terrypin

I'm with yaqwa on those points also. It seems that Index is useful only for ISS programmers, not the end user? So I'd like to use its space for making other columns wider. Couldn't the File menu have a Properties or Information item, which would include the current total number of macros it contains? But my main gripe: how about a reliable Modified column! Stan: I'm disappointed to find that after following your suggestion about exporting to a newly-named MEX file to get rid of all those missing index numbers, I've lost the Modified date on all my 550 macros. They are all now identical. I use that field a lot to quickly show me the most recent macros I've worked on. (Particularly as 'Last Run Time' never seems to be reliable, mostly showing Never! What definition of 'run' do you use please?) Anyway, I therefore reckon I'll now restore a backup of the old MEX and live with its meaningless index numbers. -- Terry, East Grinstead, UK

Thanks Stan, that's cleaned things up nicely. -- Terry, East Grinstead, UK

Yes, I agree. For quite a while I thought the last number was the total macros, but then I noticed the many gaps. -- Terry, East Grinstead, UK

OK, let us know how that turns out - I'm optimistic that it will cut the mustard. -- Terry, East Grinstead, UK

Steve: Was my suggestion of any value in solving your problem? -- Terry, East Grinstead, UK

I've now made the above a formal feature request. -- Terry, East Grinstead, UK

Sorry, I don't think I can help. That looks a lot more complicated than your original query. Maybe someone who is into gaming can chip in? It sounds as if the game is randomly shifting your targets (if that's what these numbers are), perhaps to prevent the use of macros? But providing the shift is small, and the locations don't overlap, I'd have thought a relatively small number of tests, say 5-20, could give reliable results? A carefully chosen set of locations (a line, or a spiral maybe) would greatly reduce the number needed. Have you experimented along those lines, using the example I wrote? Also, you haven't confirmed whether you have ME yet. -- Terry, East Grinstead, UK

Thanks Cory, understood. I'll try Tools > Pack and study the file again. -- Terry, East Grinstead, UK

I'm replying here to your PM as I think it's better to keep discussion in the forum. That way, others can contribute and/or learn. First, here's the main part of your PM, as it differs a bit from the above: ... and was wondering if you could help me out? Like the forum member Archer, I also have a need for a pixel finding macro. I started using another macro program to do this, but may switch to this site's platform if need be. The macro I want is basically 1.) Active the window I want to perform the macro on 2.) Move mouse to a X-Y coords 3.) Mouse button down 4.) Mouse button up 5.) Get pixel color from X-Y coords 6.) IF color number is lower then 1700000 then Play sound Else Move mouse to X-Y coords Mouse button down Mouse button up End I can't seem to get this to work, I'd love if you could help me write out the code and then I could get a better understanding of what I was doing wrong and get a grasp on learning about macros. ================== First, the commands you need to use are all well-explained in ME 3 Help, so I recommend you do some basic studying. For example, read the topics 'Get Pixel Color' and 'If Commands'. Although, re-reading your post, it sounds as if you don't even have a trial vesrion of ME 3 yet? In which case you are OT and sort of handicapped! Next, your description is not fully clear to me. It's usually better to describe in plain English exactly what you are doing, in what application, and what you are trying to achieve. So I'm assuming you: - are moving the mouse around (in a game?) - presumably left-clicking as well - want to repeatedly test if the mouse cursor is positioned over a certain unique pixel colour. - want to play a sound if it IS The following demo: 1. Activates or opens Notepad. 2. Tests repeatedly for the colour of the pixel under the mouse cursor. 3. If that colour matches exactly the colour at a certain position I've chosen (in the middle of the Notepad icon, top left of its window), then play a sound. // Active Notepad (or launch it if not already open) Activate or Launch: "Notepad" OR "Notepad.exe" Repeat Until %T1% <> %T1% Get Pixel: Under Mouse into %N1% If Variable %N1% = 14859595 Sound Wave File: $OI_YOU.WAV End If Delay 1 Milliseconds Repeat End Macro Return <REM2:Active Notepad (or launch it if not already open)><LAUNCHYES3:0:0112Notepad<LAUNCH:Notepad.exe><REP3:08:000002:000001:0001:1:01:T1><GETPXM:1><IFVAR2:2:01:1:14859595><WAV2:C:\Docs\Sounds\Wave\$OI_YOU.WAV><ENDIF><MSD:1><ENDREP><MRETURN> Stop the macro either using the running man icon or the abort hotkeys. You'll obviously need to modify this accordingly. -- Terry, East Grinstead, UK

