Issue with Conditional Activation Group detection

Describe the bug
When using the new Condition Activation Group function, the dialog where you're editing the conditions has a helpful feature where it shows the current values for whatever you have selected. This makes it easy to create conditions based on them.

However, I found if you switch to a different window/control/whatever, and the new window is missing one of the value types (e.g. 'Window Title' or 'Focused Element Role'), it retains the value of the previous selection (i.e. the thing that was focused before it.)

For instance, with the BTT editor window focused, you get this...

Current Bundle Identifier: com.hegenberg.BetterTouchTool • App Name: BetterTouchTool • Process Name: BetterTouchTool • Window Title: (null) • Focused Element Role: AXStaticText • Subrole: • Executable Path: /Applications/BetterTouchTool.app/Contents/MacOS/BetterTouchTool

If you then click a Java application, such as UMLet, you get this...

Current Bundle Identifier: net.java.openjdk.cmd • App Name: MainStandalone • Process Name: MainStandalone • Window Title: (null) • Focused Element Role: AXStaticText • Subrole: • Executable Path: /Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk-10.0.2.jdk/Contents/Home/bin/java

Note 'Window Title' and 'Focused Element Role' are the same as for BTT.

If you then, say, click Safari, you get this...

Current Bundle Identifier: com.apple.Safari • App Name: Safari • Process Name: Safari • Window Title: SomeCoolSite • Focused Element Role: AXWebArea • Subrole: • Executable Path: /Applications/Safari.app/Contents/MacOS/Safari

If you click back on the UMLet Java app, you get this...

Current Bundle Identifier: net.java.openjdk.cmd • App Name: MainStandalone • Process Name: MainStandalone • Window Title: SomeCoolSite • Focused Element Role: AXWebArea • Subrole: • Executable Path: /Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk-10.0.2.jdk/Contents/Home/bin/java

Note 'Window Title' and 'Focused Element Role' now are the same as for Safari.

Also, while I get why the Window Title for BTT is null, the Java app has one so I'm not sure why that isn't being picked up. Just something to look out for. (I was trying to specifically identify UMLet but there's nothing specific to that Java app I can grab. Window Title would've been perfect there.)

Something else... you show Window Title in that info box, but you don't have 'windowTitle' in the list of options. I'm guessing its the 'windowName' one? If so, you should consider updating the labels in the text area to match the actual values in the conditions editor (or vice-versa.)

Also, an enhancement would be if you could simply double-click one of those values and have them be added to the conditions automatically. Of course to do this, you would have to lock the current values as when you click back in BTT, you don't want them to change. A 'lock' button that doesn't steal focus when clicked right next to it would be good, as would a keyboard shortcut. You could also use a floating pallet which would give you more room for them and you could lay them out in a vertical, labeled list instead of a paragraph-like structure. Just makes it easier to search through, especially when the length of the values change.

Thanks for reporting, I'll fix this!

Unfortunately most Java apps don't support these macOS api's, thus they won't return anything for them. (There are some few Java apps that do work fine...)

May I add the following issue in this thread?

I have two different Conditional Activation Group for Terminal app based on the title of the window:

  • When switching to/from a different app the groups are activated perfectly.
  • When switching between tabs of the same window: the corresponding group is not activated, until I switch back & forth from/to the window.

I hope it makes sense. Btw this is a really great feature!

I see the same issue even when switching between two Safari windows or between two Chrome windows. To reproduce:

  1. Open wikipedia.org in a Safari window and google.com in another Safari window.

  2. Click the Safari window with Wikipedia. Observe the values shown in BetterTouchTool's "Edit conditional activation group" dialog, where Window Title is correct:

Current Bundle Identifier: com.apple.Safari • App Name: Safari • Process Name: Safari • Window Title: Wikipedia • Focused Element Role: AXTextField • Subrole: (null) • Executable Path: /Applications/Safari.app/Contents/Macos/Safari

  1. Click the Safari window with Google. Observe the values shown, where Window Title is now incorrect (i.e. still Wikipedia):

Current Bundle Identifier: com.apple.Safari • App Name: Safari • Process Name: Safari • Window Title: Wikipedia • Focused Element Role: AXWebArea • Subrole: (null) • Executable Path: /Applications/Safari.app/Contents/MacOS/Safari

This means that if you use something like "windowName contains ..." as the condition, it won't work when switching between two windows of the same browser. (This is with MacOS 10.13.6, Safari 11.1.2, Chrome 69.0.3497.57.)

Looking forward to this issue being fixed, as this is a feature I've been long waiting for. Keep up the good work! :smiley:

This continues to be an issue. Any updates on a fix?

To be clear, this is the behavior I'm seeing with BetterTouchTool 2.687 on macOS 10.14.2:

  • Switching between different apps works fine (i.e. Window Title in BetterTouchTool activation group editor changes as expected).
  • Switching between different tabs of the same window works fine for Chrome (72.0.3626.28) and Safari (12.0.2) windows, but not for Finder windows.
  • Switching between different windows of the same app does not work for Chrome, Safari, or Finder (i.e. Window Title in BetterTouchTool activation group editor stays the same).

Any updates on this? I wanted to have different triggers for Autodesk EAGLE Schematic window and for Board window, but BTT won't detect when I change windows. It only detects when I change between tabs or different apps.

This bug remains - here's a vide of the behavior. Watch the detected values as I move between windows (no changes) vs. between tabs (which works fine).

Any updates?

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+1 for this issue.

(And thank you @Andreas_Hegenberg for all the great work on BTT!)

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