questions about upgrading to Pro

[ejs]

1) Is Macro Express Pro, by design, able to run ALL the macros created by Macro Express 3? If not, is there a list of published limitations. I know from the Macro Express 3 help file, there were some macro commands from earlier versions that no longer ran in v 3 and thus those users how to modify their macros before upgrading to v 3. (I am talking more about design issues than bugs. I know there are various discovered and not yet discovered bugs with v 4 running v 3 macros. Hopefully the bugs will be fixed promptly, but limitations by design will not.)

 

2) Can I simultaneously have Macro Express v 3 and Macro Express Pro installed on my system? If yes, can I run them simultaneously? I want to make sure that if I install the Macro Express Pro and find compatibility issues with my previously written macros, that I will be able to keep running my macros on v 3 rather than needing to rewrite those macros.

 

3) I put in an enhancement request on v 3 a long time ago I wonder if it made it into Macro Express Pro. Have any new hotkeys for macro activation been defined in Pro? Specifically, I would like to use as hotkeys the "key codes" that are defined in the standards but do not exist on normal keyboards. But I have a programmable keyboard, so I can redefine any key to be any other key code or sequence of keys. Currently on my programmable keyboard, I have programmed single touch keys so that they outpulse a multi-key combination hotkey. The problem is that Macro Express 3 sometimes does not recognize the hotkey (either it is outpulsed to quickly by the keyboard, or it may conflict with key combinations predefined by certain applications). If I could use as hotkeys the key codes that are in the programmable-only keycode range, I could have more macros that use a single key hotkey while avoiding the issues I sometimes have with multi-key hotkeys.

[alexlimbert]

2) I just tested your question number 2 and I didn't note any problems. That is, both ran simultaneously and the shortcut keys I setup in Macro Express launched my Macro Express macros and the shortcut keys I setup in Macro Express Pro launched my Macro Express Pro macros.

 

Now that the results appear that both can run simultaneously, I will probably keep both apps running rather than importing old macros into Macro Express Pro.

 

Alex

[stevecasper]

2) I just tested your question number 2 and I didn't note any problems. That is, both ran simultaneously and the shortcut keys I setup in Macro Express launched my Macro Express macros and the shortcut keys I setup in Macro Express Pro launched my Macro Express Pro macros.

 

Now that the results appear that both can run simultaneously, I will probably keep both apps running rather than importing old macros into Macro Express Pro.

 

Alex

Just keep in mind that if you have the same activation set in both applications, then both macros will run. Example, I have a shortkey to

open a new Notepad that I duplicated in Pro. Without thinking, I had both MEs running and ran that macro. Ended up with two Notepads.

Not a problem in and of itself, so I just closed one and went on about my business. As I was doing some text editing, I ran another macro

which ran, again, in both MEs which resulted in some textual problems. At this point I disabled ME 3.

 

Something I did notice, however, that was strange. My notepad launch macro places the notepad in the bottom-right corner and resizes it

to 550 x 550. Both macros are supposed to to this, but ME Pro's 550 x 550 wasn't the same as ME 3's. I meant to do more tests to verify

this problem before asking if anybody else could duplicate my results, but I was busy and forgot... and now I'm at work without access to

Pro.

 

Anybody?

[kevin]

Is Macro Express Pro, by design, able to run ALL the macros created by Macro Express 3? If not, is there a list of published limitations.

Yes. Macro Express Pro should run all macros created by Macro Express 3. During testing we loaded every macro written in Macro Express 3, that we could get our hands on, into Macro Express Pro to test the conversion process. Any and all inconsistencies were fixed. If anyone runs across a macro that does not convert correctly, we would like a copy of it so we can fix the converters. (Converted macros included the Shared Macros, the sample macros in samples.mex, the PGM Functions Library (from Professional Grade Macros, the host of these forums), all macros created by Insight Software Solutions, Inc. and macros written by many Beta testers.)

 

There are some changes. For example, the Remark command from Macro Express 3 has been renamed Comment in Macro Express Pro and the functionality for some macro commands from Macro Express Pro required the addition of error handlers when converted to Macro Express Pro. These changes are handled by the conversion routines when a macro is loaded or imported into Macro Express Pro. However, we found that Macro Express Pro runs faster, and in some cases much faster, than Macro Express 3. The Macro Express Pro conversion routines do not attempt to add delays into converted macros. So some macros may need to be manually 'adjusted' to accommodate the faster speeds.

 

We will be updating the web pages to reflect these differences over the next few days or weeks.

 

Can I simultaneously have Macro Express v 3 and Macro Express Pro installed on my system? If yes, can I run them simultaneously? ... rather than needing to rewrite those macros.

Yes. Insight Software Solutions employees run both simultaneously all the time (we need to in order to provide support for both products). But, as has been pointed out, you need to be careful to not have macros with the same activation in both versions of Macro Express.

 

... rather than needing to rewrite those macros.

As stated above, for most macros, there should be no reason to rewrite them. Just convert them. And in some few cases adjust the delays.

 

Have any new hotkeys for macro activation been defined in Pro?

This is one of the many worthy feature requests that were considered but did not make it into Macro Express Pro. We are still considering this feature for a future release.