Fair enough, Kevin. BTW, I expect you already do this, but one retrieval tool I've found useful in situations a bit like this is a keyword-based spreadsheet or database. Although it's a pain having to enter a few keywords when the issue, request or bug gets filed initially, it's very handy later to be able to quickly display all hits possibly matching a current topic, however old they are. [i looked around for icons of grandmothers and eggs, but there don't appear to be any in stock. ] -- Terry, East Grinstead, UK

I'd be happy to try it but please post the code so that I don't have to key all those commands in from scratch. -- Terry, East Grinstead, UK

Yet another baffling puzzle, or perhaps a clue to another bug? This is longish, but hope it will make sense. In ME Pro I just wrote this new test macro: Lock Player: Wait for running macros to stop // Activate NotePad (or launch it and activate if not running) Activate or Launch: Window "Untitled - NotePad", Program "NOTEPAD.EXE", Parameters "" Wait for Window Title: NotePad Window Maximize: NotePad: Notepad Macro Return Unlock Player <LOCK PLAYER Wait="TRUE"/> <COMMENT Value="Activate NotePad (or launch it and activate if not running)"/> <ACTIVATE OR LAUNCH Title="Untitled - NotePad" Exact_Match="FALSE" Wildcards="FALSE" Path="C:\\WINDOWS\\NOTEPAD.EXE" Mode="\x00" Default_Path="FALSE" Wait="1" Wait_For_Program="12"/> <WAIT FOR WINDOW TITLE Title="NotePad" Partial="TRUE" Wildcards="FALSE" Indefinite="FALSE" Hours="0" Minutes="10" Seconds="0"/> <WINDOW MAXIMIZE Option="\x01" Title="Notepad" Partial="TRUE" Wildcards="FALSE" _IGNORE="0x0006"/> <MACRO RETURN/> <UNLOCK PLAYER/> I ran that fine with F9 from Script Editor. And with a hotkey etc. And with r-click > Run Macro Now. I then used Place on Desktop. Its properties shows this target: "C:\Program Files\Macro Express Pro\MeProc.exe" /A::C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Insight Software Solutions\Macro Express Pro\FULL.mex?Activate Notepad But when I d-clicked that to run it I got a baffling result that's taken me a couple of hours to track down. The running man appeared for the macro but nothing else. After much experiment I happened to try opening Notepad manually while this was still running and to my surprise I got a message window saying "Notepad has been opened and maximised." I could find nothing matching this in ME Pro. Eventually I opened ME 3 and found that the message was part of an old ME3 test macro with the same name. // Activate NotePad (already running) Activate Window: "Untitled - Notepad" Wait For Window Title: "Untitled - Notepad" Window Maximize: "Untitled - Notepad" Text Box Display: Macro Return <REM2:Activate NotePad (already running)><ACTIVATE2:Untitled - Notepad><WAITWIN2:000010:000000:Untitled - Notepad><WMAX:Untitled - Notepad><TBOX4:T:4:CenterCenter000278000200:005:Notepad has been opened and maximised><MRETURN> But why does this macro get (partially?) activated from an ME Pro desktop shortcut, stopping correct running of that? -- Terry, East Grinstead, UK

While trying to track down a problem I opened my current working file FULL.MEX in Hex Workshop Editor (with ME Pro closed) to search for a string of text. I was very surprised to find fragments of macro names in it that have long since been deleted in ME Pro. How can this arise please? Surely the MEX file should not keep obsolete entries? -- Terry, East Grinstead, UK

