For over a year now I have been trying various macro applications on my mac to automate some actions that I perform on a regular basis. Some of the apps that I have uses are: AutoPilot, QuicKeys, and Keyboard Maestro. While each of these apps have their own benefits, I will focus on QuicKeys and Keyboard Maestro, as these were the 2 apps that I liked the most.
When i was using QuicKeys, I noticed that it was more powerful than the version of Keyboard Maestro out at the time. QuicKeys had some features that Keyboard Macro lacked, such as web interactions and the ability to create macros with decision points. The decision steps in QuicKeys allows you to setup a macro to keep an eye out for a conditional (such as an error message) and perform an action if that conditional is met. While this is a very powerful and useful feature, it was not something that was necessary for the actions I was automating.
Keyboard Maestro, while not as powerful, was much easier to use. The app has a Record option where you actually record actions and create a macro from the recording. This is opposed to the traditional approach of creating each individual step of the macro using built-in actions (also an option in Keyboard Maestro). Some other options that I liked within Keyboard Maestro (that might be available in other macro programs) are application-specific macros, clipboard history switcher, and many more listed here. Now, the main reason that I decided upon Keyboard Maestro over QuicKeys was that KM can be closed and will still run in the taskbar. While not a real problem, it was rather frustrating to have the macro application in the app-switcher menu. With KM you can quit the app and have it still running in the taskbar.
If you are interested, KM has a free trial which can be downloaded here.
For those of you who are curious, below are a few actions that I have macros for:
- Logging into remote machines in terminal. I do most of my programming remotely, and I always have at least 4 terminal windows open at once. I have a macro setup that will log me into the server on each of the 4 windows. So pressing a single button SSH’s me into the server and enters my password on all 4 windows.
- Exiting all terminal windows. While this seems like a somewhat insignificant macro, it used to be a nuisance to type ‘exit’ so many times when leaving work. Again, some people would view this macro as pointless, but it prevents me from typing ‘exit’ 20 or so times due to typos from typing too fast.
- Add missing features to an app. I have a macro that remaps the command+number key shortcut to switch to the specified tab. I used Firefox and Chrome for a long time and absolutely hate having command+1 open the first bookmark instead of switching to the first tab in Safari. While I know that there are other options for remapping these shortcuts, KM handles it properly as well.
NOTE: I was recently told of a new macro program called Butler. I have never used it, but it was highly recommended and its another option for those who have yet to decide on which macro app to use.
NOTE 2: Apparently QuicKeys has not been updated to work for OS X Lion because of the passing of the main developer.
Hi this is somewhat of off topic but I was wondering if blogs use WYSIWYG editors or if you have to manually code with HTML. I’m starting a blog soon but have no coding experience so I wanted to get advice from someone with experience. Any help would be enormously appreciated!
This blog is run through WordPress. If you start a blog using wordpress, you can either host it on your own domain or have a .wordpress.com website. WordPress blogs can be WYSIWYG, or you can learn to write html and modify/make your own themes and such. Its very customizable. So in short, yes you can do a WordPress blog without knowing any HTML
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Third Flower
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