Someone familiar with Keyboard Maestro ?

[NordmoleX]

Hi, I wonder if you guys can help me. Because I am beginning with some C++ programming (Started a course for that), I switched to a US Layout keyboard (being from Germany) because I read that its better for the easier position of most used keys. And that is true, I have to agree. One thing, and yes I assume thats something one can get used to over time, but its not right now, the difference between Y and Z is kinda hard for me atm. So I wonder if there is a way to switch that via some tool.

I read about Karabiner, but since thats not working with MacOSX, and BetterTouchTool (as far as I have seen) can't do that, I wonder if Keyboard Maestro maybe does the trick. But I am a bit overwhelmed from all the different things that KM could potentially do, that I don't know if its really capable of that. Anyone here has experience with that program and knows if that would work ?
Thanks

 

[jojoba]

I use KM, but on a very basic level. One thing it can do is to act like a text expander app. For example, you can program it to type "Z" when you type "Y". Or, if there is a phrase containing Z, you can ask it to replace all instances of "phrasewithY" with "phrasewithZ". Don't know if that would solve your issue.

 

[NordmoleX]

Could you maybe add some screenshots that show me how I would do that ? Because its that it looks a bit too much what you can potentially do, that I don't know what to do. Its confusing, at least for me. Thanks in advance.

 

[jojoba]

Sure, I've added some shots here. The basic recipe is:
1. New macro
2. Select "Typed String Trigger"
3. Under "this string is typed", insert the trigger. In my case I usually change the default to "match after a word break" (rather than "match after any character"). Match after any character tends to trigger the string when I don't want it (in the middle of other words), but this of course depends upon your usage.
4. Then click the green "new action" and select "insert text by typing" by double clicking. You can also select "insert text by pasting", which is what I do most of the time, but I've heard that the typing option is better when you do programming (I have no idea if this is true, I don't do programming myself). Then type the text you want to appear on your screen.

And then you should be set.

 

[NordmoleX]

Do you feel that Keyboard Maestro is worth it's quite high price?

 

[jojoba]

I've had it for a long time now, so not quite sure how I'd feel about it today. It's certainly a very powerful app and I'm not using half its potential. It can also replace various apps that might be doing different jobs for you today (e.g. Hazel, text expanders, clip board enhancement apps, Better Touch Tool, etc). I think my bottom line is that it's a very powerful tool which is worth the price for what it does, but you need to assess whether you actually need its power and you need to spend a bit of time figuring out how to make it work for you. Since you're venturing in to programming you'll probably get the hang of it faster than I have.