Demo: Scripting nested actions

You can lead a horse to water...

I will work on tweaking this so it just always colors all of the actions to my default colors and then I can change anything as needed like red if I need to work on change the color of just one action using Jim's macros.

It'll take me some time to process it all but I will get there. Thank you for the explanation of how it works.

Color Coding

Keyboard Maestro Action Color Coding

:heartpulse: Magenta – Flow Interruption
Used when macro execution pauses or awaits user input, stopping normal flow. Actions:
• Pause
• Pause Until
• Prompt for User Input
• Display Dialog
• Display Alert
• Prompt With List Rationale: Magenta = intentional halt in automation for user interaction or timing.

:yellow_circle: Yellow – Flow Control
Used for logic branching, macro structure, and conditional flow. Actions:
• If Then Else
• Switch/Case
• While
• Repeat
• For Each
• Break From Loop
• Continue Loop
• Cancel Macro
• Return from Macro Rationale: Yellow = forks in logic, conditionals, loop controllers.

:green_circle: Green – Flow Continuation
Used for UI automation or direct progression through tasks. Actions:
• Type Text
• Type Keystroke
• Press Button
• Click at Found Image
• Move and Click
• Scroll Wheel
• Select or Choose Menu Item
• Drag
• Insert Text by Pasting Rationale: Green = linear steps with no interruptions or logic changes.

:purple_circle: Purple – Data Management
Used for transforming, storing, and managing variables and data structures. Actions:
• Set Variable to Text
• Set Variable to Calculation
• Set Variable to JSON
• Set Variable to Clipboard
• Delete Variable
• Filter Variable
• Process Tokens in Text
• Search and Replace
• Dictionary Actions (Set/Get/Delete)
• Math Functions Rationale: Purple = underlying data logic and transformations.

:large_blue_circle: Aqua – Organizational Structure
Used to visually organize and group macro logic for readability. Actions:
• Group (action container for organizing)
• Submacro Rationale: Aqua = structural layout and readability (not execution flow).

:blue_square: Teal – Documentation & Annotation
Used strictly for internal communication within the macro. Actions:
• Comment
• Notification (used as inline reminders or flags)
• Display Text (when purely for developer reference) Rationale: Teal = non-functional info to help the macro builder.


The following two colors Red and Orange I would manually change on my own as needed after standard color coding has been applied.

Change Manually or Individually

:red_circle: Red – Work in Progress / Needs Attention
Used to mark incomplete, buggy, experimental, or temporary actions. :white_check_mark: You can apply this to any action needing review or in active development. Examples:
• Temporary Set Variable
• Placeholder Execute Macro
• Incomplete logic sections Rationale: Red = needs attention, debugging, or validation.

:orange_circle: Orange – User-Configurable Elements
Used for actions likely to require user edits or maintenance over time. Actions:
• Execute Macro (if macro name could change)
• Set Variable (user-editable content)
• Open URL
• Find Image
• Type Text (customizable content)
• Create New Folder (in Finder – user-defined paths) Rationale: Orange = things the user may modify often.

Okay this is beyond me, I have been messing with this for a little bit and haven't figured it out. If you have time could you possibly get me started by how I would modify this macro to just start color coding specific macro actions to my default color scheme (no prompt just color the selected macro with the defaults I listed.)?

This might be a massive undertaking to have to pull out each action type I have listed and not really feasible.

I think it is really quite amazing that you have made it so it shows them all in the same group with numbers for the macros that are the same type.