I notice KM8 accepts macros saved out of KM9. Is there a list of issues to watch for concerning backward compatibility?
I plan to upgrade soon, but am trying to plan for the interim.
I am not @peternlewis but I haven’t heard of anything that makes me think Keyboard Maestro 8 wouldn’t be able to use a v9 macro, with obvious caveats about actions which don’t exist in v8.
In general (no matter what app) I would try to avoid saving documents that have been created with a newer app version with an old one. (Except plain-text files and such.)
At least make a backup of the KM9 macros before saving them with KM8. (Maybe KM does this automatically, not sure.)
I assume you are referring to Macros published in this forum using KM9, correct?
In general, the .kmmacros file (which is just a plain text XML file) should import fine into KM8. However, if any of the Actions in it were changed, or are new, in KM9, then those Actions might not even display properly.
I would test these KM9 macros, making sure they don't change or delete anything on your Mac.
You can review the KM Wiki Whats New to see the changes in KM9.
I am speaking of macros written by myself. These, of course, include elements derived from this forum.
I imported the KM8 set into KM9 and am currently tweaking them to work in Mojave and newer versions of Adobe CC apps. The only "KM9-specific" feature I've added so far is "Choose Best screen image". This was not present in KM8 and seems to work better for recognizing certain screen images.
I'm leaning toward recommending we update ONLY KM first, using our currently installed Mac OS (High Sierra) and Adobe CC 2015 software. This would allow us to update all users to KM9 without introducing too many new variables. Maybe others who support multiple macro users have some insights for me.
I agree with that, especially sine macOS Mojave bring so many confusing changes, that often appear as a KM problem, but are not.
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I am encouraged by my initial testing with Mojave and Adobe CC 2019, but in a production environment significant downtime is not an option.
If you avoid v9-specific features, you should be able to revert to v8 without issue - I can't think of any specific actions that were “upgraded” to a new format in an incompatible way. But I could be wrong, there were many actions that had enhancements to allow more generalisation, and it is possible some of them would be destructive going from v8➤v9➤v8. It is not really something I can guarantee I'm afraid.
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