Thanks for the comprehensive reply, Kevin. Here's a little background in case it's of interest to you and others. What prompted my query about menu macros was that I was trying to get the best of both worlds by combining the advantages of ME Pro and my other macro program, Stiletto. The latter lets me pop-up a bar of coloured buttons when I 'bump' the top edge of my screen, and clicking any of these displays a menu of Stiletto macros. I wanted to include my ME Pro menu structure on one of these buttons. The usual way of doing that in Stiletto is simply to enter the shortcut's properties. But for some reason that doesn't work for an ME Pro menu macro. For example, take my ME Pro menu macro called 'AWC MENU'. Using Place on Desktop it runs fine from there. Its Target box contains this: "C:\Program Files\Macro Express Pro\MeProc.exe" /A::C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Insight Software Solutions\Macro Express Pro\FULL.mex?AWC MENU If I paste that to my Run box, that works fine too. Yet if I enter it in the normal way into Stiletto it fails. This is what the dialog in Stiletto looks like: Command: C:\Program Files\Macro Express Pro\MeProc.exe Command Parameters: /A::C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Insight Software Solutions\Macro Express Pro\FULL.mex?AWC MENU If you have any ideas why it doesn't work, then I'm keen to solve that puzzle. I've tried many variations in vain. On attempted execution, they all end up popping up a Stiletto message inviting me to enter Command Parameters, despite these already having been provided. But happily I've now successfully used an alternative method, namely linking to the shortcuts themselves, like this: Command: C:\Documents and Settings\Terry\Desktop\ME Menus\AWC MENU.lnk (leaving Command Parameters empty). -- Terry, East Grinstead, UK

Cory: I can successfully make MXE files using Export > Export as Playable from macros that include one or more Macro Run commands, so I don't see why that should be the reason? -- Terry, East Grinstead, UK

I've never used this command before, so I may have misunderstood. But don'tyou have to enter the full path and filename as it says? In my case I did the following: 1. Made an MXE file identical to yours 2. Pasted your macro but then edited it so that it looks like this: Load Macro Text File: set_variables.mxe <LOAD MACRO TEXT FILE File="C:\\Docs\\MXE files\\Mine\\set_variables.mxe"/> It ran without producing an error message, displaying a dialog 'Load Macro Text File', with the specified file in the 'Select a file to load:' box (and the macro then terminated). On clicking that nothing happened. Should it? All that aside, is the error message arising from the playable macro itself, not the macro that runs it? If the latter, then presumably it's because you haven't defined that variable in your original playable macro. Did you get the message "The variable "internet_urls_jquery" is not currently defined. Would you like to create it now?" ? BTW, for my own education, could you briefly explain why you use this method of running a macro please, rather than say a hotkey or menu? -- Terry, East Grinstead, UK

Steve: I have this in my Favourites list as Joe suggests. And also paired with a Wait in Snippets. But I think the current organisation of commands could be improved. It seems that for ME Pro the questionable decision was made to assign commands uniquely to just one category. In ME 3 some commands like Text Type and Keyboard Repeat Speed were repeated in several categories, like KEYBOARD, TEXT and TIMING. That was better IMO, because sometimes the thought process when accessing a command differs, depending on the situation. I might be thinking 'TEXT' one time and 'TIMING' another time. Nor am I happy with the unexpected loss of the TEXT category. Until I placed them in Favourites, I was initially sometimes hunting around for several commonplace commands like Text Type, Text Box Display, Wait for Text, Wait for Key Press, etc. So I'd like to see these and others duplicated, as in ME 3. If you agree, perhaps you could include that in your feature request please, or I'll raise a separate one. BTW, have you had any more interesting results since the discussion we had in http://pgmacros.invisionzone.com/index.php?showtopic=3577 please? -- Terry, East Grinstead, UK

Thanks Cory, l'll be interested to hear from ISS about this! It seems neither Kevin nor Stan were aware of the issue when I reported it above, so makes me wonder about the bug-management documentation. -- Terry, East Grinstead, UK

