I screwed up and now can't see all the macros

Questions & Suggestions
1

Hey everyone - glad to have found this program and forum.

I got started with KM and made a little macro that helps me start up a few programs when I start the computer.

I was looking at more of the library and added one. (command 2).

Now when I look at the groups, I don’t see all I saw before. There are only a few options.

I used to have an “all enteries” option. Now, I can see it when I press command 2, but if I want to add it, it says it is already there - yet I can’t see it in the editor.

Anyone know what I did wrong and how to be able to see all the choices again like before?

Thanks

2

Is it possible you have something typed into the “Search” box in the upper-right?

Never mind, that wouldn’t cause this.

3

Just to be sure, I checked - and no, nothing is typed in.

I hate to admit it, but last night I even tried uninstalling and reinstalling to see if it would help. It didn’t.

So I’m at a loss.

Here is a screen shot in case it helps.

4

Doesn’t look very promising.

If you don’t have anything you need to keep, you can delete the entire folder “Keyboard Maestro” in your user’s “Application Support” folder and reinstall, and everything will return to its original, pristine state.

5

I think that worked.

When I create a new macro, do I need to create a new folder for it, or letting it go into the global macro group where it seems to want to go is alright?

6

Actually, they’re “Groups”, not “Folders”, but it’s basically the same thing.

Feel free to put them wherever you want. Create new Groups, use existing ones, it doesn’t matter. After awhile, you’ll start to come up with some conventions that work best for you.

Often times it works best to put application-specific macros in a group named for that application.

I know it’s really easy to delete Groups and Macros by clicking the “-” button instead of the “+” button. As long as you keep the editor open, you can “undo” and get them back. I’m pretty sure the first time I started with KM, I deleted a bunch of stuff by mistake.

If you get paranoid (which I did), back up the aforementioned folder. Actually, you really only need to backup the file “Keyboard Maestro Macros.plist”.

Welcome aboard! Hit us up with questions. :slight_smile:

7

Ken do you know about the revert menu?

1 Like
8

Well, I do now. :slight_smile:

9

Sorry Dan that was to Ken. Did I reply to you instead?

10

I'm not sure, but since I had totally forgotten about that feature, I'm glad you replied, no matter who was the intended recipient!! :slight_smile:

11

I still haven’t found the restore all feature that @peternlewis was referring to. I suppose this is what he was referring to.

12

No I haven’t either.

13

Hi Dan,

No, I didn’t know about that. That would have done the trick and will come in handy in the future.

Thank you for the welcome and invitation. I’m sure I’ll be taking you up on it.

By the way, I think it takes awhile to get the email notification when someone responds. I hadn’t seen new responses, or would have got back quicker.

Ken

14

Check your Email settings in your profile. Sounds like you have something set wrong.

And no worries. :slight_smile:

15

I am not sure to what you are referring that I was referring to.

There is no "restore all" feature in Keyboard Maestro. You can reset it by quitting the editor and engine, and can then trash the preferences in the ~/Library/Application Support/Keyboard Maestro folder and optionally the ~/Library/Preferences/com.stairways.keyboardmaestro.* files and logs in the ~/Library/Logs/Keyboard Maestro folder, and then relaunch Keyboard Maestro.

All the default macros are in the Macro Library, and you can re-insert them from there (Window ➤ Macro Library).

The default installed macros (currently) are:

20160905-114955.png1220×590 88.9 KB

As mentioned, you can also revert to a previous state in the File ➤ Revert Macros menu. My guess is you accidentally deleted a bunch of your macros.

16

Peter I am still getting to know Keyboard Maestro. I am pretty sure it was the Window/Macro Library you mentioned. I just didn't know how to restore the default macros. It would be wonderful to have a "reset and restore default macro sets" option so a trip to the prefence folder and tossing preferences wasn't necessary. :slight_smile:

17

Its not really an option that people want to do generally, so its hard to justify the development time required and the UI noise it would create. There would need to be a button or menu somewhere, a dialog to confirm, and then the code to actually do it (which is a lot more than just “delete the folder” since the application is running at that point).

