Assigning Triggers Dynamically, if Possible?

[Lucky-Virtuoso]

Hi people

There was something I used to use with autohotkey years ago when I was windows user and now wonder is it possible with KM?

So, all keystrokes used by the script were written in one .ini file and linked to certain functions or labels as they are called in AHK, so when they are pressed, the script would know which function or label to run.

As I make accessibility enhancements for blind that is screen reader users, and we all use only keyboard to work on computer, something like that would be really useful if possible in KM.

The way it works currently in the KM is fine, just a bit slow when user wants to change keystrokes for more then a few macros. I'm just curious to hear about some alternatives if there are any.

Thanks in advance

[peternlewis]

@Lucky-Virtuoso

As I make accessibility enhancements for blind that is screen reader users, and we all use only keyboard to work on computer, something like that would be really useful if possible in KM.

If you are asking if there is some sort of "text" interface to Keyboard Maestro, no, there isn't.

However Keyboard Maestro itself is highly scriptable, including the ability to create or delete macros. For example, see:

Create Text Expansions Macro

Here is a macro that lets you create simple text expansion macros. Simply fill in the text of the action with lines like: trigger:text where trigger is the Typed String trigger you want and text is the text you want to expand to. Then select all the actions and click the Try button at the bottom to run them once and it will create a macro for each expansion. There is no trigger on the macro since its not going to be a macro you want to run except occasionally. Note that to create a new exp…

So you could, for example, have a text file with your mappings, and then you could have a macro that created the macros for those mappings (deleting any existing macros first presumably).

[Lucky-Virtuoso]

Hey Peter

Thanks for sharing this, it is sort of thing that would be really useful.

But is there a way to have list of keystrokes linked to already existing macros, so if keystrokes are changed on this list, the triggers would get changed on macros too?

Or maybe it would be better to ask this: Is it possible to assign triggers to a macro through the scripting?

If I understood you correctly, you said that it's possible to create macros through scripting.

So if there's possibility to select macro groups and macros through scripting, and assign or change their triggers through scripting too, then I'd be able to create custom functionality to get what I actually want.

Thanks

[ccstone]

@Lucky-Virtuoso

But is there a way to have list of keystrokes linked to already existing macros, so if keystrokes are changed on this list, the triggers would get changed on macros too?

Doable via AppleScript

Or maybe it would be better to ask this: Is it possible to assign triggers to a macro through the scripting?

Add Trigger to Selected Macro

set triggerXML to "<?xml version=\"1.0\" encoding=\"UTF-8\"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC \"-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN\" \"http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd\">
<plist version=\"1.0\">
<dict>
   <key>FireType</key>
   <string>Pressed</string>
   <key>KeyCode</key>
   <integer>122</integer>
   <key>MacroTriggerType</key>
   <string>HotKey</string>
   <key>Modifiers</key>
   <integer>2048</integer>
</dict>
</plist>
"

tell application "Keyboard Maestro"
   set theMacro to item 1 of (get selected macros)
   tell theMacro
      make new trigger with properties {xml:triggerXML}
   end tell
end tell

Adds the hotkey trigger ⌥F1 to the selected macro.

So if there's possibility to select macro groups and macros through scripting, and assign or change their triggers through scripting too, then I'd be able to create custom functionality to get what I actually want.

Doable.