Getting a list with modified macro info via JXA

[griffman]

I recently released MacroBackerUpper, which creates Time-Machine-like backups of one's macro library. But it works through a brute force method—it exports everything, does its analysis, then replaces identical files with hard links.

Just after releasing it, I stumbled across this forum thread: Getting Timestamp of Most Recently Modified Macro ... and something like the JXA scripts in that discussion would be very useful to me, as I could then only export (assuming I could figure out how to do that) macro groups that were modified since the last run.

Unfortunately, I know only a small amount of Javascript, and even less JXA. Could that script be modified to return these values?

• Modification date/timestamp
• Macro name and UUID
• Associated macro group name and UUID

Also, where do you learn what things are available within JXA? I tried "groups" in place of "macros" in the above-linked script, but that fails. But I can't find a list of accessible objects anywhere—so how do you know what can and can't be used?

thanks for putting up with my stupid questions;
-rob.

[mrpasini]

@griffman

Also, where do you learn what things are available within JXA?

You parse the XML in the Keyboard Maestro Macros.plist file.

That's how I got the information I use in Macro Reporter:

Macro Reporter Macro

Macro Reporter Macro Latest Version: Macro Reporter 3.0d 6 December 2023 Macro Reporter 3.0d.kmmacros (12.5 KB) I've gotten so used to looking up my text expansions and their triggers in Brevis that I wanted something like that for my non-text expansion macros. And here it is. [ss-900] There are a few macros posted here that do something like this and I borrowed heavily from them. The AppleScript to make lists of active and inactive Macro Groups is derived from @ccstone while the JavaScrip…

[griffman]

I see ... but that's all well beyond my talent level, unfortunately. Thanks!

-rob.

[tiffle]

@griffman

Also, where do you learn what things are available within JXA?

Run Script Editor and create a new document and make sure it's JavaScript:

Then select Window > Library and choose the KM entry:

That opens up the KM sdef dictionary which you can then explore to your heart's content:

As for JavaScript - it's only another programming language (yuk)!!

[griffman]

That's the same as the dictionary for Keyboard Maestro, right? (File > Open Dictionary.) I didn't realize that these were the terms that applied in JXA, too. Thanks.

@tiffle

As for JavaScript - it's only another programming language (yuk)!!

Well, that would increase the list of languages I'm proficient in to ... one.

-rob.

[tiffle]

I don’t know if there’s a one-to-one correspondence between the AppleScript and Javascript dictionaries since I’m not really familiar with the JAX side. Maybe someone who is can chime in…

[tiffle]

@griffman

that would increase the list of languages I'm proficient in to ... one.

You definitely had me fooled (maybe says a lot about me - hmmm.)

[griffman]

I know just enough in a handful of them (python, perl, shell, AppleScript) to do what I want to do, most of the time. But the last time I wrote any "real" code it was in COBOL, way too many years ago :).

-rob.