KM Fails to Export and Import Empty Macros Groups

Questions & Suggestions
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1

I just had another fantastically smooth experience importing KM macros from a High Sierra machine to a Catalina machine (KM9-KM9) - I've been dragging around massive folders of macros for at lease 7 years now, system to system and it always works great!

The following is not brilliant use of KM, but among my exported macro groups was one called
"THE ======== END OF CURRENT MACROS =========:warning::warning:"
(and was empty / contained no macros / just a divider).

[NOTE: at the end of the group name are TWO yellow warning emojis.]

This Macro Group didn't come across in the export and import routines. Whether this was because of the Emoji in the title, or because the Macro Group contained no Macros, either way it seemed like something which should be addressed. I don't think it's the presence of emoji since they came back fine in other Macro Groups, so it must be the fact that it was a Macro Group empty of Macros.

No big deal here in this example, and easy enough to recreate a placeholder again

(DROPPING A BIG FAT FEATURE REQUEST FOR KM10 HERE: .... the organizing app Things 3 : CMD-SHIFT-N for New Header - which is glori aous idea for breaking up lists - your Groups list could similarly benefit, if you added to the alphabetical sorting allowance for manual ordering organization and dividing Headers) ....

... back to the topic: some users could have complex empty Macro Groups 'folders' for headers, dividers and so on - these seem to get lost, so I wanted to flag it.

I do find I'm using emoji more and more for clarity and organization.

2

@peternlewis, I can confirm this behavior.
I just exported two empty Macro Groups, one of which included an emoji, and this was the result:

image

The export file contained only this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<array/>
</plist>

When I did the import, I got this:

image

but not import error, nor no notice that there was NOT anything imported.

I don't know if this is a bug or by design, but IMO this should be fixed:

  1. Actually support proper export/import of empty macro groups.
  2. At a minimum KM should do this:
    • When trying to export an empty MG, throw an error and advise the user this is not supported.
    • When trying ti import an empty MB, throw an error and advise the user that nothing was imported because there was nothing in the import file.

Under no circumstances should things appear "normal" and the user is left trying to find the Macros. Yes the import popup said "no macros were imported", but it is in very small text size, while the much larger text said "Imported Macro Disabled", which implies that the macros WERE actually imported.

Thanks.

3

I hope you don't mind that I have revised your topic title to better reflect the question you have asked.

FROM:
Emojis disable import Macro Groups?

TO:
KM Fails to Export and Import Empty Macros Groups

This will greatly help you attract more experienced users to help solve your problem, and will help future readers find your question, and the solution.

1 Like
4

Only macros are exported, yes.

Macro Group information is included with the macros, but when importing, macros are merged in to existing macro groups if possible.

The menu command exports macros, not macro groups.

When you export an empty group, it tells you no macros were exported.

Maybe some other behaviour might be desired, but that's the behaviour as it is, and probably it wont change since the export file is an array of macros (not macro groups).

5

In that case, it should NOT even attempt to make an export file when a Macro Group is selected with NO macros. I don't see why you can either disable the menu when a MG has no macros, or simply display a CLEAR msg to the user.

6

Import silently brings in what it can, the more functional the better, but it's a quieter issue.

For Export, it would be nice if the associativity would follow (and with all meta info alaways retained)

  • exporting a single macro would result a single macro
  • exporting multiple macros results a folder of multiple macros
  • exporting a macro group would result a macro group
  • exporting multiple macros groups results a folder of multiple groups
  • i'm going to chill on the nav/hierarchy topic, but any choosing Export on any selected folder in the tree would result a folder of whatever that encapsulates too.

A system-to-system migration tool would be good for beginners. I seem to jump every two years and I never remember having a headache with KM. I just need to reset the app-wiring. And I've always liked the quietly-failing aspect of non-wired apps. (I know there's a KM sync system and it's just me but this has harmed more than it's helped.) This would look like: System Migrate - Export and System Migrate - Import. There could be an app-wiring wizard.

KM is becoming (similar to Path Finder for me) more like a global environment than a simple functionality app. Aside from sharing macros with friends, I generally only Import/Export ALL macro groups/macros at system-jump time.

I don't need to keep this thread going - happy with things as is. My system-jumps always work out.