Enhancement Request: Add Optionable Columns to Macro List

Questions & Suggestions
1

###Enhancement Request: Add Optionable Columns to Macro List

@peternlewis, I just discovered the "Sort by" menu item. This is really helpful.

Could you please allow us to optionally add any/all of the Sort by fields as columns in the Macro list, and then sort on a column by clicking it?

Thanks.

2

I don’t know if columns would work well with the editor as is.

What about a popup sort button in the toolbar?

-Chris

3

Why? Most apps that use this approach (like the Finder) allow you to size the columns, and you can resize both the Macro panel and the whole KM window when needed.

We've already got the menu to choose sort options, so the popup doesn't really help.
I want columns so I can view the entire list of when each Macro was, for example, last modified.

4

Hmm, I’m not keen to add a whole bunch of columns to the Macros column (yes, the Finder has multiple resizable columns, but only in List view, not in Column view which is more like Keyboard Maestro’s window). Aside from being a lot of work, it would be very cluttered, and problematic having columns within columns.

If the popup menu to select the view is of no use, then I’ll scratch that off the list (that is doable, but no sense doing it if it doesn’t solve the problem you’re trying to solve).

I don’t see any other solution to the explicit problem of “view the entire list of when each Macro was last modified”. You can sort by modification date, and you can use the Macro Inspector while you step through the macros, but that doesn’t show you all of them at the same time.

It’s possible there could be some sort of report view, but I’m not sure what that would look like. It’s also plausible that the plist could be parsed to generate a report view outside of Keyboard Maestro.

Other than that, I’m not sure what to suggest.

5

Hey JM,

I think you don't realize the enormous amount of work that would entail – and as Peter mentions complexity and clutter.

The reason I suggested a popup-button is that JM said he “just discovered” the sort feature.

He's been using Keyboard Maestro at a high level for how long now? And he's not the first person to mention this.

I think the visual aid would help users discover the feature - AND it would be a visual cue for the current sort. I get bit now and then, because I've changed the sort and it's different than normal.

In fact – I think it wouldn’t be a bad idea to offer some customization of the toolbar. There are a lot of people who are click-centric.

-Chris

6

Since I don't have access to the KM source code I have no idea of whether it would be easy or hard to implement. I do know that most languages have a table/list object that easily support s user selected columns.

Just about every app I use offers this: Evernote, Outlook, Finder, Quiver, etc. In fact, I can't think of any app that manages records that does not offer it. Even the new ASObjC Table Script Lib by Shane offers multiple, clickable, columns.

I don't see the clutter nor the complexity.

  • The current KM Macro list already has two columns, name and trigger, and you can change the sort order by clicking on each column.
  • Since that would be the default, there is NO "clutter", unless the user want to add a column, and I would not call that "clutter"
  • Right-clicking on the list headers to select which columns are displayed is a VERY common UI method.
  • So where is the complexity???

Surely if the team at Evernote can do it, it can't be that hard.

Keyboard Maestro

####Examples from Other Apps

Finder

Outlook

Evernote

7

Trust me, it would be a lot of work.

I’ve never seen anything with columns within columns, so the UI design would have to be done very carefully.

Also, it would almost certainly mean the column would have to be horizontally scrollable.

None of the system UI elements for handling lists/tables work with Keyboard Maestro’s level of animation, so its all custom, and this would have to be all custom as well.

In any event, it would be sufficient amounts of work that there is pretty much no chance it would come in in anything other than a major version.

8

I do trust you, and I did not at any point suggest how much work would be involved.

That confuses me. Don't you already have two columns now, "Name" and "Trigger"?

If it would help simplify implementation, the main field I'm interested in is Modified Date.
So if you want to have two views selected by popup and/or shortcut, with one of them including Mod Date, I could definitely live with that.

I've survived this long without seeing a Mod Date, so I'm sure I can survive until the next major ver. :wink:

Thanks for considering the change.

9

Sorry, I misspoke. I really mean "column header". Is in, having a bunch of columns with a column header, all inside one column.

That would be a lot easier to implement. It would be a somewhat weird UI, but it would be reasonably doable to implement something where you could select the right portion of the column. So along the lines of the Sort Macros by menu, there would be an equivalent Show in Macros Column (or contextual menu) which let you select one of the entries there (excluding Name).