First, what browser are you using? Wait for Web Page works only with IE, not Firefox etc. If you are using IE, you need to provide details of the script (and ideally the code too) to get any solid advice. Meanwhile, consider trying an approach based on Get Pixel Color to test when the page is fully loaded. -- Terry, East Grinstead, UK

I don't have 'Dark Age of Camelot' so I'll show you with Notepad instead. First, give up the idea of toggling the macro on and off with the exactly the same activation, as you'll hit all sorts of unnecessary problems. I'd suggest a couple of alternative options. Whichever method of stopping you use, place the routine inside a Repeat that loops indefinitely. I've shown one way of doing that. The easiest way of stopping it is with your abort hotkey, which here is set to the default of Scroll Lock + Pause. Or, if your taskbar isn't hidden, simply r-click the 'running man' icon that appears in your system tray when any macro is running. So here is that method. First the script and then the code you can paste into your Direct Editor. Activate Window: "TEMP-HolySkin.txt - Notepad" Repeat Until %T1% <> %T1% Text Type: 2 Delay 50 Milliseconds Text Type: 3 Delay 50 Milliseconds Text Type: 4 Delay 50 Milliseconds Text Type: 5 Delay 50 Milliseconds Text Type: 6 Delay 50 Milliseconds Text Type: 7 Delay 50 Milliseconds Text Type: 8 Delay 50 Milliseconds Text Type: 9 Delay 10 Seconds Repeat End Macro Return <ACTIVATE2:TEMP-HolySkin.txt - Notepad><REP3:08:000002:000001:0001:1:01:T1><TEXTTYPE:2><MSD:0050><TEXTTYPE:3><MSD:0050><TEXTTYPE:4><MSD:0050><TEXTTYPE:5><MSD:0050><TEXTTYPE:6><MSD:0050><TEXTTYPE:7><MSD:0050><TEXTTYPE:8><MSD:0050><TEXTTYPE:9><DELAY:10><ENDREP><MRETURN> An alternative that gets close to your original requirement is to stop it by just moving the mouse to that same area you clicked to start it, but this time not clicking. In my case I activated both macros by left clicking a small area of Notepad about an inch wide, just to the right of 'Help'. After starting it I made sure I kept the mouse away from that little strip. To stop it, I just moved it back again. Hopefully you can see from the script how that works. In short, it just check at the end of each loop whether the mouse is within the specified area, and if so it breaks out and hence ends the macro. Activate Window: "TEMP-HolySkin.txt - Notepad" Repeat Until %T1% <> %T1% Text Type: 2 Delay 50 Milliseconds Text Type: 3 Delay 50 Milliseconds Text Type: 4 Delay 50 Milliseconds Text Type: 5 Delay 50 Milliseconds Text Type: 6 Delay 50 Milliseconds Text Type: 7 Delay 50 Milliseconds Text Type: 8 Delay 50 Milliseconds Text Type: 9 Delay 10 Seconds Get Mouse Position Screen: %N1%, %N2% If Variable %N1% > 285 AND If Variable %N1% < 367 AND If Variable %N2% > 320 AND If Variable %N2% < 336 Break End If Repeat End Macro Return <ACTIVATE2:TEMP-HolySkin.txt - Notepad><REP3:08:000002:000001:0001:1:01:T1><TEXTTYPE:2><MSD:0050><TEXTTYPE:3><MSD:0050><TEXTTYPE:4><MSD:0050><TEXTTYPE:5><MSD:0050><TEXTTYPE:6><MSD:0050><TEXTTYPE:7><MSD:0050><TEXTTYPE:8><MSD:0050><TEXTTYPE:9><DELAY:10><MOUSEPOS:T:01:02><IFVAR2:2:01:4:285><AND><IFVAR2:2:01:3:367><AND><IFVAR2:2:02:4:320><AND><IFVAR2:2:02:3:336><BREAK><ENDIF><ENDREP><MRETURN> -- Terry, East Grinstead, UK

