Notifications for Macro Failure

Questions & Suggestions
1

@peternlewis:

Can the KM Action Failed notification be changed to adhere to the Mac Notification Center preferences, so that we have a better notification?

With the KM 7.1 update that causes the macro to fail if the action fails (like the Search Variable/Clipboard actions now fail if the match fails.), the importance of a good notification message is even more important.

Currently, we get a message like this, which displays briefly with no sound:

whereas with the KM Notification Action, we get a message like this:

This notification plays a sound, and stays on screen until the "Closed" button is clicked.

Although the Mac Preferences for Notification allows for setting of "Alert", that stays on screen until dismissed, and for sounds, the KM notification for "Action Failed" does NOT use these settings:

From OS X Yosemite: Notifications preferences

App notification preferences

To change an app’s notification preferences, select the app on the left, then change the preferences on the right.

[App] alert style

Select a style for the app’s notifications:

  • None: Notifications don’t appear on your screen.
  • Banners: Notifications appear on your screen and disappear after a while.
  • Alerts: Notifications stay on your screen until you dismiss them.

and

Play sound for notifications

  • Let the app play notification sounds.

I have set both KM and KM Engine Notification preferences to the "Alert" mode, but the KM Action Failure notification did NOT change:

1 Like
2

Do you have Growl installed?

Keyboard Maestro uses Growl if it is installed and running for such notifications (presuming that you have installed it and therefore want to use it.

The Notification action uses the Notification center explicitly (similarly the Growl action uses Growl).

The choice of sound/stay on screen for notifications is configured in the Notifications System Preference.

The choice of behaviour for Growl actions is configured in Growl.

I will probably remove Growl support in 8.0 (whenever that might be).

3

Yes I do, on one Mac, but not the other.
Thanks for asking. I had forgot about this.

Looks like Growl provides more control over the notifications.
For example, I can set the "Action Failed" notify to "Always Stay on Screen", and use a different display style.
Whereas with the Apple Notifications, I am forced to either make all KM Notifications "Stay on Screen", or none.

So my vote would be to keep using Growl.

####Growl Preferences:

Pasted image733×466 66.9 KB

4

Yes it does.

Unfortunately, there are other reasons for removing it, it is starting to be a bit dubious to support and I suspect that including the framework may end up leading to problems in future versions.