Help needed with Fade In Pro navigation macros

Questions & Suggestions
1

Hi all, hoping I can get some help building some keyboard shortcuts for Fade In (screenwriting software), please?

I want to be able to set up a keyboard shortcut or two that will focus the Navigator panel (which lists each scene in the document), select a scene from the list using up/down keys (or the current scene based on the cursor position in document), and activate the contextual right-click menu. From here, I can activate various scene-specific edit functions - copy, cut, select etc.

The problem I've got is there's no keyboard shortcuts to either navigate to this panel as the focus area, or select and right-click the scene listing. There are a lot of app functions that can have a keyboard shortcut associated with them, but this panel doesn't appear to be one of them; I can toggle it on/off but that's it, and turning it on doesn't appear to focus it. The devs advise turning on MacOS's Full Keyboard Access for navigation, except I'm finding it's not working reliably (or at all).

Click at Image Found or Move Mouse doesn't seem likely to be a reliable option either, due to the nature of the UI. Each scene listing's header wording is (obviously) largely unique, and scrolling the scene list doesn't move each listing up/down in a uniform manner. So I can't reliably move the cursor to the right position (because that always changes), or use an image to select the correct listing.

Given all the above, I'm a bit stumped! Does anybody have any ideas on how I can create some macros to navigate to/around this panel and activate the right-click menus in the app, please?

2

I'm not sure what you mean by "due to the nature of the UI." I see some blue squares on the right side of that panel which would be very amenable to Find Image.

I don't know what you mean by "right position." You will have to define that, I think. For example, do you have a chapter name already in your head, and maybe you want the macro to scroll until that chapter is visible, then right click on it? You see, I don't understand what the problem is yet.

I have solved problems similar to this in the past.

3

I have just tried the demo version and I think this is all your macro needs to get started:

First use a Select or Show a Menu Item action to select View > Navigator…

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… and then a Move or Click Mouse action to click on an empty part of the Navigator panel (near the bottom would be sensible, of course). Use the "Get" button to help you choose that location.

You can then use the up and down arrow keys to select the scene. If you wish to automate that, you will need the Type a Keystroke action.

Positioning the mouse pointer on the desired scene, in order to control-click on it, might be the next issue to tackle, but I have to leave it there. I do suspect that the macro might face a few challenges, but take it one step at a time and of course ask if you get stuck—someone will have an answer!