Sib-Sub: Precision Window Control with Keyboard Maestro
Geek-o-meter: 1 2️⃣ 3
Now that you’re practically playing the keyboard as if Alex Acuña were an accountant, you’re probably eager to take things to the next level. You’re programming everything you can, yet still finding yourself reaching for the mouse in unexpected situations.
Have you ever found yourself needing to invoke the ‘Edit Text Styles’ dialog?
I’m sure you have. You probably know it’s fairly easy to get to the text style you want, but editing it is the real challenge. With the mouse, you can double-click the style—but who wants to do that‽[^1] If you’re already using the mouse, you might as well just click the ‘Edit…’ button.
“But I don’t want to use the mouse!”—I hear you, and I’m right there with you. You might think you can simply press Tab once and then hit Enter. Sure, Tab takes you to the ‘Edit…’ button, but it doesn’t actually bring it into focus. ‘Close’ remains the default button, and Tab doesn’t change that. So, Tab > Enter ends up closing the dialog instead of editing the style.
Introducing Subscopes
I came across the term while learning about an ancient software program they used before computers. It reminded me a lot of Keyboard Maestro, so I thought, “I could do this in KM!”
I already have many triggers and actions that are available only in Sibelius. That’s the easy part—just create a macro group and set ‘Available only in these applications:’ to ‘Sibelius’. Taking it one step further, I created another macro group with an additional condition: ‘Available when a focused window title contains:’ and set it to ‘Edit Text Styles’.
Both of these conditions need to be met before the macros will work, meaning I can essentially create entire shortcut profiles for specific windows.
Now, it’s just a matter of creating a trigger to click the ‘Edit…’ button. Cmd-E seems reasonable to me (and it won’t insert an expression!).
I use the action ‘Click at Found Image’ and input a screenshot of the button.[^2] By pressing the cogwheel, I enable ‘Restore Mouse Location’. While I’m not sure it’s necessary in this case, I prefer to enable it for actions like these.
Staff Text Styles
I’ve created a new macro group subscope for when I’m inside the ‘Staff Text Styles’ dialog. Using Command + 1-6, I can have the mouse click on the various panes:
For each pane, I can assign a shortcut to access the functions I need the most:
Deep Dive
Subscopes are not complicated. As long as you set up the two conditions for your macro group (application + window), you can go wild with clicking found images. While a geek-o-meter level of 2 might suggest that this is complex, it’s actually quite manageable. It’s not just a switch to flip; it requires some time to program, and you do need to test each function as you set it up. However, it’s worth every minute you invest!
If you found any of this information useful, don’t forget to like and sub-scope!
Footnotes
[^1]: Shout out to the interrobang!
[^2]: If you’ve already tabbed over to the button, you should configure it to look for both designs. You can use the ‘Try/Catch’ action to provide Keyboard Maestro with two scenarios to consider.