Review of Keyboard Maestro by MacWorld

Tips & Tutorials
#1

MacWorld.com has just published a great article on 6 powerful utilities that make the Mac feel like home .

If you are relatively new to Keyboard Maestro, I think you will find this article very helpful, and will confirm what most of us long-term users have known for quite a while.

I have highlighted some of the key statements.

It includes the following:

Automate your tasks

I’m a huge fan of user automation, because if there’s anything that computers are good at, it’s doing repetitive tasks that are utterly boring to human beings. If you’re stuck doing a boring, repetitive task on your computer, you are ripe for the time savings that automation can bring.

The problem is, a lot of user automation solutions are extremely hard for most people to understand. Once you’re asked to write code, the jig is up. Fortunately, there are some easy to use Mac automation tools out there that provide amazing amounts of power without requiring you to write code (although you can if you want).

I’m constantly amazed at what Starways Software’s $36 Keyboard Maestro can do. You can automate opening apps, issuing menu commands or keyboard shortcuts, clicking on buttons, and pretty much anything else you can think of. It’s not reliant on the built-in automation features of individual apps, either—if you need to automate something by clicking on a specific item on the screen somewhere, Keyboard Maestro can be told specifically what to look for and where to click. It’s a bit like magic.

Keyboard Maestro lets you build automations that interact with any Mac app, even if it's not scriptable.

I’ve used Keyboard Maestro to automate repetitious actions I do on my Mac in order to start or end specific types of work. For instance, when I am about to record a podcast, I need to launch several apps, open specific pages in Safari, and configure several features of an app by clicking on various interface elements and typing related keyboard shortcuts. It’s something like a 30-step process that I have to do more or less the same every week. With Keyboard Maestro, that process can be reduced to a single click or keyboard shortcut.

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#2

I have to thank @peternlewis for rescuing KM, and thrilled at the rate is becoming even more capable. As someone who has used Quickeys in the Classic days, and moving on to OneClick for being more capable, and then back to Quickeys (because OneClick never made it to OS X), and then to see Quickeys development stall, it is nice to have KM.

And clearly he is not charging enough for it!

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#3

I use Keyboard Maestro every single day at work. It's one of the first three utilities I put on any new Mac I have. It really is the closest thing to magic. I'm pretty good with AppleScript, but Keyboard Maestro does things I would never dream of figuring out how to do with AppleScript. I learn new things all the time. Such as the latest I found. It's the panel that shows you a readout of where your mouse pointer is on the screen. That should make it a lot easier to program mouse clicks exactly where I want them. It's the best $36 you'll ever spend on your productivity!

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