Press Release for 19 Apr 2012
Stairways Software releases Keyboard Maestro 5.2
Perth, Western Australia - 19 April 2012 - Stairways Software Pty Ltd is pleased to announce Keyboard Maestro 5.2, the new version of its powerful productivity enhancer for Mac OS X.
Version 5.2 adds a bunch of new File actions, allowing you to create folders, move, rename, copy, duplicate, trash or delete files or folders, as well as getting and setting various file attributes. You can also read and write files, including rich text files and images.
Version 5.2 also adds a bunch of new filters for operating on paths, as well as a swag of new tokens including the current network location, and a new formatted offseted date token, allowing you to do things like display the date a week from now.
Version 5.2 also adds many new functions, including functions for returning screen or window coordinates, the mouse location, the time in a variety of formats, the time the Mac has been idle, whether you're connected to the Internet or running off battery and more.
Version 5 takes the modern engine of Keyboard Maestro 3, the modern user interface of Keyboard Maestro 4 and adds to that base an incredible breadth and depth of power with almost no increase in complexity.
Keyboard Maestro 5 adds control flow such as While loops, For loops and If/Then/Else statements, as well as permanently stored variables and a complete calculation engine, all within the same familiar user interface.
Keyboard Maestro enhances the application switcher and window switcher, and includes the application launcher first featured in Switcher Maestro. The clipboard history is improved further with the addition of Favorites, Quick Look and the ability to send clipboards to another Mac.
Version 5 also includes an extensible library of pre-made macros, with a large variety of macros for you to build upon. Also new is Undo/Redo support and revisions so you can try out new macros with confidence.
Using Keyboard Maestro's powerful macros, you can control applications, windows, or menus; insert text; open documents, applications or URLs; execute scripts; control the system, iTunes or QuickTime Player; and more - all with the touch of a key, click of the mouse, periodically or at specific times, when an application is launched or running, or even over the Internet using Keyboard Maestro Control on your iPhone or iPod touch, or by using a web browser to access Keyboard Maestro's built-in web server.
Using Keyboard Maestro's Program Switcher and Window Switcher you can cycle through applications or windows, closing, hiding, launching, and more. Keyboard Maestro can help you regain control of your crowded screen by letting you close or hide multiple windows or applications.
Using Keyboard Maestro's Application Switcher and Window Switcher you can cycle through applications or windows, closing, hiding, launching, and more. Using Keyboard Maestro's Application Launcher, you can quickly launch applications. Keyboard Maestro can help you regain control of your crowded screen by letting you close or hide multiple windows or applications.
Using Keyboard Maestro's Clipboard History Switcher, you can access previous clipboards, so you will never lose your clipboard again. It also makes it easy to copy and paste multiple items such as username and password or serial number without having to switch back and forth between applications for each item. You can mark a clipboard as a favorite so it stays forever, or send it to another Mac running Keyboard Maestro.
Using Keyboard Maestro's Clipboard Switcher, you can select from a number of named clipboards, storing information away for later retrieval, or store the details you are working on and access them by name again and again.
Changes for 5.2
- Compatibility Note: Tokens being parsed in some actions may mean single percents now need to be doubled (%%)
- Compatibility Note: Tokens now parse for \x characters, so the backslash may need to be doubled (\\)
- New File actions:
- New Folder.
- Move (or rename) a file or folder.
- Copy a file or folder.
- Duplicate a file or folder.
- Trash a file or folder.
- Delete a file.
- Delete a file or directory (recursively).
- Read a file to a variable or to the clipboard (can be an image or styled text).
- Write to a file from a variable or the clipboard (can be an image or styled text).
- Get/Set File Attributes.
- New Filters:
- Last Path Component
- Delete Last Path Component
- Path Extension
- Delete Path Extension
- Base Name
- Expand Tilde In Path
- Abbreviate With Tilde In Path
- Resolve Symlinks
- Standardize Path
- New Tokens:
- %WindowFrame%n% (and WindowPosition, WindowSize) token.
- %WindowName%n% token.
- %Application%n% token.
- %NetworkLocation% token.
- %ICUDateTimePlus% token for displaying offseted formatted (eg now + 3 days).
- %LineFeed%, %Return%, %Tab%, %Space% tokens.
- \a,\b,\e,\f,\t,\r,\n characters.
- %NN% or %NNNN% tokens for arbitrary hex unicode characters.
