New from template dropdown via shortcut?

Scrivener Scrivener for macOS
1

I can create keyboard shortcuts for my templates using the template name & System Preferences: ⌘! New Work Log, ⌘@ New Scene. (Thanks, Scrivener!)

Issues:

  1. finding that many unused shortcuts (I have 5 templates so far)
  2. memorizing them (I’m still learning the native Scrivener shortcuts)
  3. maintaining shortcuts for new/changed template names (+ close, reopen Scrivener)

I tried creating a shortcut for New From Template, but Scrivener answers with a protesting beep. I could set ⌘! to call applescript to tell Scrivener the shortcut for the template selected from an applescript list, but that adds script maintenance issues and only eases memorization.

Is there a simpler way to a dropdown list of templates via keyboard shortcut that I’m overlooking?

2

Have you ever tried a macro toolkit, like Keyboard Maestro (that one isn’t free, but I believe there are other options)? I consider something like that to be invaluable if you enjoy customising your Mac software in ways the original program doesn’t anticipate (not to mention building workflows between software). For example, when you create multiple macros sharing the same shortcut (such as Shift-Cmd-1), then this tool will build an overlay with automatic single-key acceleration (as well as binding 1,2,3…). For example I have a macro that turns Markdown text to BBCode (which I will be doing shortly before sending this post). I hit Shift-Ctrl-C, which presents me with a few conversion macros I’ve built, if I hit ‘2’ after the first shortcut, it triggers my MD->BBCode conversion script.

Another thing you can do with it, instead of creating individual macros for each template (and considering each project can have their own templates, that prospect may prove to generate too much overhead), you can also bind shortcuts to show menus—something you cannot do with Mac OS X’s built-in keyboard customisation system (as you’ve noticed, you just get a beep if you try to trigger a sub-menu).

Of course that just shows you the sub-menu, rather than giving you hot-keys to trigger individual templates from it (well, other than the standard OS X menu navigation of using arrow keys or tapping the first few letters of a menu name to jump to it), but it’s basically what you’re asking for: something that just shows that menu so you can choose a template from it.

3

Thank you.
My text expander handles applescript. I set :n: to basically be a shortcut for entering “from template” into the Help menu search field. (For some odd reason it calls the help menu faster than I when I type ⌘? directly.)
That gives me quick access to the template submenu.