Folder trigger with dynamically created folder?

[anamorph]

Nige, I really appreciate your help on this one. Your method was good, and it taught me a useful first principle that I'll use on other macro problems.

I'm reluctant to use custom scripting because I don't want to pick up another skill to learn right now. If possible, I want to learn how to do this sort of thing with KM and improve my KM skills.

From Peter's suggestions, I was able to determine the path of the PNG file, and then I could use Pause Until File Exists and Pause Until lsof doesn't contain path.

@Nige_S

The advantage of watching the "child" folder is that you don't have to leave a KM macro running to check for further additions to that folder

I'm avoiding the recheck by deleting the "child" folder, forcing Elmedia to create a new enclosing folder for every screenshot. If that breaks down later under field use, I'll likely try your approach.

Thanks again for some great ideas and patient help.

[peternlewis]

@anamorph

Pause until the PNG exists
Pause until lsof does not contain the path of the trigger folder name

You might want a very short pause between those two, as otherwise there is technically the possibility that you would detect the file being created before the file is opened for writing, depending on how they do things in the code. It's highly unlikely it would ever happen in the real world, as Keyboard Maestro actions are slow compared to native code, but a short pause (0.05 seconds) would likely eliminate the possibility without any appreciable extra delay.

[anamorph]

Thanks Peter -- I'll definitely do that.