Hi All,
Was support for the Griffin Technologies PowerMate removed from Keyboard Maestro?? I can't seem to find it on the Wiki anymore (although various old webpage mentioned it was supported at some point).
I've been trying to use KM to perform actions based on the turning the PowerMate, but I can't seem to be able to figure out how to do it. No matter what KM doesn't seem to detect what I'm doing with the PowerMate…
If you show us your macro, we might spot a problem, if there is a problem.
I don't have anything to show: So far, I've failed to find any of the triggers that KM will react to when I rotate the device.
I had hopes with “USB Device Key Trigger”, but it doesn't detect anything coming from the PowerMate.
Can you tell us if you see anything in the USB Device Key trigger field in the KM Editor? This would tell us whether the problem is in the Engine or in the Editor.
This 2020 thread indicates that at least version 3.1 of the PowerMate software may be necessary, and that there are some other third-party software options which may help.
There's also this more recent software a developer has put out for the Bluetooth version of the PowerMate. No idea if it would also help with the USB version.
I see nothing at all, that's precisely my problem 
I have the PowerMate app and it works fine for most purposes, but I'm trying to get click-and-turn to perform a spacebar-scroll in a specific app and the space bar is not a possibility amongst the modifier keys there.
I tried to use BetterTouchTool as well. I can get the app to detect and use the buttons turns, but it fails to detect "press and turn."
I had hopes that KM could do it, especially since PowerMate support was mentioned in older documentation of the app.
I found a solution: USB Overdrive.
I should still ahve been directly supported in KM without the need to another third party app though and I can't figure out why it wasn't, but at least I can get the device to do what I need now 
Perhaps PowerMate support was for controlling the PowerMate rather than for PowerMate triggers? See the bottom of this page, for example.
Otherwise, the only mentions I can find are for using the buttons as triggers, not knob rotation.
The device is essentially one knob you can rotate, and press down to click. There is no other button of any sort. Not supporting the rotations doesn't make much sense (and limits the use of the device to close to nothing).
Supporting the button is relatively easy -- it's just another "USB Device Key" in KM's eyes.
Supporting rotation is totally different -- and much, much more difficult. If you doubt that, take a look at the list of KM Triggers and note the complete absence of a "mouse scroll wheel" trigger.
I'd love to hear how you get on with USB Overdrive -- my old boss had a PowerMate, and it may still be in a draw at work!
Since you have the PowerMate 3.0 app, you should check to see if it lets you redefine the scroll wheel actions into USB key triggers. That would probably enable KM to see it.
Support for Powermate 3.0 ended 7 years ago, so you may not get it to work the way you want.
Although, though BetterTouchTool I can monitor what output gets sent by the device and it doesn't look all that different. The problem is that BTT is quite erratic and unreliable with this more and I couldn't get it to function.
And again, I had read on various sites that PowerMates were supported at some point (ages ago, I'll admit).
I got it to work just fine through USB Overdrive though: I created two new settings for the Griffin PowerMate. A generic one for all apps where I use it to control volume (up down and mute), and a separate one for Fiji where the click is mapped to Space, Rx up to Scroll up by one line and Rx down to Scroll down by 1 line. If I click-holding and rotate, I get my space-scroll to scroll horizontally in this (weird and nonstandard Java) app.
I might try that. It's not a bad workaround.
On a related note, I have the PowerMate 1.2.5 app, which, counterintuitively, came out after the v3 (it was a complete rewrite from what I remember).
That KM can't and BTT can in an "erratic and unreliable" way are directly related.
KM famously only makes use of Apple's official Public APIs. This makes it very stable and maintains absurdly good continuity across both KM and Apple OS updates.
BTT (and other possible solutions like USB Overdrive and Steermouse) play more fast and loose, also using Apple's not-supposed-to-be-used-by-others private APIs. That why they can do things that KM can't -- it's also why they aren't as well behaved and why they often break when there's an OS update. Their developers do a sterling job fixing things so they're not usually broken for long, but every OS update is a "will this function that I need be gone forever?" moment...
Also -- Yay, Fiji! Not a user myself, but I support a lot of people who would be lost without it.
I get that it might not be easy, but it was supported in KM 2… (and I don’t know how long after that). From what I can read in the documentation, KM supported click, rotations and combinations of both.
My apologies -- I didn't find that page earlier.
So, digging deeper -- support for PowerMate was introduced in KM 2.0. It was withdrawn in KM 3.0, so not around for long. I don't know if that was related to the 2007 PowerMate v2.1 update -- I think KM 3 was released in 2008 -- or was because of something else.