How to Open Items with Keyboard Maestro

Even as our DEVONthink databases continue to grow, there are always certain documents or groups we deal with daily. When working in other applications, you may wish for a quick way to jump back to a specific item in your databases. Here is a way to create a launch palette in the popular Keyboard Maestro utility.

1. In DEVONthink, Control-click the item you want in your palette, and choose Copy Item Link.
2. Switch to Keyboard Maestro and create a macro group in the Groups section. This will contain the macros to the DEVONthink items you’ll link to. Give it a name, like DT Favorites.
3. With your macro group selected, press the plus (+) button in the Macros section and create a new macro. Give it a name, likely the name of the specific item in DEVONthink.
4. Normally, you’d define a trigger, e.g., a hotkey to launch the macro. In this instance, ignore this step or add Triggered by… > Global Palette Macro Trigger.
5. Under Will execute the following actions, tap No Action to open the Actions pane.
6. Search for and add Open > Open a URL to add the action to your macro, then paste the item link into the action. Close the Actions pane to see your macro in its group.
7. Optionally, you can customize the icon for your macro.

Now to create a palette…

1. In DEVONthink, copy the item link of another item.
2. Back in Keyboard Maestro, Control-click the macro you made, and choose Duplicate Macro.
3. Define a trigger, e.g., Global Macro Palette Trigger again.
4. Select the macro group you made in the previous step 2 and make sure it’s enabled.
5. In the third set of options, choose Shows a palette for one action when and set a hotkey.
6. Optionally, tap the Palette Style if you want to customize the palette.

Now press your hotkey and a handy floating palette should appear with buttons to launch those items in DEVONthink!