Given I can count on one hand the number of times people have asked to do this (and while that means there are more than that out there who didn’t ask, the number is still low), I can’t justify it I’m afraid.

1 Like
18

For that matter someone would reset Keyboard Maestro “accidentally” and be all angry about the fact that they could.

It only takes 1 line in the Terminal to find all the relevant files and folders:

find  ~/Library/Preferences ~/'Library/Application Support' -iname "Keyboard Maestro" -or -iname "*com.stairways.keyboardmaestro*" -depth 1

~/Library/Preferences/com.stairways.keyboardmaestro.editor.plist
~/Library/Preferences/com.stairways.keyboardmaestro.engine.plist
~/Library/Preferences/com.stairways.keyboardmaestro.plist
~/Library/Application Support/Keyboard Maestro

It's easy enough to turn that into a shell script to delete them.

This shell script only reveals them in the Finder (for safety).

# Reveal Keyboard Maestro preference files and App-Support folder in the Finder
kmItemList=$(find  ~/Library/Preferences ~/'Library/Application Support' -iname "Keyboard Maestro" -or -iname "*com.stairways.keyboardmaestro*" -depth 1);
while read -r thePath
do
    open -R "$thePath";
    sleep 1.5;
done <<< "$kmItemList"

For a full-on trash-the-files-and-folders solution see this:

WARNING: Misuse of this script could DESTROY all of your Keyboard Maestro macros.

NOTE: moveFoundItemsToTrash is set by default to false, so the script will only return the paths to the items. Change moveFoundItemsToTrash to true to move Keyboard Maestro's preferences and App-Support folder to the Trash.

Trash Keyboard Maestro Preferences & Application Support Folder.scptd.zip (12.8 KB)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
# Auth: Christopher Stone
# dCre: 2016/09/11 20:20
# dMod: 2016/09/11 21:52
# Appl: Keyboard Maestro
# Task: Trash Keyboard Maestro Preferences & Application Support Folder
#     : OR return a text list of their POSIX Paths.
# Libs: None
# Osax: None
# Tags: @Applescript, @Script, @Finder, @Keyboard_Maestro_Engine, @System_Events
#     : @Trash, @Keyboard_Maestro, @Preferences, @Application_Support, @Folder
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

property moveFoundItemsToTrash : false

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
# Find Keyboard Maestro's preference files and its Application Support folder.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

set shCMD to "find  ~/Library/Preferences ~/'Library/Application Support' -iname \"Keyboard Maestro\" -or -iname \"*com.stairways.keyboardmaestro*\" -depth 1"
set foundItemList to do shell script shCMD

if foundItemList = "" then error "No Keyboard Maestro items were found!"

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

if moveFoundItemsToTrash = true then
   
   set dialogButtonResult to button returned of (display dialog "Are you SURE you want to move Keyboard Maestro's preferences and Application Support folder to the trash?" with title "WARNING!" with icon 2)
   
   if dialogButtonResult = "OK" then
      
      --------------------------------------------------------------------------
      # Quit Keyboard Maestro Editor and/or Keyboard Maestro Engine if running.
      --------------------------------------------------------------------------
      
      tell application "System Events"
         set foundProcessList to name of processes whose name contains "Keyboard Maestro"
      end tell
      
      if length of foundProcessList > 0 then
         
         repeat with theProcess in foundProcessList
            tell application theProcess
               quit
            end tell
         end repeat
         
         delay 3
         
      end if
      
      --------------------------------------------------------------------------
      # Convert POSIX Paths into an alias list for better handling.
      --------------------------------------------------------------------------
      
      set foundItemList to paragraphs of foundItemList
      
      repeat with thePath in foundItemList
         set contents of thePath to alias POSIX file thePath
      end repeat
      
      --------------------------------------------------------------------------
      # Move found items to the Trash.
      --------------------------------------------------------------------------
      
      tell application "Finder"
         activate
         open trash
         delete foundItemList
      end tell
      
      --------------------------------------------------------------------------
      
   end if
   
else if moveFoundItemsToTrash = false then
   
   -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
   # Return POSIX Paths as text.
   -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
   
   return foundItemList
   
   -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
   
end if

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

-Chris

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