Hello,
I use Scrivener a lot. All files have the -scriv extension and open with the Scrivener app (vaguely resembles Evernote but many more functions)
I am trying to figure out the simplest way to create a macro which does the following:
open the folder
display all the files in the folder (about 25 total). If need be I can reduce to 9.
before each filename, display a number / letter
simply by typing the corresponding letter/number, open the corresponding file in Scrivener
Please note that the fact that these are Scrivener files is irrelevant. The could be Pages or Excel files.
Thank you very much in advance for your time and help
It does NOT provide a letter/number to select the file
But all you need to do to select a file is just type the first few characters of the file name.
From there you can use the up/down arrows to select
Then just press RETURN to open the file.
It is possible to add a select by letter/number, but to be honest I'm not sure it is worth the effort. You would also give up a lot of cool features offered by the standard Choose File dialog (like sorting by different columns) and also give up use of powerful tools like Default File X.
I'd suggest that you give this a try for a while to see if it will work for you.
[MACRO: Choose File to Open or Read into KM Variable @JXA](https://forum.keyboardmaestro.com/t/choose-file-to-open-or-read-into-km-variable-jxa/6914)
**NOTE: You will need to change the "SCPT__ParentFolder" to a folder your prefer.** It is the first Action.
Thank you for the macro which now works.
I have default foder X, but use it the most basic way (save as …).
How could it be used to solve the same problem. I had not thought about it.
thanks again
Just to mention alternatives – Alfred and LaunchBar also can be used for this sort of activity: display folder contents and select file action with hotkey.
Type something like “documents” to make your Documents folder show up
If it is not already selected, then select it.
Press…
Right Arrow to see the folder contents hierarchically
Spacebar to see the flat folder contents
Select file actions
Navigate to the desired file in LB and select it. Now you can either…
type one of the preconfigured hotkeys, for example ⇧⌘R to rename the file or ⌥⌘A to assign an abbreviation. [1]
or press the Tab key to send the selected file. You can send it one of your actions, or you can send it to another folder, or to an application to open it, etc., many possibilities…
These things are also explained in the online help.
[1] If you don’t have memorized the preconfigured hotkeys, then simply click the top-most item to open the contextual menu:
Then you should see it either at the top of the list, or further down. (You can scroll the list with the mouse wheel or the Arrow keys.)
If you find it further down, then select it and open it. The next time you try, it should appear at the top (or at least near the top), since LB will try to learn what you are searching for. (You are training it by doing, to say so.)
Once you find the folder (or any item in LB), you can assign it your custom abbreviation (press ⌘⌥A). In this case I would use "SF" for Scrivener Files.
But use whatever mnemonic works for you.
Once you have selected the folder, if you press SPACE it shows you a flat list of items in that folder. Then you can type more characters to filter that list.
The only thing missing (but maybe @Tom knows a way) for me is to filter the list by file extension, like "png" or "scriv"; OR by file type, like "image".
