Macro Management Question(s), or what is the best way to activate a pallette of macros that ISN'T hot key based?

Questions & Suggestions
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Hi fine peoples of the Internet! As the title of this post would suggest, I am looking for a more efficient way to manage my existing macros, and add new ones! I tend to blather on, because context is important! But in the interest of people's time, first, my questions:

How many macros can a single pallette hold without affecting run time performance?

Same question, but for macro groups.

What if any difference is there between displaying a macro group in the menu bar, and a status bar trigger? Are they the same thing under different names?

Okay, now some context:

I personally love Keyboard Maestro, have been using it for years—long time lurker, first time poster. Specifically, I use it to reduce repetition, and make my computer experience more accessible. Keyboard Maestro and Alfred are MUST haves for me, especially the paste by name/conductor workflow for Alfred.

Here's the issue though. I am running out of hot key combos that I can comfortable do with (basically) one hand. That is, I have a physical disability that affects my fine motor skills. My dominant hand, my right hand, can comfortably manipulate the right side of the keyboard, and its hot keys, but my left hand is basically s***. It is good for maybe a single keypress.

I know about hyperkey and its dupes, and the built in sticky key function is good for keying in combos to Keyboard Maestro at creation, but it is not a long term work around, for me. I would prefer not necessarily buying additional equipment, given that between Keyboard Maestro and Alfred, I feel like there is some redundancy already.

I personally love a typed string trigger, but that is not always feasible. Ideally, I would like to be able to organize macros into palettes, and potentially use a status bar click to activate them, because while paste by name is great, for me, it works best if each named macro is unique, thus reducing the number of key presses, plus in my experience, paste by name is great at text, window, and browser actions, its less great at manipulating files in the finder, given that the window/app focus can shift.

Any thoughts, advice, or musings would be greatly appreciated! TIA!!

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I have never ran into issues of run time performance based on how many macros are in a palette. I have some palettes that have more than can display on two displays stacked on top of each other with with 2400+ pixels.

https://wiki.keyboardmaestro.com/action/Show_Status_Menu

You can trigger the Status menu with an action and you choose if it shows up in the status menu.
https://wiki.keyboardmaestro.com/trigger/Status_Menu

I don't use the Keyboard Maestro menu bar and playing around with the group seetings I don't see things on the Wiki about how things work with that. I did some experimenting with different settings and set things to specific apps and all apps and still didn't see the items in the menu bar so hopefully someone else can chime in.

Group Menu Bar Settings

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I am sorry about that, sounds very difficult. Keyboard Maestro certainly helps with a lot of RSI.

I am not a fan of clicking but palettes do seem like your friend and there have been some great posts about activating palettes when an application becomes active and having it close when it goes away. There might be some useful things that can help there.

I know you said you don't want other hardware but you might consider a larger Stream Deck with KM Link or the native Keyboard Maestro functions. You can have things show up based on what app is in front and you can link different Stream Decks to have a smaller one go to different pages on larger Stream Decks multiplying your buttons by the amount on the smaller stream deck (i.e. 15 button stream deck linked with a six button one becomes 15*6 = 90 buttons.

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"Many". It'll vary with your machine's spec and what else is going on, of course, but the user experience is going to suffer far more than performance as the number of macros increases. So focus on UX instead.

Example: My 2020 Intel i5 iMac will open a palette of 700 macros in ~1.5 seconds. That palette fills my 27" display at 12 point text and it takes much longer than 1.5 seconds to find and click any particular macro!

"Many". Etc, etc... Performance issues are usually the down to the size of the macros plist file rather than the number of macros in it. And the number of macros in any particular Group is even less important.

IMO, Macro Groups are 3 parts "contextual control" and 1 part Editor organisation. Using each Group's options to control macro availability/activity in particular application and window contexts greatly increases the number of hot key combos available without conflict.

Ah, conflict -- or rather, the Conflict Palette. Are you using this? It's the closest to thing to the typed string trigger you love while still being a hot key trigger.

And there's always the "Trigger Macro by Name" action, which allows you to bring up a list of macros in one or more Groups and then filter by typing.

There's no one way to organise your macros and their availability, and the above merely touches the surface -- think what you could do with aliases of a macros in different Groups, for example. What's right for you will depend on your macros, your apps, your workflows, your personal preferences... But you can mix-and-match all the above and many other ideas on the Forum to come up with a system that works best for you -- so have a play and see what sticks.

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Thank you for the ideas! I realize now my post above could use some clarity. In that, yes, I am quite familiar with conflict palettes, ditto named macro triggers. :grin: I use them for several key text expansions, mostly around technical jargon and prompts. I work with a lot of text day to day. And typing directly on the keyboard in sequence is a great deal more accessible for me than specific key presses. ¯_(ツ)_/¯

Quick question for you vis-à-vis “aliases”—do you mean named macros that I could nest in other macros? I've been looking in the user manual and that doesn't SEEM to be a specific term? Could you explain a bit more? Assuming you are so inclined...

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I actually do have a Stream Deck, but its connection is finicky, especially after restarting the computer. Nevertheless the stream deck is definitely seductive in terms of push button access.

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I have found that too with the Streamed

I have found that to be the case too and not sure how their software can be this way after all these years and various users. I have been back and forth with them on support about this. I have made this macro to overcome that and wake things up.

Stream Deck - Wake Up Macros.kmmacros (54 KB)

Macro screenshot

Keyboard Maestro Export
Keyboard Maestro Export2744×2686 478 KB

I wondered this too actually.

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Then maybe consider doing that :slight_smile:

“a” tapped normally --> ”a”
“a” held longer --> triggers what you want

KM has already incorporated short/long press. But there are several macros in this forum that do the job better in my opinion.

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In that case you'll understand that you can't be "running out of hot key combos" if you can get away from the idea that every macro must have a unique trigger. Using the Conflict Palette like that does require more than one keystroke, but it's still generally faster than popping a palette and then selecting from a lot of choices.

No, I mean aliases -- they work like Finder aliases and are created the same way, by Command-Option-dragging a macro to another Group. You'll get another macro, by default called "Macro Name alias", which is actually just a single "Execute a Macro" action pointing at the original:

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Which, on the surface, seems a bit pointless! But it means you can, in effect, have the same macro in more than one Macro Group, giving you even more options for contextual availability. So if you have a Group that's "only available in Safari" and another "only available in Chrome" you don't need a third Group for "only available in Safari and Chrome" -- you put the macro in one Group and an alias to it in the other.

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Thanks for that. I vaguely remember coming across that when it came out and forgot all about it. So command+L on selected macros. Which is different than the finder of Comtrol (Command+Control (⌘⌃)) + A.

https://wiki.keyboardmaestro.com/manual/Menus#Make_Alias

Absolutely, and now I can do this faster than the method I have been doing of dragging the macro into another created macro and then moving it.