AppleScript: How to Get a List of Macros in a Macro Group without the KM Editor Being Activated?

Questions & Suggestions
21

Hi @JMichaelTX,
Thank you so much for taking the time to post these examples and referring me to the resource page you created.

The JXA code for getting the macro list was a bit too complex for me. But with some extra googling and reading, I think I've understood most part. Only one thing puzzles me: indexOf("---").
I don't know what "---" is supposed to do?

I read two articles on your resource page that are written for beginners. They are VERY helpful! Now I have a general idea about how JXA interacts with other apps.

22

To provide a coder-friendly JXA script that you and others can use to learn and modify, I have provided this macro/script:

MACRO: Get List of KM Macro Names Filtered By Macro Group and Macro Name [Example]

To get JavaScript coding help on almost any term or expression, just do a Google search with:
"JavaScript <and whatever you want help on."

If have found this very very often provides the info/help I need.

Let me know if you have any JXA questions.

23

I used this in Macro Reporter, Rob, where it functions in an Execute for JavaScript for Automation action as you have it here.

That causes the HTML window of that macro to redraw each time a new group is selected from the popup for a report in the text area below the popup. I've been trying to get around that by folding the JS into the HTML prompt.

But I keep tripping over things. I avoided the Application call (and the getmacros call) with a local variable created in the AppleScript that gets all the group names to begin with.

But then I run into ObjC not being available. Even when I load AppKit. So either I'm lost or it just can't be done.

Somehow I'd like to get from the local variable with the Keyboard Maestro plist XML of all the macros to the HTML list of the macros for the selected group without redrawing the HTML prompt (using a JS function in the HTML head).

Now that I've spun my blinded self around three times, can you point me in the right direction.

Here's as far as I've gotten:

Macro Reporter 2.0a.kmmacros (16.8 KB)

1 Like
24

Pushing on deadline here, but I'll take a look later in the week.

Briefly, though, the ObjC interface is only exposed to the special JSContext set up for osascript – you can't get to it from a browser instance of a JS interpreter (i.e. you can't get to it from JS executing in a custom HTML action).

On the other hand, you should be able to:

  • Generate the data in an osascript context (like an Execute JXA action) using ObjC methods, and store it in a KM variable,
  • then pull it into the Custom HTML action browser JS context using window.KeyboardMaestro.GetVariable
25

Ah, hadn't thought of dismembering the code like that, storing the JavaScript object in a local variable for parsing in the HMTL prompt. I have a premonition the code won't survive my surgery, but I'll give it a shot later today. Thanks.

26

I managed to store the macros in a local variable before displaying the HTML prompt but that revealed a problem with this approach. The data was over 500K from my 1.1-MB plist file. And I suspect I'm on the small side with my macro file.

Thinking it over, I think a better approach would be to revise your function to return JSON-formatted local variable with just a few details from the full macro file for all the macros.

Something like this (but not prettified) which my previous variation of your function already collects:

{ "macro" : [
	{
		"group":,
		"name":,
		"enabled":,
		"used":,
		"triggers":,
	},
]}

That should be a lot smaller variable than what I had (especially if not prettified).

Then for any group selected from the HTML prompt's popup, I can write a function to list anything in the JSON list with that group name, format it as HTML and not have to redraw the HTML window.

The catch is I don't see how to modify your function to return all the macros with their group names and not just ones for a specific group.