Someone recently came up with a really nice implementary of the "leader key" used in vim:
Basically the idea is that:
I'm wondering if there's a simple way to produce this as well in Keyboard Maestro, perhaps with the attractive visuals implemented in that video.
What does that app ("Leader Key") do if the user's text cursor is in a text field in some active app, and then the user presses a key like "b"? The video doesn't explain this issue. Does it refrain from doing any actions if the text cursor is in a text field, or does it disable the use of the "b" key in the active app?
If the former, this could be a problem, because KM has no way (that I know of) to tell if the user is editing in a text field or not. (I presume Leader Key uses some undocumented macOS API to detect this condition, and KM will never use undocumented APIs.)
One way to mitigate that problem is to use keys that are not ASCII characters. I think this could be do-able if you use function keys instead of ASCII characters. I'm guessing that you won't be happy with function keys. But maybe you would be happy with Control-alphabetic characters. For example, it's possible to press CTRL-B to open a browser command context and then CTRL-S for Safari or CTRL-C for Chrome. You might like that.
Also, how does Leader Key work if the character that the user presses is already a shortcut in the currently active app? Does Leader Key essentially disable the app's shortcut? The video doesn't seem to explain.
I don't have Leader Key, but once you explain what you want, I may be able to help. I have written "context sensitive macros" before, so I think I can help.
Would triggering a conflict palette with another hotkey, which would act as the "leader key", achieve a similar effect?
If so adapting this idea, still untested beyond Mojave, might put you closer to your goal.
here's a test macro to run.
It has two "conflict" macros, both using the F7 trigger key.
A third macro, named Leader Key, with the trigger F8, calls two AppleScripts that simulate the F7 keystroke .
On my Mojave run system, a conflict palette with the 2 macros, named A macro and B macro will appear. Pressing "a" key triggers A macro to play Submarine sound. Pressing "b" triggers B macro to play Blow sound.
Simulated Leader Key.kmmacros (5.6 KB)
You don't say why... Is there some aspect of "Leader Key" that you think is not as flexible as it could be? What advantages would KM offer? One aspect that crosses my mind is that a solution in KM could probably give finer control of which commands are available in a given context, and I give an example of that below.
Why are attractive visuals important? The ideal interface is one that you hardly notice.
Not everyone here will agree, I know, but I think it is important to have the first trigger key bring up a safe input area of some kind (there are several possible choices).
@phario, here are two methods that I use that may overlap a little with the Leader Key idea. #2 is closer to what you intend, I think...
Trigger macro by nameIn the topic 'How I limit which macros are listed by "macro by name"', I included the following example of how the kind of things that can appear in the list.
Hit the trigger key (you gave the example of ⌘-space), then type the two characters that call the macro (these characters are at the start of the name of each macro).
Possible negatives compared to Leader Key include:
⌘-S, B, S, Return for your Safari example.Possible advantages over Leader Key may include:
If any of that sounds interesting, you might want to jump ahead to the "Conclusion" section of 'How I limit which macros are listed by "macro by name"' first, for a summary of my quirky way of setting it all up, which I still find suits me best.
My previous method was to use conflict palettes, and I still use that method in some circumstances. For example, I have a trigger key that I use as standard for helper macros that are specific to the current application. When using Safari, your common trigger key could call up a palette with:
Now, that is fine for macros beginning with "O", because there will always be a second letter to type, but for "TC", you might find yourself typing a "C" where you do not want it, because the macro will already have been triggered by the "T". A workaround there is to add an empty, dummy macro that also begins with "T".
You will then always need to type a character after "T".
I do actually use a function key for this method, but it's not on the top row of a conventional keyboard (yes, I am referring to programmable keyboards yet again, and it's... No, I'll spare you the details!). The underlying point is, of course, that the key needs to be readily accessible and not a long stretch away for the finger.
This did not seem to work for me under MacOS 14.7 Sonoma, but don't assume my result is typical. 
I hope there are some useful ideas there.
I'm sorry to hear that. 
Thanks for giving it a try. (I've been wondering if it would work.)
I was also wondering if anyone else would like to see the ability to trigger a conflict palette bumped up on the developer's to do list.
From this post:
"I understand the desire to trigger the conflict palette from a macro (its actually on the todo list), but currently there is no way to do it directly.
Probably if you use an AppleScript to simulate the keystroke, that would reliably work to trigger the macro (since Keyboard Maestro would then not be trying to get the latter behaviour)."
Back then, the AppleScript failed too when forum members tried it, with garnering this:
But I found that two AppleScript calls got the message through to KM and was hoping it would work elsewhere.
It seems that having such a thing might allow for making something like the posted video describes.
An initial conflict palette would serve as the "safe input area".
A chosen item could store another id to yet another palette. The "leader key" macro after having launched the palette would be paused to listen for any keystroke with "Pause Until the Key State Changes". The pause would end when an initial character item on the palette was typed. The "leader key" macro would process the stored id and so on.