OK Paul, understood, no problem. -- Terry, East Grinstead, UK

Using accelerator keys can be very productive (it's often faster than d-clicking a menu entry), but at present IMO it's flawed in several ways. When editing a menu macro the accelerator keys are not displayed. You have to d-click an individual entry or click the 'A' button to see it. So you have to open the menu itself to see all the entries, in order to edit them, including removing the duplicates that ME Pro seems to create when you gradually add more entries. Is it possible for a future version to do the following please: 1. Show the accelerator keys in Menu Builder menu, in addition to the macro name? 2. Automatically avoid adding duplicates? For example, in the menu of I'm looking at here, the sequence of accelerators from top to bottom is: A C O G T Q D V 0 S A T U V B W X E Y Z 2 3 4 F 5 6 7 That includes 3 confusing duplications (A, T and V). 3. Optionally allow automatic re-sorting of the list to accelerator sequence? 4. Allow user to automatically re-assign unique accelerators in sequence, top to bottom? -- Terry, East Grinstead, UK

I'm experimenting with other ways of running menu macros. Is there a reason why ME Pro does not allow me to export a menu macro as a playable MXE file please? -- Terry, East Grinstead, UK

I suppose we'd better keep this short, as it's not only OT but it's discussing what could be regarded as a competitive product! As you probably saw from my recent reply to Paul, I'm not using PowerPro but its long since obsolete predecessor, Stiletto. However, I've never had any serious conflict problems. The two programs seem to co-exist well. The most obvious restriction of course is to ensure unique activations. So before assigning a hotkey in ME I also have to check existing Stiletto assignments. In fact I'm currently fretting about whether I need both programs! I've used Stiletto for nearly 12 years and so have quite a big investment in it. And in theory I'm pretty sure that I could do everything that ME does for me in Stiletto, but in practice it's much easier to write a macro with ME (3 or Pro) than with Stiletto. For a non-programmer like me anyway. And I assume the same would apply to PowerPro. Right now I'm seriously considering whether I can do the reverse, i.e. get rid of Stiletto by replicating all remaining macros etc in ME Pro. But one major attraction is the typical Stiletto UI. Apart from hotkeys, mouse movements, 'macrophrases' (equivalent to ME shortkeys), window openings etc, I can pull down a 'bar' of Stiletto menus (either pop-up or 'pinned') by simply moving my mouse cursor oven a chosen section of screen edge, in my case the middle part of the top edge. I used to have a dozen individual buttons in that bar, now down to 5 as you see here. Each of them can have 3 independent sections, activated respectively by clicking with the left, middle or right mouse button. (The screenshot shows the situation when my mouse cursor is hovering over the 5th button.) So, with 12 buttons, I could pull down 36 menus, each with as many items as I liked (restricted in practice by how many I could see conveniently on the screen). I haven't yet become sufficiently confident with ME Pro to be sure, but I reckon I can get close to that ease of use. Apart perhaps from those nice little coloured buttons and the L/M/R flexibility. Another factor, of course, is reliabilty. In fairness, I have to say I found Stiletto extremely robust and largely bug free. Recent experience with ME Pro hasn't been so good. Some things I'd like to be able to rely on, like Window Title activation, are still unpredictable, although I'm sure ISS are working hard to fix these. Turning from generalities to your specific questions, as a practical test of your first four points above I temporarily changed my ME Pro shortkey prefix from ## to =. which is what I use for 'macrophrases' in Stiletto. Then I set things up so that typing '=my' should deliver 'C:\Docs' in ME Pro (my alias for My Documents) , and 'Stiletto' in Stiletto. On then typing that a few times into my text editor I got these results: C:Sti\lettoDocs CStilet:to\Docs StilettoC:\Docs C:Sti\lettoDocs So it's clearly a race resulting in an inconsistent mixture. Typing immediately after using Restore Keyboard and Mouse Hooks made no difference. Maybe Paul can respond further about PowerPro. Either here or by PM! -- Terry, East Grinstead, UK