[Solved] KM Waiting for System Inactivity Before Perfoming

[Simons]

Hi folks,

I made a macro that autosaves within Avid Media Composer every 5 minutes.

But now KM often interrupts me when I’m working.

Can I tell KM to wait with the autosave until there’s no user input and no MediaComposer activity.

[Zabobon]

@Simons

Can I tell KM to wait with the autosave until there’s no user input

This might get you there. You would add a condition to your Macro to only do its Actions if there has been no activity for a set amount of time before.

Is there a way to check if user is on computer/active?

I presume you're talking about a macro with a periodic trigger? It would be faster and easier to answer your question if you followed the advice in Tip: How Do I Get The Best Answer in the Shortest Time?, as @JMichaelTX has linked to you before. At any rate, based on what I can make out from what you describe, this sounds like a job for the IDLE() function: If Then Else.kmactions (1.1 KB) [image]

[Simons]

Thanks a lot.
This works.

Click to Show Image of Macro

Avid MC Autosave.kmmacros (3.1 KB)

[Zabobon]

@Simons

Thanks a lot.
This works.

Great!

[Nige_S]

@Simons

Can I tell KM to wait with the autosave until there’s no user input and no MediaComposer activity.

Do note that the IDLE() check only gets you halfway there. The IDLE timer only resets when something that Apple's decided is "user interaction" happens -- pointer movement, keystrokes, etc. -- so your macro will still ⌘S if MediaComposer is doing something (heavy processing, an export, etc) and you aren't "interacting".

[Simons]

I just encountered that. It still interrupts playbacks. Is there any solution to avoid that.

[Nige_S]

@Simons

I just encountered that. It still interrupts playbacks. Is there any solution to avoid that.

I'm not a Media Composer user. But start by looking in the interface to see if there's an easy way to check state -- a good method is checking whether certain menu items are enabled/disabled during playback and making your decision accordingly.

[Simons]

Hey Nige,

Thanks for your help.

I didn't quite understand your last advice.

What do you mean by 'a good method is checking whether certain menu items are enabled/disabled during playback and making your decision accordingly'?

Cheers,
Simon

[Nige_S]

@Simons

I didn't quite understand your last advice. What do you mean by 'a good method is checking whether certain menu items are enabled/disabled during playback and making your decision accordingly.'

Some menu items are enabled or disabled according to application state -- for example, in the Finder, "Edit"->"Copy" is enabled when something is selected and disabled when nothing is. Or maybe there's a "Play" menu item that is checked while playing, unchecked otherwise.

You can use these states in an "If... Then... Else" action with a Menu condition -- so if you can find a menu item whose state differs depending on whether Media Composer is or isn't in "Play" mode you can start your macro with "If test for playing is true than cancel this macro".

It doesn't stop the macro from running, but it should stop autosave interfering with playback.

[Simons]

Thanks Nige_S...
That helped a lot!