Earlier this year, I purchased Keyboard Maestro in the hopes of finding a replacement for QuicKeys. At first glance, it seemed promising but, upon further examination, I came to the conclusion, albeit erroneously, that Keyboard Maestro couldn't perform clicks relative to window position in addition to screen position. Well, I was quite mistaken. Upon yet closer examination, Keyboard Maestro can, indeed, perform mouse clicks relative to window position and, more importantly, doesn't need to necessarily do it with key combinations as triggers but any number of triggers. For example, it's possible to type a name for the trigger to launch the mouse click macro. This is, of course, very good news in a way when needing to click on an invisible element.
Now, setting that news aside and perhaps more important, it's possible to set up macros to move the mouse pointer by fixed increments. So, for example, one can create a shortcut to move the mouse pointer by as little as a hundredth of an inch or tenths of an inch or whatever value and assign it to a key combination. outSPOKEN users will appreciate the ability to move the pointer as they used to do in OS 9. In some cases, one can just remember the relative locations of commonly used controls or edit fields or, if so desired, can skip the navigation and just go for hot spot creations. At any rate, this is quite exciting and a long time coming since QuicKeys bit the dust, so to speak. A few things of note: For anyone considering running out and buying the application, understand the following disclaimer: while Keyboard Maestro is accessible, trying to set up hot spots without seeing the screen, while possible in theory, is actually a complex process because of the sheer number of actions that are involved and the number of actions that will have to be deleted when recording the macro. By "actions," I mean the actions defined within Keyboard Maestro. So, if you want to record a screen click, you'd start recording with Command-r and you'd then have to use Command-Tab to get to the application where you want to click, move the mouse pointer to where you want to click and then click, navigate back to Keyboard Maestro and stop recording. Well, every single keystroke you've just pressed has now been recorded in a list of actions. It's now necessary to edit the macro to delete all of the unwanted keystrokes. So, again, it's not for the faint of heart if an attempt is to be made with no sighted assistance. Ultimately, however, with sighted assistance, it's much more straight-forward. The good thing is that macros can be imported and exported so, once somebody creates a macro for a given situation, it's possible to share that macro. Keep in mind that screen resolution may play a big part in the translatability of macros between systems. I'm not sure. I haven't tested that at all yet. Anyone wanting to jump in and create their own shortcuts should be aware that, apparently, it's advisable not to use Control and Option together since it seems to conflict to some extent with VoiceOver. More accurately, VoiceOver seems to interfere with the transmission of such shortcuts. I've successfully created a shortcut to move the mouse pointer to the right by one tenth of an inch. I'll create shortcuts for moving up, down and left as well and will export them for others to import into Keyboard Maestro. There are a few more things about which folks should be aware when creating their own macros. It's nothing that one couldn't figure out on their own, given enough time, but it's too much to type so I'll try to put together some kind of audio file with a step-by-step explanation. This week is slammed for me so it'll be a little while but I'll get around to it at some point. BTW, Keyboard Maestro, as I understand, is not available in the App Store but rather through its web site at http://www.keyboardmaestro.com In other news, some friends of mine are working on a script that will move the mouse pointer in fixed increments. It's an extremely simple solution and will probably cost little or nothing, I'm not sure, but Keyboard Maestro is a very robust solution and will surely come in handy for other things. Best, Slau -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Pro Tools Accessibility" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
