Activate action doesn't wait long enough; it could use an option to wait

Questions & Suggestions
1

Just a minor issue with the Activate action. When I do something like this:

image

...the OCR action often does its thing on the screen BEFORE the activate action has completed activating the application (even if the application is already open.) Therefore I get the wrong results. I know how to fix this by inserting another action between those two, like this:

image

But it might be better if the Activate action either waited for the application to be at front before it continues, or at least gives you an checkbox option to wait. This would be similar (not identical) to how the Find Image action gives you a checkbox to wait until the image appears.

I guess the response might be "but some apps might take a long time to open a window or don't even open a window or have all their windows minimized." I'm not sure how to respond to that, but if so, maybe the Activate action could have a timeout error if no window appears. It already had a timeout option, which curiously is set by default to 20 seconds. That would seem to address this issue.

In any case, it's only a small issue that can be addressed by the Pause action above.

2

One action, one function facilitates modular composition.

( See: Use of Orthogonal Design in Keyboard Maestro - Questions & Suggestions - Keyboard Maestro Discourse)

  • One action activates,
  • the other waits till a condition is satisfied.

Works well, I find.

3

True, but since KM recently introduced a modification to "wait" in the Find Image action, which parallels what I was asking for here, to "wait" for the app to activate, I thought my request was in keeping with that KM action.