I recently switched from QuicKeys on my Mac to Keyboard Maestro with the looming possibility of upgrading to Catalina. I have to say, at first I was a little skeptical, but it didn't take me long to get the hang of it with a little prompting from Peter.
At first I contacted the QuicKeys developer, Startly to ask if QuicKeys will be made 64bit. He said no because he does not have the code knowledge to do so. I asked if he could recommend anything else and he said, "Keyboard Maestro, but it's not as good as QuicKeys." Well, he couldn't be more wrong, Maestro is easier to create macros, and it's faster than QuicKeys. Granted most of my needs are on the basic side, but Keyboard Maestro does an excellent job for me.
I'm also a recent switcher. In QuicKeys, I had build some 700+ shortcuts without ever looking into a manual. To translate them now into KM v9, I have constantly to consult forum or wiki, as the structure of KM Macros is by far not so intuitive as with QK shortcuts. For example, the feature to jump to steps according to a variable value evaluation is far more powerful than those unreadable IF-THEN constructions. QuicKeys was great (and very fast in 10.6), but alas, QuicKeys is now not developed further, so we have to go with Keyboard Maestro...But I'm still missing QuicKeys.
10.6? Snow Leopard?
I remember when my job went from WordPerfect to Word and the initial shock. The WordPerfect support and licensing was horrendous. Therefore, the agency chose a different tool. When we were doing the installation, they hated us. Until one day I couldn’t take it anymore, I said I’m sure I can find a typewriter downstairs. Now people can’t imagine going back. At least there is a choice or another option. Same happened with Final Cut Pro X. It’s just a different software. I’m so glad I chose Keyboard Maestro over QuicKeys. The amount of work would be tremendous and I feel for you. Losing support of an application is tough. That’s why I speak on Keyboard Maestro anywhere I can and support @peternlewis whenever I can provide relief. I happily pay for every upgrade and I pray that Peter is super healthy and has a succession plan because he is probably the most important person that I’ve never met.
Also, to me, I look at the older QuicKeys interface and I’m like WHAAAAAT? How the??? But I’m familiar with the KM interface so it’s more intuitive to me. Anyway, all this is to say - be happy that there was a fallback called Keyboard Maestro. I hope you are able to adapt and things get easier. I’d love for you to bring some of your QuicKeys to KM conversions to the forum. If you need help, people are here to help tackle the challenge.
P.S. - By the way, don’t feel bad... I still use the wiki and the forum on a daily basis. Thank goodness for it!
As a very long term user of QuicKeys, I'm actually finding KM to be very intuitive. My experience moving from Final Cut Express to Final Cut Pro X taught me not to bring my knowledge and expectations from one program to another. Once I did that, I absorbed Final Cut and now Maestro much faster. I've only been using KM for a week and already I'm very comfortable with it. I actually just bought a second copy for my other Mac mini not knowing that my one license is good for both, but I'm glad to kick in a little more to Peter.
I'm going to use this thread I created to tell all the things I like about Maestro compared to QuicKeys.
At first I questioned why Maestro didn't have Save, but I now like that it saves the macro automatically and I don't have to close the macro window for the macro to be useable. Makes it quicker to test and edit the macro.
