Wish list: use a word (standard format) instead of a character for the scripts menu item

It would make it possible to manage scripts and create script menus (aka palettes) and shortcuts easily in keyboard maestro.

thank you

I, too, would love to know how to access items on the Scripts menu for the purpose of creating some custom shortcuts. I read, with great interest, the DT Tips and Tricks article of 29 June (How to Assign Your Own Shortcuts) and downloaded CustomShortcuts but have not yet worked out how to access items on the Scripts menu for the purpose of creating shortcuts.

Stephen

do you use keyboard maestro ?

I have it but use it little. I’d much prefer to create a simple shortcut using Keyboards in System Preferences or (probably easier) the CustomShortcuts app I mentioned previously.

Stephen

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I understand.

My approach is as follows.

If you use many scripts, using a shortcut for each using System Preferences gets to be a pain in the neck, and you need an elephant’s memory to remember them all. With KBM, you can use as many shortcuts as you want. Each shortcut triggers either a single script or displays a palette (=menu) of scripts on the screen from which you can choose one or multiple scripts to run (you can configure the palette so it disappears every time you run one action or stay displayed until you press a key like escape which allows you to run multiple scripts in sequence.

If you want to try the keyboard maestro route:

  • in DevonThink→ open scripts folder → go to the script you want to run → context menu → copy UNIX path of the script of interest
  • in keyboard maestro → new macro → assign a trigger (keyboard shortcut) → insert execute AppleScript action → run as FILE (not text) → paste the UNIX path , and your macro/script is ready to run.

If you have multiple macros for multiple scripts, you have 2 options:

  • one shortcut per macro/script
  • even better and easy to remember: give all (or part of) the script macros the trigger (keyboard shortcut). When you type that keyboard shortcut, all macros triggered by that shortcut will be displayed in a nice menu (palette, in this case called a “conflict palette” because multiple macros are the same trigger). Conflict palettes are one of the most useful and commonly used features of keyboard maestro
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Many thanks for the comprehensive guide and help. I’ve set up exactly the keyboard shortcuts I needed using Keyboard Maestro, limited those macros to DT—and they work perfectly.

Thanks again. I simply have never dived deep into KM—although I have one invaluable macro that runs a Time Machine backup when a specific external drive is mounted (disabling the low priority throttle so that it runs as fast as possible and then re-enabling the throttle at the end of the backup).

Stephen

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Happy it is working out.
Since writing the post, I have changed my approach a bit.
For the occasional script which you are frequently editing/modifying, best to use the same procedure as above, but instead of execute appleScript file, choose Text from the dropdown list in the action and paste the script itself. It makes editing, corrections fine-tuning new scripts much easier.

Yes - I can see that might be a good idea in some cases. However, my DT scripts are so valuable (to me!) they’re kept in a sub-folder of the DT scripts folder. If I update them (as happens rarely now they all work so well) I carefully place copies of the updated scripts in my DT AppleScript database (where I also annotate the effect of all updates). I think I’d prefer not to scatter them anywhere else so shall rely on using the link method in KM! :grinning:

Stephen

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You have a good point to avoid duplicates and total confusion which happens to me.