- New Calculation functions:
- MOUSEX, MOUSEY, MOUSEBUTTON( n ) - mouse coordinates and button states.
- SCREEN( n, Left|Right|Top|Bottom|Width|Height ) - screen frame coordinates.
- WINDOW( n, Left|Right|Top|Bottom|Width|Height ) - window frame coordinates.
- SCREENCOUNT - the number of screens (displays).
- WINDOWCOUNT - the number of windows in the front application.
- IDLE - the number of (fractional) seconds the Mac has been idle.
- MILLISECONDS (or MILLS or MS) - fractional milliseconds since startup.
- SECONDS - fractional seconds since startup.
- TIME - return (unix) time in seconds since 1970.
- JD, MJD, and TIME enhanced to allow specifying year,minth.day,hour,minute,second.
- TIME2JD, TIME2MJD, JD2TIME, JD2MJD, MJD2TIME, MJD2JD conversion functions.
- YEAR, MONTH, DAY, DOW, HOUR, MINUTE, SECOND functions which take a unix time in seconds since 1970.
- APPLICATIONS function that returns the number of running applications.
- ONLINE function returns whether the Mac is currently connected to the Internet.
- BATTERY function returns whether the Mac is currently running off battery power.
- SCREENSAVER function returns whether the Mac is currently displaying the screen saver (or the display is off).
- Added Edit→Insert Token menu.
- Added Edit→Insert Function menu.
- Tokens with numbers in them can now be calculations (eg %WindowFrame%3+4%)
- Improved code signing for Snow Leopard.
- Added option click on the File Reference buttons to reveal the target file in the Finder.
- Allow dragging of files/folders to file reference buttons.
- Fixed the Open URL action to actually allow tokens in the URL.
- Fixed a potential crashing bug precachine application icons (particularly prevelent in Mountain Lion)
- Fixed an issue with repeating triggers on daylight saving days with more than 24 hours.
- Avoid com.adobe.illustrator.aicb clipboard flavor to prevent issues with Adobe Illustrator.
- Fixed a bug in window placement when moving windows back on the screen.
- Fixed a potential crash with the MIDI action editor.
Changes for 5.1
- Added For Each action allowing looping over a variety of collections.
- Added Developer ID Signing for Mountain Lion Gatekeeper.
and more.
Major Changes for 5.0:
- Requires 10.6 and Intel.
- Control Flow - Pause Until, If/Then/Else, While, Until, Repeat with extensive conditional tests.
- Variables - permanently stored and accessible in a variety of ways.
- Calculations - based on variables or a variety of functions.
- Library of pre-built macros.
- Undo/Redo - finally!
- Enhanced Application Switcher with Cover Flow, Force Quit, Get Info, Reveal.
- Enhanced Window Switcher with Cover Flow of Applications, window depth sorting.
- Enhanced Clipboard History with Favorites, Quick Look, Send clipboards to another Mac.
- Application Launcher as first seen in Switcher Maestro.
Control Flow & Variables & Calculations
- New Control Flow actions Pause Until, If/Then/Else, While, Until, Repeat.
- Extensive conditional tests (Application, Window, Menu, Button, Modifiers, and many more).
- Permanently stored variables containing text, or arrays of numbers.
- Prompt For User Input action with text, passwords, popup menus and checkboxes.
- Most action fields can contain calculations (eg Pause 60*Time in Minutes).
- Set Variable to Text action with tokens.
- Set Variable to Calculation action with array access.
- Search & Replace Variable action with regex and tokens.
- Use Variable action to adjust mouse, windows, applications, and more.
- Filter Variable action.
Enhanced Clipboards
- Added Quick Look to Clipboard History and Named Clipboard Switchers.
- Added Favorites to Clipboard History.
- Send clipboards to other Macs.
- Delete Past Clipboard action.
- Search & Replace Clipboard action with regex and tokens.
General Improvements
- Favorites category in action list.
- Configurable timeouts for individual actions.
- Macro Revisions.
- Applications listed in Status Menu.
- Use regular expressions in menu or button name matching by prefixing with ^.
- Typed String triggers can ignore case, or remember case.
- Insert Text actions honour case of remember case typed string triggers.
- Allow triggering on "any" application activates, launches or quits.
New and Improved Actions
- Set Macro Enable action.
- Speak Text action.
- Play Sound action.
- Action to display text.
- Action to Show/Hide the global macros palette action.
- Manipulate window action can now operate on window with index N.
