What’s New
Keyboard Maestro 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.
Changes for 5.3.2
Fixed HID device crashing bug particularly prevelent in Mountain Lion.
Fixed Read File variable editor so you can click in the variable field.
Fixed calculation operators that can be followed by numbers or letters (eg MOD).
Fixed "timout" typo.
Changes for 5.3.1
Resolved an issue with executing Automator Workflows in Mountain Lion.
Resolved a performance issue with the Button Condition.
Notify via Growl when a timeout cancels a macro.
Fixed some memory leaks.
Fixed the SECONDS() function.
Fixed a performance issue with getting the Finder's selection.
Fixed the YEAR/MONTH/DAY/DOW/HOUR/MINUTE/SECOND to be in local timezone.
Fixed some edge cases in the Hard Wrap filter.
Allow "APPLICATION" in the menu condition.
Avoid "no autorelease pool" warnings on launch of engine in Mac App Store version.
Removed "move to" logging.
Fixed Edit with TextEdit macro library entry.
Fixed short form variables with spaces or underscores in their names.
Fixed triple click action editor to actually triple click.
Fixed a case where the editor get confused when switching macros.
Changes for 5.3
Enhanced Mouse Click action:
Added support for mouse drag.
Click relative to a found image on the screen.
Click relative to the center of the window/screen/image.
Double and triple click.
Right click (and center button and other buttons).
New Screen Capture action captures one or all screens or a selected window.
New Image actions:
Create New Image.
Flip image.
Rotate image.
Resize Image (Resize image, resize canvas, add or remove margins, crop).
Composite (images or styled text) onto Image.
Draw Shape (line, rectangle or oval) onto Image.
Trim Image.
Display Clipboard (image or styled text).
Get Image Size.
Find Image on Screen.
New Screen Contains Image condition.
New Highlight Location action.
Allow "APPLICATION" in select menu as an alias for the application name.
Process text tokens in the Clipboard, Script, and Path condition tests.
Added live reporting of the results of condition tests in action editors.
Added selectedMacros AppleScript command.
Allow short form variable tokens (%variable name%).
Added MidX and MidY to the SCREEN & WINDOW functions.
Fixed some edge cases in the Unwrap text filter.
Fixed the Tutorial.
Fixed a bug where selecting the Variable in the Search and Replace Variable action did not stick.
Removed the five second delay in displaying applications/utilities.
Fixed the %WindowPosition%n% token
Corrected non-edit display of File collection recursive status.
Fixed a bug that caused expressions with commas to fail in some calculation fields.
Process text tokens in the Clipboard, Script, and Path condition test.
Do not process \ characters in the regular expression search fields.
Added Image and File categories to Export Library.
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.
Added Percent Encode for URL filter (Clipboard & Variable).
Added text token processing to button names in Prompt For User Input.
Added text token processing to Open URL and Search & Replace actions.
Changed the way String Matching/Reg Ex menus are named.
Changed icon for Display Text and Mouse actions.
Disable changes to the Global Macro Group which were not allowed anyway.
Fixed case correct Insert Text by Typing in applications like Screen Sharing.
Fixed a crash that could happen if a text factory no longer exists.
Fixed lock up when entering quoted strings in calculations.
Remember the location of the Recording window (again!).
Made yet more changes to the HID code to try to handle the system crash.
Extended DisableAnimation to include the macro palette.
Left justified the text in the text display window.
Changes for 5.0.3
Improve the visibility of the clipboard HUD icons.
Added %LastApplication% token.
Updated to Growl SDK 1.2.2
Removed a case where resolving old aliases could lock up for a long period of time.
Removed "variables" debugging messages.
Removed dependency on RBSplitView.
Another attempt to fix HID crashes with wacom tablets.
Stopped Keyboard Maestro launching (and immediately crashing) on pre-10.6.
Resolved dragging failure after dragging an action to the Favorites category.
Fixed a crash that could happen when the first action referenced the current macro.
Fixed a crash that could happen with the Menu condition when there is no menu bar.
Fixed drawing glitch in variable popup menus.
Fixed the display of "inline text" popups in Lion to display in proper location.
Changes for 5.0.2
Speak String action now processes tokens.
Truncate window names in the middle instead of at the end.
Add search/replace text to the non-Edit display.
Refind lost applications.
Library Window now remembers its position.
Changed Share as Macro Library to Export as Macro Library.
