I am trying to create a macro, command-left-mouse-click to emulate the 3 fingers trackpad tap. In Safari, doing a 3 fingers tap will highlight a word and bring up the dictionary. I am using a Mac Mini and don't have a Trackpad, but I'd like to use Command-left-mouse-click to do so.
KM does not have a Actions for trackpad triggers. Any ideas what I can do? I don't want to use BTT, if possible, to have one less program running.
I'm not an authority on this, but you are probably right, KM cannot emulate trackpad actions, and the reason for that is probably that there's no public API to simulate those actions. From a quick Google, BTT can emulate those actions, which is likely because the makers of BTT found and used an undocumented API. And you can probably get KM to take advantage of BTT's accomplishment, by assigning the trackpad gesture to a key in BTT then simulating that key using KM. But it's a risky thing to do because undocumented APIs can break at any time.
But to achieve your goal I don't think you need BTT. All you have to do is create a macro that triggers on a double mouse click, which then performs a "Copy" action, then examines if there is a single word in the system clipboard, and if there is, call the Dictionary app and get it to look up that word. That might be a slightly different app than the lookup app, which I've disabled on my Mac. But someone else might find a way to complete your goal this way, without using BTT.
If I understand correctly, you're trying to trigger Look up & data detectors via some method other than force-touch or a three-finger tap.
If so, the default hotkey for this is ⌃⌘D.
Thank you for this. I didn't know about this keyboard shortcut.
What I was trying to achieve is per the screenshot below and ⌃⌘D does it!
Thanks, Airy. I know what you are refering to as there are some example macros from this forum, but I do prefer the 3 finger tap action. I believe noisneil has the right solution for me. Thank you both.
