Hardware Reference
In-Depth Information
Learn about Keyboard Maestro Triggers
Just as Keyboard Maestro has lots of groovy actions, it has a crazy array of triggers. We've
seen keyboard shortcuts and commands on the Keyboard Maestro status menu, but there are
14 other options too. I'm not going to enumerate all of them here—you can read all about
them in the Keyboard Maestro
documentation
—but I want to call out a few that I think are
especially noteworthy:
•
Typed String Trigger:
Unlikeakeyboardshortcut,whichusesacombination
of keys pressed at once (typically with modifiers such as Command, Control,
Option, and/or Shift), a typed string trigger is a
sequence
of keys you type
without a modifier
. In
Automate Text Expansion
, we saw how software can
turn a typed abbreviation into a longer chunk of text. This is the same idea,
except that typing an abbreviation
runs a macro
(and optionally deletes those
characters you just typed). For example, I could type an abbreviation that fills
in some predefined text, selects the entire current paragraph, and copies it to
the clipboard—all in one operation.
•
Time Trigger:
Have your macro run on a timer! This trigger lets you select
the time and day(s) of the week you want it to run.
•
MIDI Trigger:
If you have a piano-style MIDI keyboard (or any other MIDI
instrument) connected to your Mac, you can trigger a Keyboard Maestro macro
when you play a particular note. (Incidentally, there are also MIDI actions to
send note on, note off, and control change messages.)
•
Macro Palette Trigger:
This floating palette normally takes the form of a
small icon (which you can position anywhere on your screen), but mouse over
it,anditdisplaysalistofmacrosthatyoucantriggerwithasingleclick(
Figure
48
).
Figure 48:
The macro palette is normally unobtrusive (left), but when
you mouse over it, it expands to show macros you can activate with a
click (right).