I hope that makes some sort of sense. All of that actually does work on my system.
I'm sorry to hear it doesn't fly on Sonoma.
@kevinb Thank you very much for your detailed and interesting explanations. You have dealt with the matter. 
One question: In your opinion, is there anything against using the Spotlight window as a “safe input area”?
For example, the string trigger "s space space" launches Safari.
That seems like extra work. For me, the "Trigger Macros by Hot Key" action summons a Conflict Palette when appropriate for that context and hot key.
Maybe something's changed in the last 7 years -- or maybe my system's borked! 
Of course it's harder work when you're me!
Thank you so much 
--for solving my solution. 
I think it would be safe but not the most versatile choice. Your example works fine because when an application is activated, the Spotlight prompt is dismissed. If, however, you wanted to use the same method to trigger some other macros, the Spotlight prompt could remain up and "swallow" the results. For example, the method would not generally be useful for macros that type a keystroke or paste in text.
I see, I didn't think that through, because I do all this completely differently. But a quick test shows that it should work.
The same shortcut that opens the Spotlight window (⌥+space) also closes it again, before the macro is executed.
I could also imagine that “go to specific app / last app” also works.
Thank you for this. I'm still playing with it, but the use of Applescript and a hard-coded script for the key (F7 and F8 in this case) seemed clunky.
This does seem to have advantages over the two methods suggested by @kevinb which I guess require an extra return key press?
What does that app ("Leader Key") do if the user's text cursor is in a text field in some active app, and then the user presses a key like "b"? The video doesn't explain this issue. Does it refrain from doing any actions if the text cursor is in a text field, or does it disable the use of the "b" key in the active app?
It's worth giving it a shot and installing it to see, since it's a bit hard for me to describe.
The Leader Key app works well within text field (I'm using the leader key cmd-; ).
You're right. I don't think attractive visuals are needed, but ideally it could have some sort of cheatsheet providing visual feedback.
The advantage in doing it in KM, as I see it is twofold: first, you can centralise as much of your keyboard shortcut customisation as possible. Second, as you say, it might offer more powerful functionality.
Thanks everyone for your suggestions so far.
In terms of the benefits of Leader Key, I think the benefit is the huge simplicity in customisation based on simple hierarchy of keypresses:
Basically the philosophy is leader key + single key + single key + ...
Each additional single key press can either activate a single action or a group. I think the question is whether this 'simplicity' can be easily duplicated in KM.
"Method 1: using Trigger macro by name" does require the Return (or Enter) key, and I touched upon how that could be seen as a disadvantage or an advantage, overall.
"Method 2: using conflict palettes"… No, conflict palettes just need to have the "conflict" resolved, which happens as soon as one macro name is matched exclusively, e.g. if the names of "MS My Super macro" and "MM Tasty macro" were in the conflict palette, typing "MS" or "MM" would be enough to choose one over the other.
Easily -- although not with such a nice GUI. Take a look at "Typed String Triggers".
The key is to use them in a context where the deletion of the characters won't have unwanted side-effects, or to not delete them at all -- one reason why the Spotlight search window has been suggested. And it helps if you have a "this is a typed string" indicator -- I always wrap mine in ;, but most people (I think) just use a start character.
So for the above you could use:
;t -- launches Terminal
;os -- launches Safari
;oe -- Mail
;oi -- Music
;om -- Messages
...and so on.
I use a trailing delimiter as well to anchor the end of the string, which I find makes it easier to use regex string triggers. That cuts down of the number of macros at the expense of making them more complicated. My trigger here could be the regex match ;[^;]+;, then I'd "Switch/Case" the characters between the ;s to open the right app:
Typed String Opener.kmmacros (4.9 KB)
I'd use this by opening Spotlight with ⌘Space and just typing the trigger.
Hi, @phario and others.
How about a hierarchy of KM palettes where, with each palette, each entry has a unique first-character prefix (0 to 1, a to z) followed by – task or palette name?
That's what I do. I have a main palette with a hot key trigger (Hyper + A). Generally I trigger the target task from that palette or one of the palettes one level below. I attempt to match the single-character, unique prefixes to function, but even in cases where I can't, my muscle memory has quickly been trained.
BTW, my main palette is a combination of 21 tasks I do frequently, followed by a list of eight second-level category palettes. The 21 items have evolved and there's no requirement to limit this list to 21.
I find it easiest to use palettes rendered by the Show Palette of Macros action. Like Conflict Palettes, items can be triggered with a single key. As a nice bonus, these palettes can have a unique style.
(For months I've used @noisneil's Show a Palette of Macros - Auto-Create and Populate macro to create these palettes, but more recently I'm using a macro that I'm developing that allows one to select a set of macros using PWLs and then subsequently builds the Show Palette of Macros action using actions very similar to @noisneil's awesome macro.)
