Script to add hotkey support to apps lacking it

[lcrespom]

Hello,

I am using an old e-mail app that has been (poorly) ported to Mac and lacks proper hotkey support for basic functions such as mail send, mark as read/unread, etc. This means having to navigate through menus with the mouse, which is much slower.

I would like to use Script Kit to:

• Detect a certain combination of keys at any time, in the background (e.g. Ctrl+Shift+PageUp)
• Check for the current application and focused window title
• If the app and window title match the expected values (e.g. the e-mail app is focused and its window title contains "Inbox"), then
• Select a specific submenu item of a specific menu (e.g. Actions => Mark as => Mark selected as unread). Or alternatively, simulate the user pushing a sequence of keystrokes to navigate through the menu (e.g. Ctrl+F2, "c", Right, Down, "m", Down, Down, Right, Return).

I am proficient in JavaScript but totally new to ScriptKit. If you could give me the list of ScriptKit APIs to do all the above steps, I can write the necessary logic around it.

Thank you very much :-)

[johnlindquist]

Here you go, not Script Kit, but it's how I would do it 😇

2021-05-19.12-38-11.mp4

[lcrespom]

Impressive, I tried it and it works like a charm. Thank you very much!!!

[nicksergeant]

I'd actually love it if ScriptKit provided a way to do this. The downside of using the built-in macOS Keyboard -> Shortcuts -> App Shortcuts approach is that it is not backed up as part of iCloud, so changing machines or syncing between two machines isn't possible. I use Keyboard Maestro to do this now, but would be neat if ScriptKit could have "Emulate key command" or "Select menu item" actions for this.

[johnlindquist]

I use Karabiner extensively for managing keyboard shortcuts. I gave a talk my approach here: https://egghead.io/lessons/egghead-save-your-hands-and-save-your-time-rethinking-how-to-use-a-keyboard

"Select menu item" would be an interesting challenge. It would require wrapping some AppleScript just like in the "tileWindow" fn:

kit/src/lib/desktop.ts

Line 305 in 7ee1cb1

global.tileWindow = async (app, leftOrRight) => {

We'd have to make a comma/whatever separated list of menus to click 🤔

There's a "keystroke" fn if that's what you mean by "emulate".

kit/src/lib/keyboard.ts

Line 11 in 7ee1cb1

global.keystroke = async (keyString: string) => {

[nicksergeant]

Fascinating! Looks like I could use keystroke to accomplish this...

But last night I also ended up using the same AppleScript API in this way:

tell application "System Events"
	set appName to name of first application process whose frontmost is true
	if "Activity Monitor" is in appName then
		keystroke "f" using {option down, command down}
	end if
end tell

The problem that I have with this approach is that I can't "scope this rebinding to a specific application, otherwise do nothing and let the key trigger do its normal behavior".

In Keyboard Maestro I have this working by putting key remappings into groups that are only active in specific applications, like so:

Grouping

Macro

This way I can say "cmd-f while in Activity Monitor triggers cmd-option-f" and "cmd-f while in Spotify triggers cmd-l", and cmd-f in any other application will be unaffected.

While I love Keyboard Maestro and would be lost without it, I'd love a way to do this in a way that is scriptable perhaps in ScriptKit.

[nicksergeant]

Yeah I may need to give Karabiner another shot again for these remappings. I remember managing unwieldy Karabiner configs before they made the move to Karabiner Elements 😅, after which I just switched everything to Keyboard Maestro as it can do those and more general purpose scripting. But, the KM UI leaves something to be desired and I worry about the lack of portability of my macros should KM go away.

[johnlindquist]

Yeah, using Goku has improved my Karabiner experience x1000

https://github.com/yqrashawn/GokuRakuJoudo

[nicksergeant]

Oh man this is awesome. The old style XML config of the original Karabiner (and what it was called before Karabiner, which is escaping me…) was awful 😂.

Thanks for the tip!

[nicksergeant]

Ahh yes “KeyRemap4Macbook” 😆

[nicksergeant]

Following up here, Goku is indeed awesome, got all of my simple rebindings into Karabiner now: https://github.com/nicksergeant/dotfiles/blob/master/karabiner.edn

Thanks again for the tip!