I’m a writer, editor, and Royal Literary Fund Fellow. The real trick is examining the way you work, and finding ways to utilise Keyboard Maestro’s extensive capabilities. Yet while Writer’s a great-looking and functional app whose files are searchable, for something as simple a one-line or even one-word text note, there are just too many layers to the processes of creation, saving and organisation.Īs with most things Keyboard Maestro, thinking about each step is key – there are often more than you expect, and you may need to add pauses to allow each step to be completed before the computer tries to take the next. iA Writer, in which I’m drafting this post, can also be used for this purpose. I previously used nvALT to create such notes, but when I upgraded my computer it was one of those apps I didn’t bring to the new machine. Keyboard Maestro is a Mac app that enables you to set up various Macro shortcuts according to your own needs. To make this process really convenient, assign a hotkey to the macro – I have OPT+1 set to several macros, which gives me a palette I just hit the appropriate number – in this case 6 – and Bob’s yer uncle. When saving in TextEdit for the first time, navigate to the folder in which you store your notes, and the app will continue to use this path unless you dictate otherwise. Then all you have to do is type your note, and quit when finished. The macro itself is quite simple, requiring the following steps: In Preferences, I set new documents to open as plain text, to streamline and simplify, and set the plain text font to Menlo 14pt so it’s nice and easy to read. Yet it’s TextEdit’s simplicity and lack of bloat that make it particularly appealing in this case.įirst off, launch TextEdit, open Preferences, and set a couple of defaults. TextEdit is a stalwart of the Mac, but for many uses, such as blogging or coding, it’s been supplanted by more use-specific apps with added functionality. I have lots of others, and storing these in a Dropbox folder called Notes means I can access them using the Files app on my phone. For example, I’ve recorded my Writers’ Guild membership number in this way, so if I ever need to quote my number all I have to do is use Spotlight (I actually use Alfred but it’s a similar thing), type the file name, and hit return to open said file. Such files store simple snippets of information. If you have Keyboard Maestro, however, you can easily create a simple macro that provides a streamlined solution using TextEdit. There are several ways to do this, but most are more complex then necessary. Nothing fancy – just a text file that’s searchable, giving you quick and easy access. When this is all done, you can tap a button on the Touch Bar and fire any Keyboard Maestro macro you desire.Sometimes you just want to make a note on your Mac. (While in Keyboard Maestro, be sure to set the trigger for the macro to be a script.) … and then paste it into BetterTouchTool. To get that, you will need to select “Copy as UUID” in Keyboard Maestro: Where I have that placeholder text, you’ll need to paste in the UUID of the Keyboard Maestro macro you want to execute. Osascript -e 'tell application "Keyboard Maestro Engine" to do script "PLACEHOLDER"' The action you need to use is named “Execute Terminal Command (Async, non-blocking),” which makes the button fire off a script. Turns out, you can even have BetterTouchTool become a trigger for Keyboard Maestro.įirst, create a button in the Touch Bar section of BetterTouchTool, or a group that you can place buttons in, like I have: I then fired up BetterTouchTool, which among many other things, allows you to create custom UI elements on your notebook’s Touchbar, tying them to a wide range of actions. To re-use these macros on my MacBook Pro, I made a copy of them in Keyboard Maestro, which I have sync its data over Dropbox. Here’s what that looks like, with my secret URLs redacted:Īs you can see, on my Mac Pro, this is triggered by a specific button my Stream Deck, as pictured above. I’m doing this via with Keyboard Maestro, another incredibly flexible tool. The MPU page in Relay’s ad-tracking system.The Stream Deck is incredibly flexible, but one of my most common use cases is to tap a single button on it to open a bunch of related Safari tabs when it comes time to prepare for a show.įor example, if I press the button with the MPU logo, it opens these pages: As with most things, he was right about how much I would come to love it. As such, it seems wise to me to make it more useful.Ī little backstory first, though… earlier this year, David Sparks finally talked me into buying a Stream Deck to use at my desk. Love it or hate it, it seems that the Touch Bar is here to stay on the MacBook Pro. Automation programs Keyboard Maestro and Alfred, among others, can power up your Mac workflow and productivity by reducing the need to perform redundant tasks.
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