paul

4 hours ago, paul said:

Great sugggestion! Yes, it was off (if its default is ON, then I have no idea how it got turned off since I've not been anywhere near that page of settings since the initial installation). Time will tell whether setting this ON has solved the problem, but I suspect you've found the solution. Many thanks.

Unfortunately, turning this setting ON has made no difference.

I have just experienced the problem again. I did something different this time - I simply opened and closed an AutoIt editing window - which fixed the problem.

This suggests to me a system wide problem with my OS, and almost certainly nothing to do with ME.

13 hours ago, kunkel321 said:

Did you inadvertently turn off the "auto-reset mouse and keyboard hooks" preference option? 

Great sugggestion! Yes, it was off (if its default is ON, then I have no idea how it got turned off since I've not been anywhere near that page of settings since the initial installation). Time will tell whether setting this ON has solved the problem, but I suspect you've found the solution. Many thanks.

On 7/17/2019 at 1:55 AM, Cory said:

I've not seen that, Paul. The only similar thing I have experienced is that after being idle for a long time, not running and macros, the first macro execution is delayed a few seconds to as long as several seconds.

No, it's definitely not that behaviour. I've tried waiting 2 minutes, to no avail. And ME is not idle for a long time - often no longer than several minutes. But I thank you for your suggestions.

I have just started to observe some strange behaviour, where hotkeys often don't work until I click on the ME icon in my tray. For example, I place my Windows 7 computer in Standby by pressing Ctrl-Shift-2. I've done this for years. But sometimes nothing happens - the macro is not being activated. Once I click on the ME tray icon, all is well again. This doesn't happen all the time.

Any ideas?

On 8/2/2018 at 2:15 AM, kevin said:

I just installed an update to the forum software. It does not specifically mention the symptom you describe but it does list "bug fixes" in the change list. Hopefully this will have a positive effect.

Just FYI!

https://www.howtogeek.com/335712/update-why-you-shouldnt-use-waterfox-pale-moon-or-basilisk/

13 hours ago, terrypin said:

Quote

 

I don't relish going through all that frustration if it happens again. So I've been trying to find where the toolbar settings are stored.

HKCU\Software\Insight Software Solutions\Macro Express 4\Toolbars\Editor

On 11/26/2017 at 11:26 PM, terrypin said:

I'm struggling to understand why users who post what seems like an urgent problem (" I am really begging you for an answer") don't give us any feedback within a few days.

Terry, East Grinstead, UK

I have been wondering about this for years!

Here's an idea I wrote about several years ago which may, or may not, be helpful <g>! It's quite complex!

It is possible to write a total of 39 macros (one for each character and number, plus 3 control macros) which are fired according to which key has been pressed. Thus, pressing 3 intiates macro-3, pressing h initiates macro-h. It involves writing a total of 39 macros (most of which are almost identical)! See Detecting Keys pressed for details. But this works only in ME4.

7 hours ago, mark99k said:

Hi Paul. Yeah, that's pretty much what I tried at first, but (of course) ME doesn't release control after the file is opened. (I should've clarified: the tasks each file needs done to it while open are various unpredictable edits and other non-ME-able things.)

I don't understand exactly what you mean. While ME is waiting for you to right-click (in my example) in order to continue on to the next file, are you not able to do any processing or editing of the opened file? Or does ME lock it?

On 08/08/2017 at 1:46 AM, Ryan said:

Been using this software for years and have a problem that is outside my experience.  I have a macro that I need to program that moves DATA around in Excel as it gets entered.

Essentially when "1" gets entered, it needs to CONTROL+G, TYPE A1, Then CONTROL+DownArrow, then type 1+Enter.

When "2" gets entered, it needs to CONTROL+G, TYPE B1, Then CONTROL+DownArrow, then type 2+Enter.

I can program these independently but I'm sure it can be done neatly in a single macro and not use up 10 to 20 buttons.Second, is how do I nest what is essentially up to 20 triggers in the macro.

 

THANKS A MILLION For you help!

Here's an idea I wrote about several years ago which may, or may not, be helpful <g>! It's quite complex!

It is possible to write a total of 39 macros (one for each character and number, plus 3 control macros) which are fired according to which key has been pressed. Thus, pressing 3 intiates macro-3, pressing h initiates macro-h. It involves writing a total of 39 macros (most of which are almost identical)! See Detecting Keys pressed for details. But this works only in ME4.

