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Transition from QuicKeys

A lot of users are moving from QuicKeys to Keyboard Maestro as the last several major Mac OS X upgrades have left many QuicKeys users stranded without a macro solution.

Keyboard Maestro strives to ensure it always uses legitimate Mac OS X APIs so that old versions typically work with little or no disruption on newer versions of Mac OS X. Versions of Keyboard Maestro back to version 4 continue to run in the current Mac OS X.

This page aims to ease the transition for people converting from QuicKeys. Unfortunately, there is no way to automatically convert your macros from QuicKeys to Keyboard Maestro, so it is going to be a fairly manual process of recreating your macros.

Overview

Most QuicKeys refugees quickly learn to love Keyboard Maestro and wonder why they had not moved earlier. But the initial change can be somewhat jarring as Keyboard Maestro does things in very different ways to QuicKeys. Keyboard Maestro strives to be very orthogonal in its features, so that each feature set (eg triggers or actions or calculations or text tokens) operate independently from the other features, allowing you to quickly gain access to more power without significant increases in complexity. So as a previous QuicKeys user, take a bit of time to learn Keyboard Maestro's terminology and Keyboard Maestro's way of doing things and you will soon find your way. And if you have any problems, you can contact us or read the Frequently Asked Questions or Troubleshooting pages.

Differences

Without having much knowledge of QuicKeys it is hard to know how it compares, but there are a couple of obvious points:

Quick Start

Like all new users to Keyboard Maestro, you should have a look at the Quick Start which explains how the components of Keyboard Maestro (the editor and engine, macro groups and macros, triggers and actions) work together.

Importing Manually

Unfortunately, it's not possible to import the Quickeys macros directly into Keyboard Maestro. The only way is to manually recreate each macro.

However, if you have multiple macros that are similar, you can create the first macro and then duplicate it multiple times, changing only the parts that are different in each macro.

Toolbars

One thing QuicKeys users often ask is how to get Toolbars in Keyboard Maestro. Keyboard Maestro allows you to configure any Macro Group to appear as a palette. The palette can be available in all applications, or restricted to certain applications, and the palette can be displayed always, or you can toggle it open and closed using a hot key. See How do I get more than one macro palette? for more information about macro palettes.

Groups

In QuicKeys, macros are grouped automatically by the application they are assigned to/active in.

In Keyboard Maestro, macro groups are more flexible and less automatic.

Macro Availability

A common question for QuickKeys users trying out Keyboard Maestro is “How do I control which applications a macro is available it?”. In Keyboard Maestro, Macro Groups control when a macro is active, so typically you create a macro group named after the application, configured to be active in just that application, and then place your application-specific macros in that macro group.

Multiple Key Triggers

QuicKeys users are often used to the way it supports multiple key triggers. Keyboard Maestro does it quite differently, see How do I use a multiple keystroke trigger? for more information on how to do this.

Prompting for User Input

Quickeys includes an option in some macros to ask for user input to the action (eg the Repeat Count). In Keyboard Maestro, you ask for user input using the Prompt for User Input action, and then use the resulting variables in any further actions. Remember that almost any numeric field can take variables, functions or calculations, and almost any text field can take text tokens, which includes variables . See the forum post titled Variable Repeat.

Working with the Finder Selection

Quickeys includes an option in some file actions to work on the Finder Selection. In Keyboard Maestro, you work with the Finder Selection by using the For Each action to iterate over the selected files. From there, you can do whatever you would like with the files using the various file actions, or by processing with a script or other means. There is a pre-configured action in the acton selector for For Each Path in the Finder Selection, which is simply a For Each action, preset to iterate through the Finders Selection collection. You can put whatever actions you like within that action. See the forum post titled Working with the Finder Selection.