Hi @phario,
Right now you have some of the best and experienced folks applying themselves to your problem. I would go with their suggestions. That doesn't mean I wouldn't like to help. Just a bit of perspective.
With that, here goes:
As @Nige_S pointed out the AppleScript doesn't seem to work. I've replaced it with his correction.
Agreed, it is a total jalopy and possibly a lemon. I've just started to try to work out what seemed so easy in theory and it is not pretty. Another macro that I just uploaded for a different purpose contains a better implementation of the idea of a "controller macro" that launches the conflict palette. It stops short of interacting with the conflict palette, but for the moment it is the better version of the idea. I think it runs, but unfortunately don't have a way right now of testing beyond Mojave. If it does, I am happy to try testing the limits on what it can do. Keep in mind that it relies on GUI scripting to regulate actions, so it's goiing to be prone to issues of timing, not to mention dependent on the GUI not changing. In particular, dealing with the escape key sent to the conflict palette is going to be a potential pitfall.
Anyway, the F7 and F8 keys are only for testing. You can set them to whatever you like.The upload titled, "Launch conflict palette and toggle keyboard have instructions on how to customize the" controller macro".
Apologies, yet again, in advance if the thing continues not to run. 
I like this! Super interesting how you've done it.
Some questions:
F8 (leader key) -> A -> B
I haven't tested this extensively. Ideally I would move off of the F keys, as I would much prefer leader-key to be set to something close to home row, e.g. Cmd - '
Oh wait, this option also works really well!! I've accepted this as a solution.
It is a bit clunky to set things up, but I'll continue to play with it. To create a second-level palette, I set up a second macro group. It works something like this:
For example, to access a list of folders, I simply do this:
Cmd-' -> f -> {folder key}
I think this style of shortcuts makes it really much easier to remember.
It would be nice if could say a bit more/share your macro modification. I'm afraid I don't really grasp what is it that's different.
Hi Phario,
I see you've settled on something.
Good choice. I've been ruminating on possibilities, but it would take time to develop and would come in dribs and drabs.
Still, I like the topic. So thank you for bringing it up.
It reminds me a bit of one of Windows features--a bit heretical perhaps--that I liked, the Accessiblilty Underline, where you press alt and an underline appears under a single "hotkey" character in each menu item. I still have muscle memory for some of the sequences years later.
This unMac-like interface appeals to me, so I may well post a few things to this thread as they come to me. One more coming to the previous link in a day or two.
Your earlier emphasis on simplicity is a hurdle that a conflict palette may not be able to clear. On the fly lists seems hard with palettes of any sort.
Still, with a controller macro, to toggle enabled status, I imagine having a bunch of macro sharing only one hotkey, but being dynamically enabled and disabled from preset lists that would effectively define conflict palettes. Flow would be regulated in the controller macro. Just a notional macro at this point.
I don't mean to be tantalizing but it's actually pretty unclear to me too.
Hi, @phario.
I've mocked up a simple example to help explain the palette hierarchy approach.
If you download, install, and try these macros I think it will help you understand the notes below.
Palette Hierarchy Mock-up.kmmacros (28.1 KB)
After enabling the three example groups (LK 1, LK 2.1, and LK 2.2), use ⌘+' to display the Home palette.
Notes:
I use descriptive names for the macros and sub palettes, but each entry on a given palette has a unique first character; thus, all palette actions can be triggered with a single key press.
The Show Palette of Macros action is quite versatile. Individual macros can be added to the action (like with the Home palette and Palette 2.1) or a group can be specified and the group macros will be rendered on the palette (like Palette 2.2).
For Show Palette of Macros actions that include individual entries, @noisneil's Show a Palette of Macros - Auto-Create and Populate works quite well. (Above I mentioned that I'm creating a macro that works similarly, however, the macros can be in any macro group. Don't worry about that detail since that's really a secondary issue. If/when I share that macro on the forum, you might find it useful.)
When using @noisneil's Show a Palette of Macros - Auto-Create and Populate or when specifying a group as with Palette 2.2, @DanThomas's Palette Organizer is a great tool to set the order of the palette entries.
I use three different styles just to demonstrate this flexibility. Note that palette styles can be copied and pasted. Double-click a Show Palette of Macros action palette to open the Theme Editor.
On my mac, the Home palette is obviously more complex:
On my system, some branches are three palettes deep, but macros that deep are rarely used (but since they are logically grouped, they can be easily found when needed).
In practice, 95+% of my macros are triggered from the Home palette (using Hyper+A; a single key press) or from a palette at Level 2 (using Hyper+A; a single key press to display one of the Level 2 palettes; a single key press to trigger the Level 2 macro).
Very quickly my muscle memory takes over.
Of course, my most frequently used macros still have dedicated hot keys, but the palette hierarchy approach is great for many others.
