KM8 update - Issues, had to roll back

,

Hey there, thanks for the update! I installed it and unfortunately noticed some quite weird problems:

  • multiple crashes (sent crash files) ( ok, not so weird)
  • multiple “Search and replace Clipboard” actions disappeared in random macros, not all though (medium weird)
  • the letter “r” got randomly removed from multiple macro names, but not all (pretty weird)

I rolled back to an earlier macro library version and downgraded to KM7…

Is that just happening to me??

Thanks for any help!
cheers,
j

A macro that used a regular expression to append text to the start of a clipboard no longer works after the upgrade to KM8. I was on a current version of KM7 previously. Mac OS X Sierra.

Did the regex engine or the search and replace in clipboard function change?

Mark

I haven't seen your issues (yet) but I'm also observing (a few) strange things. There is for example a UI glitch in the If Then action:

If I select for example "Variable is empty" or "not empty" then the variable value field halfway disappears and the "empty" condition becomes invisible. The same if you add a second variable:


Also the behavior of the instance and local variables as described here seems weird to me:

I looked through the crashlogs that I have received for 8.0, there are only two kinds currently:

  • The editor crashes with old Color Pickers in High Sierra
  • There is a crash that can happen when palettes close.

I have a workaround attempt for the first one, and a fix for the second one.

If you have some other crash, I can't find it currently, please send it to me at support@stairways.com

I have one other report of Search and replace Clipboard actions disappearing. I tried duplicating that and could not. I received a copy of the users macros and re-imported them without issue. So I am a bit at a loss on this currently. I suggested this possible course of action:

  • Launch Keyboard Maestro 8.
  • Select File ➤ Quit Engine
  • Select Help ➤ Open Preferences Folder
  • Quit Keyboard Maestro
  • In the Keyboard Maestro folder in the Finder:
    • trash the Keyboard Maestro Macros.plist file
    • duplicate the Keyboard Maestro Macros Saved Version 7.plist and rename it to "Keyboard Maestro Macros.plist"
  • Launch Keyboard Maestro 8
  • Check the missing actions macro.

If that fails to work properly, please send your Keyboard Maestro Macros.plist and Keyboard Maestro Macros Saved Version 7.plist files to support@stairways.com and tell me what macro is missing actions.

There is also an issue with Search & Replace with regex expressions that contain non-matching capture sections (ie, something like "(xxx)?" which will cause the action to fail. This is also fixed.

I also had a couple reports of this, which is definitely weird. I don't know if it is related to the lose Search & Replace actions or not. Can you re-add the "R"? And why "R"? I have no idea on this one yet, I have to think it's something really stupid I've done somewhere.

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There is an issue with Search & Replace with regex expressions that contain non-matching capture sections (ie, something like "(xxx)?" which will cause the action to fail. This is fixed for 8.0.1.

Could this be the issue? If not, please tell me what the expression and action is, and what the input data is that fails.

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Sorry about this, fixed for 8.0.1

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Yes, that sounds like my case. My regex was “(m?)^”.

I did roll back to 7.x and the issue was fixed. I’ll look for 8.01.

Mark

If you are not using the capture group in the replacement, then you can resolve the problem in v8 by adjusting the by using non-capturing brackets: (?:m?).

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Did you by any change launch Keyboard Maestro 8 and then revert to Keyboard Maestro 7 (or even run Keyboard Maestro 7 briefly). That will loose the Search & Replace action, the new combined action is new in version 8, and the old Search & Replace Variable and Search & Replace Clipboard actions are changed into the new action when you run Keyboard Maestro 8. So if you ever then run version 7, they will be lost, and if you then run version 8 again, they will still be lost.

I’m syncing the macros on two computers via the Macro Sync File. I installed KM8 on one and there was a gap of a few minutes before I installed it on the other computer. Maybe that’s where the glitch happened?

That shouldn’t be enough to cause an issue because Keyboard Maestro wont sync from an older version macro file.

I have tracked this issue down. I believe it is 10.10-specific.

It is fixed for 8.0.1 which should be released very soon.

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Thanks for the quick fix!

Unfortunately I found another horrendous GUI bug:

[details=Open for details]

;)[/details]

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Good eye, @Tom. I had to roll-back, and LMAO on that one. :sunglasses:

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Yeah, me too. I was so shocked, I rolled back to KM 6 instantly! Thanks God I still had a copy.

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You are so mean!

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Care to share what made it particular to the letter “r”? Enquiring minds want to know!

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The code was supposed to remove carriage returns by search and replacing \r, but accidentally I put \R. It’s always been used as a lowercase, but apparently, in 10.11 and later, \R works. But in 10.10, \R is just an R.

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That’s genuinely interesting. By all that is Googleable, it would seem that 10.10 is the only version actually handling the escaped capital R correctly. I wonder what caused the behavior to change…

Anyway, thanks for sharing!

Except that \R is a valid RegEx special code, NOT a capital R:

\R -- Match a new line character, or the sequence CR LF. The new line characters are \u000a, \u000b, \u000c, \u000d, \u0085, \u2028, \u2029 [Since ICU 55]

It is macOS 10.11+ that is handling it correctly.

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