Hardware Reference
In-Depth Information
• Add keyboard shortcuts to menu commands in apps that don't support OS X's
built-in shortcuts
• Create an ad hoc Wi-Fi network
• Open an entire set of apps and documents
• Resize and reposition all your windows so they don't overlap
• Modify text or formatting according to predefined patterns
• Email the URL of the Web page you're currently viewing to someone else
• Rotate, flip, resize, or crop all the images in a folder
Having thus sung the praises of macro utilities generally, I must level with you. For all
practical purposes, we're talking about one utility: Keyboard Maestro. Sure, I'll mention a
few others (in
Use Another Macro Utility
)
, and I don't mean to diss them, but the main
shortcoming of competitors like iKey and QuicKeys is that they aren't being actively
maintained or developed. They have excellent features, but they lack the latest bells and
whistles, and don't engender confidence that they'll still work in tomorrow's version of OS X.
If you want a great macro utility—and trust me, you do—Keyboard Maestro is where it's at.
Control Your Mac with Keyboard Maestro
I've already given you a taste of what
Keyboard Maestro
can do, so let me show you what it
looks like, walk you through creating a couple of macros, and explore some of its options and
little-known features.
Create a Macro
When you open the Keyboard Maestro (
Figure 40
), you'll see a three-pane Editor interface.
On the left is a list of groups, which you can use to organize your macros however you like;
this includes the All Macros smart group. In the middle is the list of all the macros in the
current group. And on the right is the contents of the currently selected macro (or a blank
shell of a macro, if you've just created it). To create an empty macro, click the plus button
at the bottom of the Macros list.