4 hours ago, mark99k said:

Anyone have a way in ME to save & close the active file (a PDF) and automatically open the alphabetically next one in its folder?  I thought Repeat With Folder might be useful but on closer inspection it doesn't look it.  I don't want to iterate through, as each file needs nonrepetitive tasks done to it after opening. I'd just like to be able hit a key when finished to save & close it and open the next one.

Had this same challenge with a huge pile of Word docs recently and a VBA macro to go get the next one saved my sanity. Now with PDFs it's less rosy.

Does ME do any simple file I/O?  If it does, I could collect the PDF names in a text file for ME to read. 

Thanks in advance for any clues.

How about this?

Repeat with Folder YourFolderName (Return Files only)
  Wait for Right Mouse Click
End Repeat

This returns filenames in alphabetical order (as long as the file system is NTFS - order is random under FAT).
In this instance the script waits for a right-click before continuing - you could have it wait for text, or for a window to lose focus, etc.

14 hours ago, Cory said:

I've proposed a few add-ons for MEP but there's no interest and I'm not going to put time into something if it's only going to benefit a couple people. Unless someone wants to pay me for it. I've proposed a WinForm (multiple boxes and other windows controls) input for MEP, a RegEx module, a web downloader,and a few others. Last week I created a specialize web browser as a demo using the WebBrowser control for a client and was thinking I could make a web browser that would be designed to work with MEP as well. Solve all the problems I hear about here automating web pages. But there's just no interesting in these things. Joe made the PGMs a long time ago but there was a lot of demand then. 

And I haven't received any interest from ISS either. I have suggested that  could make some add-ons but really if they wanted something like that they could simply develop the solution in MEP. I think it could be cool to have them just like we have add-ons for all kinds of programs, EG Chrome. 

But it sure would be fun to do...

IMHO ISS gave up on ME a long, long time ago. And the company structure doesn't appear to permit professional outcomes.

13 hours ago, Cory said:

Really? So if one runs Program Launch and use the Capture Console Output option MEP doesn't wait for the program to finish? I have a hard time believing that. How is it going to return a value if it doesn't wait. Are you sure about this or should I do a test. Maybe a little wager to see if I can get RoboCopy to wait? 

I will say that  most of the time I use "External Script" so I'm not as familiar with the timing on Program Launch. 

I've never seen the Capture Console Output option before - is it a recent development?

You're right, if this option is selected then ME does indeed wait for the program to complete.

On 02/08/2017 at 1:38 AM, terrypin said:

Thanks Paul, pleased to see you're around! Any help you can give me to (safely!) delete these would be welcomed. One macro I use quite frequently, built largely by Cory, needs 33 manual Escapes to bypass those PGM macros, before it will proceed to search my MEX file! A simple succession of TextTypes fails for some reason.

Glad to know you're in contact with Joe. Lke others, I enquired after him in the forums two or three years ago:

 

I've not had any response from either of the email addresses I have for him, so I'm not holding my breath!

On 02/08/2017 at 11:30 AM, Cory said:

I still don't understand why one would not create a Robocopy command in MEP. The macro will continue when its complete. 

No, the macro continues on immediately without waiting for Robocopy to complete (as it does when running any .exe from within MEP).

1 hour ago, terrypin said:

About 12 years ago I bought Joe Weinpert's 'Macro Express Explained'. I think that its accompanying CD was the source of the PGM macros I used occasionally for a while, with help from Paul, on successive PCs. But for a long time now these have all been inaccessible, requiring a password. So I want to delete these 30 or so old inaccessible macros. But I cannot even delete them without a password. Classic Catch 22!

 

 

BTW, using your instructions above I have successfully installed the full PGM library (and will export it awaiting very rare use).

Terry, East Grinstead, UK

Actually, from memory, it's not one password, I seem to remember I wrote some macros to programatically generate a password for each macro. I'll try and look at the code for you so that I can send you the generated passwords. One word of warning: several months ago I needed to rebuild my Raid array of several Tb, so I backed up the Raid array, then set about destroying it, and recreating it with new disks, etc. When I came to populate my new Raid array with the backed up data, I experienced remarkable, sequential and catastrophic hardware failures of 3 of my backup disks, and I therefore lost a heap of data. I suspect the PGM macros were a casualty. So if I can't locate a copy, I'll contact Joe to see if he can help - all of which may take a bit of time!

21 hours ago, terrypin said:

Anyone here experiencing very slow operation of Mouse Moves please? I'm running Win 10 on  a high end PC and this macro takes about 7 secs to move about 220 pixels!

