Animated GIFs In Transparent Window

Macro Library
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UPDATED version 1.0.1

Modified the Workflow Suggestion - A long-running macro (actually, a prompt) macro to include a "Cancel This Macro" action at the end of the "Catch" portion of the "Try/Catch" action.

NOTE:

These macros require Keyboard Maestro version 10 and higher.

I love that @peternlewis added transparency to Custom HTML Prompts in Keyboard Maestro 10. There's all sorts of fun things we can be doing with them.

One idea I have is a way to tell the user that some long-running macro is running.

Here's a screengrab, but it's a lot smoother in real-life. This is a screen recording of an animated gif, and the screen recording was then converted to an animated gif, so it's not beautiful:

Screengrab

Here's some macros you can use. You don't even have to know anything about Custom HTML Prompts - you can supply the animated gif separately.

There are a lot of examples, and detailed comments, and they work well. But this is just the start of the discussion. I'm hoping people can come up with some other ideas too.

Feel free to do whatever you want with these. The "license agreements" in the macros just say that you can use the code however you want, and it's not my fault if your computer burns up, or whatever. :laughing:

Animated Custom HML Prompts.v1.0.1.kmmacros (514.8 KB)

7 Likes
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Sound's great. I've been looking for something like this for several weeks. Unfortunately, there is only one macro and three gifs in your archive. Can you check it?

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Hi @magikCT - just double-click on the kmmacros file in Finder. That will install all of @DanThomas’s macros into KM for you.

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Maybe I put in the wrong screenshot to show one macro I had in mind :wink:

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image2384×1272 313 KB

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Something is definitely missing...

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Oh - yes, definitely a problem…

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Oh, I figured out why. You don't have KM version 10. I'll update the post to mention that requirement.

Edit: To clarify, KM won't import the other macros because the Custom HTML Prompt actions in them contain properties that are only valid in KM 10.

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@magikCT @emb4c - My apologies, I did indeed only upload one macro. It's fixed now - try again from the link in the first post. (I feel pretty foolish, but what can you do?)

4 Likes
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Fanstastic! This macro opens up new possibilities for me. Thank you very much! :smile: :smile: :smile:

2021-12-12 18.26.53

2 Likes
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I like that a lot! Very cool.

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I will probably come back to this post when I need to learn how to do this. It is a cool idea. For the moment, I'm using "Display Text Large" in KM for similar purposes.

1 Like
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I love this! Thanks Dan.

1 Like
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Is there any method to cancel the displayed gif when any (or better specific) macro is not running (for example, it stopped working due to an error)?

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image790×430 31.3 KB

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I mean this situation:
I run macro A. Macro "A" works + gif "Macro A is running ..." is displayed. Meanwhile, macro "A" is terminated because an error occurred. After that, the gif "Macro A is running ..." is still displayed. I wish the gif was not shown when the macro is not working, for whatever reason.

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See the "try/catch" method used in the Workflow Suggestion - A long-running macro (actually, a prompt) macro. If you close the animation at the end of the "try" section, AND in the "catch" section, that should probably solve the problem.

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Great! Works like a charm:)

1 Like
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Thank you.

1 Like
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I'm glad you're playing with this animation idea. I was hoping someone else could have some fun with this. If you have any suggestions or questions, please fire away!

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Now I'm working on having a gif generated automatically in the background based on the text taken from %TriggerValue% or %ExecutingMacro% :smiley:
The goal is to display a gif with the name of running macro and the blinking dots like in preloaders :slight_smile:

4 Likes