If anyone curious what I want to try and do is have Alfred display macros currently scoped to an active application from the alfred prompt. This is doable by just calling macros with applescript url KM provides but I am thinking of a way to make transitioning these macros to alfred quicker.
If you are familiar with alfred, you can create actions there, so I assign a keyword and link it to a bash script action that calls the macro. I asked already if I can skip keywords to windows in Alfred but I believe it should be possible.
The reason why I want this, is that lately I have a few macro I've made that make my life easier in various apps, I want a quick way to find them. If done right and if I figure out a way to quickly transfer newly created macros to call from alfred triggers, it would be bliss. What do you think, would such a thing be possible to do?
I can already show and call all my macros with another workflow and it works great :
But it shows all the macros and I want to remove and filter the search depending on current active window.
Moderator's Note: **Also See:**
* [Using and Comparing LaunchBar (LB) with Alfred and other Apps ](https://forum.keyboardmaestro.com/t/using-and-comparing-launchbar-lb-with-alfred-and-other-apps/6601)
* [What other software and tools work well with KM? ](https://forum.keyboardmaestro.com/t/what-other-software-and-tools-work-well-with-km/6506)
Have you tried using the KM Trigger Macro by Name?
Press the hotkey, and type in any text in the Macro Name:
It shows ONLY those macros that are currently activated for the frontmost app.
Also, I have create a Palette Macro Group for each of my apps that have a lot of macros. All of them are activated by the same hotkey.
Some I leave the Palette up until I press the hotkey again.
Others, I show the Palette only for one use.
I am curious, where do you find out about all these ‘defaults’ commands. They seem pretty powerful but I always wondered how do people find out about them and all the parameters that you can pass to them?
They offer a great interface to see results from scripts and make actions on them. I use km for specific bindable actions that need no text output to work on. Alfred is fast and the power it has as a launcher is really incredible since so many workflows are free to use. Using KM and Alfred together though is amazing and that is what I want to do by making the km macros I have show on Alfred according to the active window.
When Alfred came out I used it a lot, but I always found its workflow system rather clumsy and unintuitive. For short bash or AppleScripts it’s maybe better than LB’s plugin architecture, but these things I can do quicker with KM or even Typinator.
That being said, I still haven’t looked closely at the new Alfred 3 version (even though I have that “Mega” license ;-)) Time to do it, someday…
Perhaps I am mistaken, but most of what you show in the animated GIF looks more like searching and launching stuff, which is what I use LaunchBar for.
KM is so powerful and flexible, I can’t image a workflow that you create in Alfred that could not also be created in KM, perhaps simpler and better.
For example, I have a multipurpose Google Search that does all this from one hotkey:
IF some text is selected, use it
IF not, select text from current text cursor to end of line
IF text is web URL, open it
IF text is Non-Web URL, open it in default provider
Otherwise, do a standard google search on the text
Some other very complex KM macros:
Apply standard styles to Evernote text
Insert AppleScript commands that have lots of options
Create rich text and plain text hyperlinks from:
(I use this many times a day.)
web page
selected text on web page
link on web page
Auto-select all of the text in a forum post, or code block, and get the post data (author, URL, post date, etc), and then use it to create a note or document in many other apps (like Evernote & Quiver).
@DanThomas has built and published some truly incredible macros/workflows that are complete systems.
LaunchBar not only opens apps, it opens many other things, including specific URLs in a specific browser. For example I have these LB shortcuts:
KM – opens Keyboard Maestro app
KMF – opens KM forum in Chrome
KMW – opens KM wiki in chrome
SP – opens Mac System Prefs
I have LB shortcuts that are 2 or 3 char, which are very intuitive to me (like the above “KM” shortcuts), to open apps I use commonly.
Please don’t misunderstand me. I am not knocking Alfred. I’m sure it’s a great tool. I just happen to think KM is better.