 

Mouse Move: 516, 120 Relative to Screen // Also displays Time Slider
Repeat Until %nPixCol% Equals "16053492"
  Get Pixel Color from Beneath the Mouse into %nPixCol%
  Mouse Move: -1, 0 Relative to Last Position
End Repeat

I'm sure that sort of script used to run in under a second.

 

I don't understand why you need to move the mouse at all. You can specify the pixel address using variables, so simply increment or decrement the pixel address and test again. I'd have thought that would be much faster.

On 24/07/2017 at 6:07 PM, andrebiedermann said:

I have several macros wich check "Wait for Program to Terminate" for "robocopy.exe"

For a while the programm cannot detect running robocopy-instances anymore.
Ir robocopy is running and i try to browse for robocopy in the "Wait for Program to Terminate"-dialogue, robocopy is not listed in the program list too.
Therefore each "Wait for Program to Terminate"-check skips immediately though while robocopy is running.
I guess the cause are recent windows 10 x64 updates.
All current Windows 10 updates are installed on the system.
Regards

 

This is how I wait until Robocopy has finished running:

Repeat Until %n[1]% Does not Equal "%n[1]%"
  If Not Program "ROBOCOPY.EXE" is running
    Repeat Exit
  End If
  Delay: 30 seconds, without ability to halt
End Repeat

I don't use Variable Save or Restore. I consider it a bad practice. I wasn't considering that command in the context of my statement so I am not wrong.

Unless one invokes a macro from the command line and wishes to pass pre-initialized variables, in which case Variable Restore is mandatory.

I have lots of experience making simple programming stuff difficult. My wife says my talent carries over into everyday life as well.

It sounds as if we might both be married to the same person! How is this possible?

Ah, but are you THE administrator? (I don't know whether this is germane to the issue you raised, but I thought it worth commenting on).

In Windows 7 (and, I believe, 8 and 10) there is a hidden account which is THE administrator account. In order to use it you need to make it visible. You can also rename this account, but the process is not straight-forward. In any case, this account is not the same as making yourself an administrator.

 

My macro 1Test is simply:

<VARIABLE RESTORE Option="\x00"/>

 

There are a few errors in your command line and macro!

- You need to surround the C:\Program..... with double quotes (") because of the spaces contained in that command (I suspect you're actually doing this already, otherwise your macro would not run).

- Your macro needs to display the variable %T[2]% instead of %T2%, since the T variable is an array.

- I prefer meproc.exe to macexp.exe.

Paul -

 

That looks very nice ... but what are the properties to be set in the "TestMacro" activation tab?

Well, in my example, I've not set any. What properties are you referring to?

Another question along this same line that would be great to have resolved is how can VBScript call a macro using PostMessage? I know that PostMessage "System Activation" is built in to MXPro, and I've read their Delphi sample, but how could it be done through VBScript?

Here's an example using AutoIt, for which you need to have an existing macro called TestMacro. I don't know whether it's possible to pass parameters to the target macro - I suspect not.

Variable Set String %tMacroName% to "TestMacro"

External Script: AutoIt

<VARIABLE SET STRING Option="\x00" Destination="%tMacroName%" Value="TestMacro" NoEmbeddedVars="FALSE"/>

<EXTERNAL SCRIPT Language="AutoIt" Dest="%t[1]%" Script="$dll = DllOpen(\"user32.dll\")\r\n$hwnd = DllCall($dll, \"hwnd\", \"FindWindowW\", \"wstr\", \"TMainWin\", \"wstr\", \"Macro Express Player\")\r\n$hwnd = $hwnd[0]\r\nFor $i = 1 to StringLen($CmdLine[1])\r\n  $Result = DllCall($dll, \"bool\", \"PostMessage\", \"HWnd\", $hwnd, \"uint\", 1044, _\r\n    \"wparam\", Asc(StringMid($CmdLine[1], $i, 1)), \"lparam\", 0)\r\nNext\r\n$Result = DllCall($dll, \"bool\", \"PostMessage\", \"HWnd\", $hwnd, \"uint\", 1044, \"wparam\", 0, \"lparam\", 0)\r\nDllClose($dll)\r\n\r\n" Parameters="%tMacroName%"/>

Is there any way by which i can call the ME macro in a VBA macro ?

Look up Command Line Parameters in the Macro Express Help screens. You can call either macexp.exe or meproc.exe and specify a macro to be run.

There's a better way, which I will describe next time if you are interested.