Keyboard Maestro Ideas

By Peter N Lewis on Monday, January 18, 2010

To get the most out of Keyboard Maestro, you have to notice things that aggravate you when you do them over and over, and to imagine things could be better.

Here are some of the things I use Keyboard Maestro for:

• Duplicate Line (control-D) in BBEdit & Xcode.
• Open the Utilities folder in the Finder (command-shift-U).
• VNC to my server in the Finder (via the Macro Palette).
• Function keys for logging in to various accounts in the Terminal, and for opening various Quicken documents.
• Bring Application Windows to Front in the Finder, so every time I switch to the Finder all the Finder windows also come to the front.
• 20 second Delayed click, primarily so I can hover over the Print button and then go put an envelope in the printer slot.
• Many Insert text macros (name, email, web URLs and domain names, etc) (via Typed String triggers).
• Paste Previous Clipboard (command-control-V).
• Type Clipboard (ie, remove styling) (from the Status Menu).
• Launch iTunes (from the iPhone so I can then use Remote).
• Capture command-Q and alert me before quiting Mail.
• Lots of Insert Text macros in Mail, especially endings such as "Merry Christmas, Peter", etc.
• Transfer to "Read" folder (command-J), Transfer to Spam folder (control-Z).
• Macro to hide and another to show PCalc (both command-control-C).
• Macro for Safari to reset my window format after my bank kindly mangles it.

And some developer ones:

Interface Builder:

• Switch to XCode and Run (Command-R).
• Close All Windows; Open the Library; Open the Inspector (Status Menu).

Xcode:

• Insert header comments.
• Insert { and } by Pasting (to avoid the normal Xcode behaviour of adding the closing }.
• Open the Localizable.strings and Notes.txt files.
• Open the documentation window.

And an Xcode insertion palette that has snippets of code like @property, or init routines, etc (probably can be done by Xcode's own snippet system).

Hopefully, that will give you some ideas of the things Keyboard Maestro can do, and some of them will sound like the things you waste time doing repetitively every day. Let Keyboard Maestro help. And if you get stuck, just drop me an email and I'll be glad to help you out.

Posted Monday, January 18, 2010. Permalink. 3 Comments.