Improved a text insertion case.
Fixed a long standing drawing glitch.
Fixed a possible cause of the CPU issue with clipboard syncing.
Fixed a possible crash when there is no front application.
Some documentation tweaks.
Changes for 5.0.1
Added a macro library entry showing how to store passwords in the Keychain.
Added Set Variable to Clipboard and Clipboard to Variable pseudo actions.
Allow negative window indexes in Manipulate Window to count from the back.
Addde Help -> Open Preferences Folder since Lion hides the Library folder.
Moved the Keyboard Maestro preference folder to the Application Support folder.
Ensure the log files are created.
Added Command-Shift-Tab trigger to default Activate Application Switcher.
Added display of nested actions for Repeat command in non-Edit mode.
Changed the origin of Screen tokens to top left like other origins in Keyboard Maestro.
Ignore bogus windows in Manipulate Window when considering indexes.
Resolve alias files in Open File or Folder action.
Just include one Quick Macro macro by default.
Added documentation links for ICU Date Time format.
Added token processing for most of the condition fields.
"Save Clipboard History" appears on in the preferences whether it is on or off.
Handle the case where the preferences folder is readonly.
Execute Script, Save to Variable, changes to the variable name were not sticking.
Fixed Text Factory clipboard filtering.
Fixed a UI glitch for Variable Condition "Is Empty".
Fixed Swap Characters library entry.
Fixed some potential problems with clipboard syncronization (including CPU excess usage)
Fixed an edge case for multiple overlapping typed string triggers.
Fixed an issue editing macros containing Open URL or Open File or Folder actions.
Fixed the weird behaviour with multiple Record Quick Macros and duplicate UIDs.
Fixed a potential crash displaying titles of clipboards.
Fixed the Pixel Color test condition testing the pixel at the wrong location.
Fixed a potential crash in the Pixel Color test condition.
Major Changes for 5.0
Requires 10.6 and Intel.
Control Flow - Pause Until, If/Then/Else, While, Until and Repeat with extensive conditional tests.
Variables - permanently stored and accessible in a variety of ways.
Calculations - based on variables or a variety of functions.
Macro Library built in with ready-to-use macros.
Undo/Redo - finally!
Enhanced Application Switcher with Cover Flow, Force Quit, Get Info and Reveal.
Enhanced Window Switcher with Cover Flow of Applications and window depth sorting.
Enhanced Clipboard History with Favorites, Quick Look and Send clipboard to another Mac.
Application Launcher.
Control Flow & Variables & Calculations
New Control Flow actions Pause Until, If/Then/Else, While, Until and 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 (e.g. 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 Clipboard to other Macs (appears in clipboard history, ready for access).
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 can honour case of remember case Typed String triggers.
Allow triggering on "any" application activations, launches or quits.
New and Improved Actions
Set Macro Enable action.
Speak Text action.
Play Sound action.
Action to display text.
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 .
Added Relaunch & Force Quit options to Quit action.
Added "Current Application" option to Quit action.
Open Finder Selection action optionally with a specific application.
Added "with specific application" to Open File or Folder action.
Added "with specific application" to Open URL action.
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 macros in the Keyboard Maestro Engine.
AppleScript command to play sounds.
Enhanced Application & Window Switcher & Application Launcher
Added new Application Launcher.
Applications listed in Status Menu (Running, Recent, Applications, Utilities).
Added Force Quit (press k twice).
Added Get Info (press i).
Added Reveal in Finder (press r).
Added Relaunch (press l). E.g. press k k l to 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 now honours the brightness.
In Detail for 5.0:
Command-Option-Control-Shift-Click on Status Menu icon to cancel all macros.
Removed support for Zonic KRM - online purchases only now.
Private preference (DisableAnimation) to disable all animations.
Private preference (FavoritesDisplayName) to adjust spelling of Favorites.
Support org.nspasteboard.TransientType (et al) and have the clipboard history ignore them.
Support org.nspasteboard.AutoGeneratedType for Insert Text by Pasting.
Named Clipboard popup New Clipboard leaves the user editing the name.
Up/Down arrow moves the clipboard selection when clipboard switcher search field is selected.
Enable/Disable button is properly disabled for Global Macro Group.
Command-W closes palettes.
The Recording window preserves its location.
Import menu is properly grayed out only when it should be.
Removed the 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.
The number pad keys can now select duplicate macros from the duplicate macro palette.
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