The Execute an AppleScript action executes a specified AppleScript, either from a file or text.
When you insert an Execute AppleScript Action, it will appear as shown below.
There are two setup options:
Setup Option | Choices (Default shown first) |
---|---|
Script location | Execute text script (type or paste script into Action text field) Execute script file (This is faster if it is a compiled script file .scpt ) |
Script Results | Ignored. Displayed in a floating window. Displayed briefly in a Notification. Typed in to the current selection. Pasted in to the current selection. Saved to a variable. Saved to the system or a Named Clipboard. Asynchronously ignored (the script runs while the macro continues on to the next Action.) |
Here is a typical example with these options:
For the latest update on this topic, see the User Manual article: Scripting.
This provides the latest method to get and set Keyboard Maestro variables via AppleScript.
AppleScripts are executed in the background via osascript. This means they are not allowed to do user interaction. You can work around this by asking the current applicationto do the user interaction for you, for example:
tell application "System Events" set currentAppName to name of first application process whose frontmost is true end tell tell application currentApp display dialog "Your message here" with title "Your Title here" end tell
See Using AppleScript to Get and Set Keyboard Maestro Variables for best methods.
In AppleScript with Keyboard Maestro Version 7.1+, you can tell the application “Keyboard Maestro Engine” to:
getvariable <KM Variable Name> setvariable <KM Variable Name> to <New Value>
where both the <KM Variable Name>
and <New Value>
are text values.
For example:
tell application "Keyboard Maestro Engine" to set myVar to getvariable "My KM Variable"
Using Keyboard Maestro Variables in a Shell Script from AppleScript
AppleScripts can access variables by using environment variables (using system attribute) or by talking to the Keyboard Maestro Engine. Note that AppleScript’s system attribute is not safe for international characters, although it can use code like:
set myVar to do shell script "echo $KMVAR_My_KM_Variable"