Ways to access options displayed in a macro palette

Questions & Suggestions
1

Newbie questions. How can use the keyboard to choose an option from a displayed macro palette?

  1. Do I need to set up the macros in a particular way?
  2. Are there differences between the way macros are chosen depending on what kind of palette it is, Global, Macro Group Palette, Conflict Palette?
    TIA
2

There are three types of palettes:

  • The Global Macro Palette (containing all active macros with the Macro Palette trigger).
  • The Macro Group Palettes (one for each group that is active and displaying a palette).
  • The Conflict Palette (for macros with conflicting triggers - ie, a trigger that triggers multiple macros).

The first two show active macros, and so any triggers are currently active. If you wish to use a key, create a hot key trigger for the macros.

The latter automatically generates highlighted letter hot keys to allow triggering the macros (since they typically all have the same hot key, hence the conflict).

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3

I have been giving my macros all the same hotkey so that I just hit (and remember) one key and then choose from the conflict pallet. It would be nice to be able to select an item in the conflict pallet by using the arrow keys to move up and down the items in the pallet and then hit return.

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4

That is unlikely to ever happen. Macro Palettes do not have keyboard focus. They very deliberately do not, so that they do not interfere with what is happening in the target application. I could fake it somehow, and use hot keys for arrow keys, but Macro Palettes have never had any concept of “selection” so I doubt I will ever do that.

Conflict Palettes already have a mechanism for selecting the entries from the keyboard - they highlight the unique letter position to allow you to filter/select the desired entry.

5

@peternlewis @stetner Thanks for replying.
Just to recap.
Global Macro Palette and Macro Group Palettes: Trigger macros in the group only with triggers assigned when the macro was created and a mouse click.

Conflict Palettes: Display macros within scope (If a macro is not available in the application it won’t show up?) that have the same hot key. Trigger a macro by typing the highlighted character. When macros share the same starting characters they subset as characters are chosen. Oh, and you can use a mouse click.

This may be as quick as using arrows if the starting characters are in the qwerty area. A good reason not to use numbers in macro names.

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