- Manipulate window action can now center a window at any point.
- Generalized Search Web action to allow any URL.
- Add Relaunch & Force Quit options to Quit action.
- Added "Current Application" option to Quit action.
- Open Finder Selection action optionally with a specific application.
- Add "with specific application" to Open File or Folder action.
- Add "with specific application" to Open URL action.
- Growl action uses our own HUD window if Growl is not available.
New Text Tokens
- Token for variables.
- Token for Named Clipboards.
- Tokens for Current Track name, album, artist, ratingstars, etc.
- Tokens for Current Application, Current Mouse, and Front Window details.
- Tokens for Screen Frame and System Volume.
- Tokens for Address Book Name, Email, etc.
- Tokens for Executing Macro and Macro Group name.
Enhanced Scripting
- Variables can be accessed or written via AppleScript
- Variables are available to Shell Scripts.
- Execute Script can store results in a variable.
- Support for AppleScript command to calculate expressions.
- Support for AppleScript command to process tokens.
- AppleScript command to reload the engine macros.
- AppleScript command to play sound.
Enhanced Application & Window Switcher & Application Launcher
- Added new Application Launcher.
- Applications listed in Status Menu (Running, Recent, Applications, Utilities).
- Added Force Quit (k twice).
- Added Get Info (i).
- Added Reveal in Finder (r).
- Added Relaunch (l). Eg k k l Force Quit & Relaunch.
- New icon badges.
- Mouse Rollover limited to when you change icons.
- Popup contextual menu in Application Switcher & Window Switcher.
- Option to disable mouse rollover in Application Switcher & Window Switcher.
- Control the opacity of Application Switcher & Window Switcher.
- Option to have Window Switcher sort by window depth.
- Allow switching through applications in Window Switcher.
- Added Cover Flow style to Application Switcher.
- Changed to using an alpha colour, removed the alpha slider, and honour the brightness.
In Detail for 5.0:
- Command-Option-Control-Shift-Click on Status Menu icon to cancel all macros.
- Support org.nspasteboard.TransientType (et al) and have the clipboard history ignore them.
- Support org.nspasteboard.AutoGeneratedType for Insert Text by Pasting.
- Up/Down arrow move clipboard selection when clipboard switcher search field is selected.
- Command-W closes palettes.
- The Recording window preserves its location.
- Import menu is properly grayed out only when it should be.
- Removed Key Repeat preference from Application/Window Switcher.
- Multiple Quick Macros would conflict because UIDs were not unique.
- Searching for Cut, Copy or Paste in the Action list would not find the actions.
- Allow the number pad keys to select duplicate macros from the duplicate macro palette.
- and more ...
Keyboard Maestro 5.x requires Mac OS X 10.6 or greater, including 10.7 Lion, and an Intel Mac, and is native 32 and 64 bit.
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.
Keyboard Maestro 5.0 is a paid upgrade from previous versions. Customers who purchased Keyboard Maestro from us after 1 March 2011 have been issued a free upgrade to Keyboard Maestro 5. If you have not received your free license, you can claim your free upgrade by looking up your previous Keyboard Maestro purchase at <http://enquiry.stairways.com/>.
Customers who purchased Keyboard Maestro 4 can upgrade to Keyboard Maestro 5 for US$18 until 31 August 2011. Customers can find details on upgrading by looking up your previous Keyboard Maestro purchase at <http://enquiry.stairways.com/>. Customers upgrading from older versions or after August 2011 can upgrade to Keyboard Maestro 5 for US$25.
Keyboard Maestro is available on the Mac App Store. Customers who purchased Keyboard Maestro from the Mac App Store will receive a free upgrade to this version. Please note that Keyboard Maestro is not, and probably cannot, be sandboxed, so if Apple requires future versions of Mac App Store applications to be sandboxed, Keyboard Maestro will not be able to be updated on the Mac App Store.
There is no facility to transfer your license bought from us to or from the Mac App Store, nor any facility to purchase an upgrade to or on the Mac App Store.
A fully-functional unlicensed trial version of Keyboard Maestro can be downloaded from <http://download.stairways.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/>.
A more detailed tour to give you a better idea of Keyboard Maestro's power and versatility is available at <http://tour.keyboardmaestro.com/>.
Video examples and tutorials of Keyboard Maestro can be found at <http://movies.keyboardmaestro.com/>.
For more information about anything to do with Keyboard Maestro visit <http://www.keyboardmaestro.com/>.
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