I am here in this forum to ask a question about the capabilities of this KM. I've never used it, don't own it, don't have a copy, all that jazz. I'm wanting to know if KM can somehow automate video importation into Final Cut Pro. I have some security footage that I need to import in the morning so it's ready to go by the time I sit down. Dirt simple, you would think.
Import is Command-I, and the source videos is a long list that's always in the same place. That directory is a favourite in my FCP, and it's always chosen. So a Select-All would work for that script. I guess you call them Macros in here.
The reason I need some advance importation time as the videos need to render into proxy media for quick scrubbing. That takes some time.
Anyway, I thought I would ask the forum. I'd love to see if this is possible. Looking forward to your replies.
When you said "...if KM can..." my immediate reaction was "yes" even before reading the rest of your message.
KM can simulate keystrokes and mouse presses. It can also "see" what's on a screen. So if your process is based on mouse, keyboard and "seeing" then the answer is yes.
Some things that we want to automate don't even use the mouse. In that case the job is usually trivial. In some cases we don't even have to look at the screen, which also tends to make the process trivial.
Your job is to document what you are doing, and then I can convert that to a KM macro. Every time you press a key, document it. Every time you move a mouse to click on something, document it. Whenever you are moving a mouse you are using your eyes to find something on the screen: document what you are looking for.
Here's my first ROUGH draft of documenting your process, however there's a lot of guesswork here because I don't have FCP:
Launch FCP
Wait until FCP is loaded
Press Ctrl-I in FCP
Wait for dialog box to open
double click on the directory called "abc"
wait for import button
click on import button
wait for FCP to stop showing progress bar
send SMS to my phone saying "import is finished"
Once you document your process, much like this, we can take a stab at writing a macro to achieve your goal.
But since you don't have KM, I think the real point here is to understand how KM works and how you might use it to solve your problem. This message might help you understand those things.
Welcome to Keyboard Maestro (KM) and its Forum.
KM is one of the best Mac automation tools available, its Forum is one of the best and friendliest forums on the Internet. Whenever you reach a tough stumbling block trying to use KM, please feel free to post your question/problem here for help.
There's more info below, but to get directly to answering your question, here are my thoughts:
In all likelyhood KM will be able to automate some, if not all, of your FCP workflows.
While I have FCP, I'm not a frequent user of it, so I can't say for sure.
I would highly recommend that you primarily listen only to those KM users/members who have actually used KM to automate FCP, or at least another NLE app.
One of our most experienced, and helpful members, has done a lot of KM automation with FCP @DanThomas. Hopefully Dan will jump in here with his thoughts.
Finally, Keyboard Maestro does have a free, fully-functional trial version you can use to checkout your own stuff as well as macros written by others and posted here.
Please feel free to post any follow-up questions you may have.
To answer your specific question, KM can definitely do that, for sure, and it would actually be a good macro to start learning with, since it only needs fairly commonly-used actions.
The question you need to ask yourself is this: Do you have the patience to learn a few things? I mean, I could write the macro for you, but the problem with that is, you'll always want something else (trust me on this), and I don't want to be your on-call macro-maker.
So if you're willing to learn, download a copy of KM (free demo), and give it a try. Use the menu item "Help->Tutorial" for a quick start. When you get stuck, come here and do some searches, then ask your questions.
Since I love FCPX automation, feel free to include my name in your questions by typing @DanThomas in the text somewhere, and I'll get an email (I don't monitor the forum like I used to). If the question is specific to FCPX, I'll jump in and answer.
Sorry about that. Replies were in my spam filter. I thought I poked a hole for these.
Anyway found another solution at no cost. But having reviewed the answers here, it might prove beneficial in the future if I'm looking for something of this nature. Thanks for the notes.
You sound just like me, and if your are, KM is a total blast. I've combined KM with JXA (JavaScript for Automation) into some pretty insane stuff (that's geek-insane, of course). Or AppleScript if that's more your style. Consider it - there's a wealth of information on this site, and the world at your fingertips.
Haha...it never ends. And it just gets better. I do AS, but I live in Ruby and Bash. But this sounds more interface-level stuff. I don't have that much demand for this kind of stuff. Recently I'm monitoring security footage that needs overnight translation and import for quick scrubbing. I need to quickly review time-compressed footage every day. Heh.
at the top right of the Action, and select "Help"
