Using FastScripts vs Keyboard Maestro To Trigger Scripts

Questions & Suggestions
1

Hey Mitchell,

I have nearly 600 AppleScripts that are mostly hotkey-driven.

The FastScripts menu works more reliably with type-select than does the Keyboard Maestro status menu.

I run AppleScripts from compiled-script-files rather than text-scripts, because there is a distinct performance advantage – FastScripts is a more convenient mechanism for managing AppleScripts than Keyboard Maestro.

I can open a script for editing by depressing the Option-key when selecting it from the FastScripts menu.

I can reveal the script in the Finder by depressing the Shift-key when selecting it from the FastScripts menu.

FastScripts uses a different mechanism to run AppleScripts than Keyboard Maestro, so I can use it to test with if Keyboard Maestro is choking on something and see whether KM is the problem or not.

Because of the different AppleScript-runner mechanism, FastScripts will run some AppleScriptObjC code that Keyboard Maestro won’t.

FastScripts gives me a second means of running AppleScripts and shell scripts, so I can offload jobs that take time on it (or KM) and still have the other unencumbered.

I do drive a very few pure AppleScript macros from Keyboard Maestro, because on occasion I get better performance – but I’m more likely to use AppleScripts with Keyboard Maestro when they are part of a larger macro.

FastScripts lets me work with the Keyboard Maestro Editor without involving Keyboard Maestro which is especially useful if I’ve quit the engine.

There are other reasons that have cropped up over the last 13 years, but I don’t remember all of them.

-Chris

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2

Holy Crap! I wish there was a way to know if any of those would be useful to me, but I can’t imagine how you’d disseminate that much information, so I’ll leave it at… Holy Crap! :open_mouth:

3

Wow indeed! What an amazing list. I’ll have to give all that some consideration. Thanks. Very illuminating.

4

With this many scripts almost all of them must be string-typed driven, or a combination of invoking keystroke and string typed, right?

5

I actually kind of wish people would write either a blog post or some video to go over some of the scripts, macros things they found and how they use them to get things done. Would be really interesting to see in my opinion.

6

Hey Mitchell,

That was pretty clear – yes?

73 different apps plus globals.

-Chris

7

A downside of running scripts with FastScripts is that I don’t get the progress indicator.

When running via Scripts menu (osascript) it is there:

Do you know a way to enable it?

8

Hey Tom,

No, but I’ll ask Daniel.

-Chris

9

Hey Tom,

The answer is not currently – and while he’d like to update FastScripts to support AppleScript progress routines there’s no telling when he’ll have time.

-Chris

10

Thanks for asking, Chris.

A pity, since the progress indicator is really handy for longer running scripts. (Well, that being said, currently I have only one script that runs longer than 30s…)

11

Hi Tom - it's taken long enough but I wanted to follow up on this thread to let you know that in FastScripts 3 support in-menu script progress, as well as the ability to run an arbitrary number of scripts concurrently (which should help address some of @ccstone's examples of using FastScripts to "offload" work). You can check out the latest FastScripts 3 beta here if you are still interested: https://redsweater.com/blog/3685/fastscripts-3-beta

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12

Hey Daniel,

Happy to see you on the forum!  :smiley:

--
Take Care,
Chris

13

Thanks for the update, and for the info.

[…] if you are still interested

Sure :slightly_smiling_face:

14

Hey folks! I just wanted to update this thread since FastScripts 3.0 is now out, so for the record, FastScripts DOES now support showing script progress in the menu while scripts are running. Hope you enjoy the new functionality.

Daniel

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