Press Release for 26 Mar 2014
Stairways Software releases Keyboard Maestro 6.4
Perth, Western Australia - 26 March 2014 - Stairways Software Pty Ltd is pleased to announce Keyboard Maestro 6.4, the new version of its powerful productivity enhancer for Mac OS X.
Version 6.4 adds a raft of new features, including support for reading and modifying file tags in Mavericks and much improved accessibility and VoiceOver support. We have also added asynchronous execution options for scripts and sub-macros, as well as semaphore locks for limiting parallel execution.
There is also a bunch of new AppleScript commands, allowing importing of macros or deleting macros or macro groups, plus the usual set of new functions and text tokens, allowing more choices when finding locations on multiple screens, more information about the executing macro, and access to even more information about your Mac.
This version uses the information gleaned from the crash reporter added in version 6 to further reduce the possibility of a crash (though Keyboard Maestro is very robust already, with around one crash per thousand users per month).
Plus a bunch of other minor improvements.
Changes for 6.4:
- Added support for Mavericks Tags.
- Added Get File Attribute: Tags. Mavericks only.
- Added Set File Attribute: Tags (set, add, toggle, or remove). Mavericks only.
- Added Semaphore Lock/Unlock actions.
- Added Asynchronous option to Execute Macro
- Added Asynchronous option to Execute Shell Script, AppleScript and JavaScript.
- Improved VoiceOver support for lists and buttons.
- Improved accessibility support.
- Added speech rate to the Speak Text action.
- Added importMacros AppleScript command.
- Added deleteMacro and deleteMacroGroup AppleScript commands.
- Added Tab to the hot key/simulate keystroke popup menus.
- Added %ExecutingMacroUID% token.
- Added Mouse, Front, Back, Back2 options to the SCREEN function.
- Added TRIGGERTIME() function.
- Added GMTOFFSET() function.
- Added %AddressBook%Note% text token.
- Added SimulateKeystrokeDeadKeyDelay private preference.
- Added various Cancel action varieties to the action selector.
- Adjusted Typed String trigger to make diacritical sensitivity independent of case sensitivity.
- SCREENSAVER() returns true if screen is locked.
- Set %ActionResult% on timeout failures.
- Allow selection of .xpc applications.
- Changed Keychain access to use direct code instead of security utility.
- Fixed a crash when evaluating expressions of the form "("
- Stop clicks while deferred selection change pending, perhaps fix editor crashes.
- Fixed "Any Application" launch/quit trigger to only include foreground apps.
- Added macro/action to Macro Cancelled message.
- Add Help menu items for Regular Expression and ICU Date Time reference.
- Fixed a potential crash in the window switcher setup.
- Fixed a potential crash then launching shell scripts.
- Fixed a potential crash finding buttons with bogus accessibility information.
- Fixed a memory leak in the image finding code.
- Fixed a potential crash showing the contact sheet.
- Fixed issue where time triggers would not fire if any changes were made within 30 seconds before the scheduled time.
- Fixed an issue with continuous timer triggering during daylight savings change over.
- Fixed a potential crash with action editors.
- Adjusted a few names in the action selector.
- Fixed Accessibility Alert display in Mountain Lion.
- Worked around a potential crash in the system preferences settings.
- Fixed an issue with non-edit display of Repeat actions.
- Fixed an issue with non-integral sized images (seriously!).
- Fixed an issue with shell scripts that waited for stdin input.
- Offer Getting Started emails even to registered users.
- Stop Time Saved for automatic (from editor) actions.
- Conflict Palette correctly highlights selection characters for macro names with sorting codes.
- Forcefully disabled dash and quote substitution in Insert Text and Scripts action editors.
- Word count treats contracted (eg I've) words as a single word.
- Resolved a problem typing some characters on some keyboards (eg back-quote on Swiss German keyboards).
- Resolved a problem with double clicking in the Finder.
- Resolve a problem with repeating triggers and Show Status Menu.
- Pause action merges together when recording pauses.
Changes for 6.3
- Improved Typed String trigger and added more options.
- Added Crash Reporter.
- Added Substrings In collection.
- Merged Lines In collections.
- Added Lines In Named Clipboard collection.
- Added %ActionResult%, %Trigger%, %TriggerBase%, %TriggerValue% tokens.
- And more.
Keyboard Maestro 6.x requires Mac OS X 10.8 or greater.
Keyboard Maestro is engineered by Stairways Software Pty Ltd and distributed by FastSpring. Keyboard Maestro is licensed on a per user basis, and an individual user can use it on five Macs.
New customers can purchase Keyboard Maestro from <http://purchase.keyboardmaestro.com/> for US$36. Customers with five or more users should contact us for a volume discount quote.
Customers who purchased Keyboard Maestro directly from us after October 1, 2012 have been issued a free upgrade to Keyboard Maestro 6. If you have not received your free license, you can find your free license upgrade at <http://enquiry.stairways.com/>.
Customers who purchased any version of Keyboard Maestro directly from us prior to October 2012 can upgrade to Keyboard Maestro 6 for US$25. If you have not received your instructions on how to upgrade, you can find details by looking up your Keyboard_Maestro license at <http://enquiry.stairways.com/>.
Keyboard Maestro 6 is not available from the Mac App Store and probably never will be, but customers who purchased Keyboard Maestro 5 on the Mac App Store can convert their license to a direct license by option clicking the "Mac App Version" text in the Keyboard Maestro about box and following the instructions and will then be eligible for a paid upgrade to version 6 for US$25.
A fully-functional unlicensed trial version of Keyboard Maestro can be downloaded from <http://download.keyboardmaestro.com/>.
For sales enquires, volume purchases, customer service, technical support, or to contact project management, our current contact information is listed at <http://contact.stairways.com/>.
Extensive online documentation on Keyboard Maestro can be found at <http://documentation.keyboardmaestro.com/>.
A brief taste of Keyboard Maestro in action can be found at <http://screenshots.keyboardmaestro.com/>.
For more information about anything to do with Keyboard Maestro visit <http://www.keyboardmaestro.com/>.
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