Continuing the discussion from Keyboard Maestro 8.2.2:
Peter, this is definitely much better. It now shows:
OK, so now I trigger the macro, and get this:
From the user's perspective, he/she is still NOT getting the "expected results". Maybe they missed the notification, or it's turned off.
So, IF the macro failed, you might display the error msg:
and offer to open the Macro for editing.
Now the user should know what to do to fix his/her problem
That seems like a good idea.
-Chris
Yes, it could go further yet. The main purpose of this is to narrow down where the problem is when “nothing happens” (ok, the main purpose is to reduce support load and to allow users to get direct immediate assistance).
When “nothing happens”, the important thing is to know whether the macro is triggering at all, since frequently the issue is that the macro is not executing. After that there are endless reasons why the actions themselves might not do anything, generally not an error message since that is usually apparent.
Maybe so, but IF the macro did fail (due to user logic) new users may not be aware of this. So, IF the macro did fail, there is nothing to be lost by displaying the error msg to the user. IMO, this might be a frequent reason for macro "not producing expected results".
Yes, as I said, I can always go further.
Just FYI, in my experience the common cause of this (“nothing happened”) once it is determined the macro actually triggers, are:
This is based on the support emails I get and the resulting answers.
No doubt there is some set of the people for whom the issue is a failing action that could be detected and reported in the Assistance window, and it is worth doing, but I doubt it's a large percentage of the remaining issues not already resolved by the Assistance window.