menu item, so the hotkey is displayed in the menu when I need a reminder. Using KM to move a window to a given space 6 Tips related with Keyboard Maestro 6 or added after its release will be indicated by this icon: 6 Keyboard Maestro 6 has been released in May 2013, again with tons of new features. There are many updates and new tips in the present document related to Keyboard Maestro 5, and they are indicated by this icon: 5 Keyboard Maestro 5 has been released in July 2011, with lots and lots (and lots) of new features. Enjoy! And if you find this page really useful and wonder how you might show your appreciation, well clicking the PayPal button at the bottom and making a small donation would do it quite nicely. So I decided to share some of my experience with KM and compiled this list of tips and tricks. I'm so used to using KM that it has become almost completely intuitive to me, but reading and answering questions on KM's mailing list, I realized that some things which are obvious to me aren't so to everybody. ![]() I won't list its features here, because there's too many of them (and you can find that list on its website) but I'm pretty sure that if you're reading this, you know about it already. Keyboard Maestro (4.3.1 at the time of original writing) is a fantastic macro program that I've been happily using (and beta testing) for years and for tons of different things.
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