You can develop custom Macro Actions using a facility known as Plug In Actions (PIA). After you install a Plug In Action in your local Keyboard Maestro Support folder, you can use them like the built-in Actions.
You can download PIAs developed by others from these sources:
PIA Install Files are .zip
Archive Files
.zip
file.zip
file onto the Dock Icon
A Plug In Action is Contained in a Folder,
Whose Name:
The PIA folder contains a set of files, including:
The PIA Folder must be stored as a .zip
archive file for installation.
The format of the Keyboard Maestro Action.plist is a Cocoa Property list containing a dictionary with the following keys and values:
Key | Description |
---|---|
Name | the name of the action (which appears in the Category/Actions list) |
Script | the name of the script, made up of only ASCII alphanumerics or underscores, plus an ASCII alphanumeric extension |
Icon [optional] | the name of the icon png file, made up of only ASCII alphanumerics or underscores plus .png |
Title [optional] | the title displayed on the action, which can include %Param%XYZ% tokens. It should usually not include other tokens. If it is missing, the Name will be used |
Timeout [optional number] | the default timeout in seconds. Set it to 0 if the action needs no timeout. The default is 99 hours |
Author [optional] | the author of this action |
URL [optional] | a URL for the author or this action |
Help [optional] | a short (Tool Tip) explanation of this action |
Results [optional] | what to do with the output of the script if any. Possible Values: None, Window, Briefly, Typing, Pasting, Variable, Clipboard – multiple values can be used, seperated by a bar (|), the first specified value is the default |
Parameters [optional] | an array of parameters to the script, each entry is a dictionary as described below |
Each parameter in the Parameters array is a dictionary with the following keys:
Label | the name of the parameter. The same rules as Keyboard Maestro Variable Names apply. The label is displayed to the user and used to pass the parameter to the script. Obviously, the label must be unique amongst all parameters |
Type | the type of the parameter. Possible Values: String (single line), TokenString, Calculation, Text (multi-line), TokenText, Checkbox (0 or 1), PopupMenu or Hidden. The Type specifies how the value is displayed to the user and what processing is applied before it is passed to the script. Hidden types are text token processed, but are not displayed in the editor |
Default [optional] | the default value when the action is created |
Menu [required if Type is PopupMenu] | the values of the popup menu, separated by | |
Warning: Keys are case sensitive.
Parameters are passed to the script via environment variables with names starting with KMPARAM_ similar to how variables are passed to shell scripts with the Execute Script action. So a parameter named “My Text” would be in an environment variable KMPARAM_My_Text. You can access the envirnment variables from AppleScript with system attribute “KMPARAM_My_Text”. Note that AppleScript’s system attribute is not safe for international characters, although can use code like:
set myText to do shell script "echo $KMPARAM_My_Text"
In normal use, once a plug in action is read, it will stay in memory and changes will not be noticed (although the script will be executed each time, so changes to that will be noticed). To cause the editor and/or engine to notice changes to the plug while in development, use AppleScript to reload the macros:
tell application "Keyboard Maestro" to reload tell application "Keyboard Maestro Engine" to reload
If the Plug In script fails, the action will fail (v9.0+), potentially aborting the macro.