A youtuber I listen to to recently recommended RCMD as a launcher. The functionality of the launcher is very simple: it basically allows you to hit right-cmd and a key-press and launch or bring-to-focus any app.
For example, right-cmd+f is mapped to Firefox.
Looking at this, I didn't see any reason why you can't duplicate this in KM...but then the issue is the lack of being able to map specific modifiers. It doesn't look like KM can differentiatiate between modifiers [1]. And this is a significant issue as I am running out of modifiers to use.
Does anybody have thoughts?
Do you have further thoughts on fast launchers done in a fashion similar to RCMD?
[1] How to Remap Only Right Command Key (But Leave Left Command Key Same)?
As you will have noted, the page that you link to mentions some applications that, unlike Keyboard Maestro*, have been written to take advantage of Apple APIs that are not “public”. You can of course use these applications in conjunction with KM: for example, set up a right-command trigger in BetterTouchTool to send an Applescript message to a KM macro.
There have been a number of related discussions about app launchers and how they might be emulated in KM. Have a trawl through subject headings from the past 6 months or so. In particular, this discussion about Leaderkey may spark some ideas.
* See Peter’s reply in a related thread for an explanation of this design decision.
While it's possible to make this work, the problem is that it's tricky to not have those keys seen by the application that was frontmost when you invoked the macro. Press Right Command-F in Safari, for instance, and Firefox opens, but Safari also enters page search mode. That's because Safari doesn't know the difference between the two Command keys, and Command-F is Find.
With Command-F, you could have the macro send Escape before launching Firefox, as that's semi-universal for "cancel search." But that wouldn't help with other commands that match a given app's keyboard shortcuts.
As @kevinb pointed out, and as discussed in the thread you linked to, there are tools that can do this better than can Keyboard Maestro.
-rob.
Hello!
Thank you for this. This actually gave me a good use for Better Touch Tool, which can perform this functionality!
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Have you looked at "Hyper-Key"? Not the same thing as what you are trying to accomplish but it gives extra set of hot-keys.
@phario KM is certainly not the best app to do this, but have a look here
Back when I used keyboards that had a caps lock key, I certainly found it useful to reassign it to be a "hyper” key. Making the caps lock key “hyper” conveniently unifies ⇧,⌃,⌥ and ⌘ into an “extra” (if otherwise unused!) key that is easy to press, but of course that combination of keys can already be pressed simultaneously—albeit with some awkwardness on a keyboard that has the historical layout.
Although most people would not want to move away from conventional physical key layouts, it might be worth mentioning again that there are alternatives for anyone who finds “normal” keyboards limiting or difficult to use—but when one uses a standard layout, Karabiner Elements is one way to get more out of it.