burt

Thanks for your quick reply. I know this function. But I don't understand how I can apply a command to files in a folder folder. Must I use a variable as a parameter in the Launch and activate function? And how do I create such a variable from i.e. *.txt files in a folder which is selected in Windows Explorer? Bye, Burt

Hi, Is it possible to use a Winzip (or Winrar) command line version to create zip files? I.e. I have several folders and I want to create zip files from each directory. 10 folders resulting in 10 zip files. The name of the zip file is the name of the directory where the files resist. The location of the zip should be in the same directory as the zipped files. In general, external Dos commands applied on windows folders. There are context menu's in windows which will do fine for 1 directory, but not for many directories. Can this be done? Thanks, Burt

I am planning a new Windows install. Now I see the macro file with backups in the My Documents folder. Also I see 2 other files: C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Insight Software Solutions\Macro Express\macexp.dat and C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Insight Software Solutions\Macro Express\MacExp.tdl What is the function of these 2 files and do I have to copy them to my new install? And are there any other files I have to take care for? And is it possible to have all Macro Express related files kept in the Macro Express directory itself? I would like to have it that way. Thanks, Burt

Hi, I thought there would be a command for it but this looks very simple! Probably there will be a smart way to get to the adressbar, because it isn't always at the same place on the screen. Maybe I can capture it as a control. Thanks for the help, Burt

Thanks Kevin! With your information I will try to make the macro I need. Bye, Burt

There is this file copy command but then I have to put in which source files I want to use but they are selected in Windows Explorer. I want to copy selected files to a fixed location with a shortkey. How can I do this? Thanks, Burt

I knew it would be difficult . . .

Well, I have many folders with large photosets and I want to make a folderset with only a few samples of what I photographed. Then I can quickly look in a folder to see a representation of the photo's without having to wait until all metadata is read in the original folders. These are quite large files so it takes a while to load (6-13Mb per photo). The foldernames are as descriptive as possible. The subfolderset with the copies can have the same name as the original folders. I don't base the file copy on something special, the file numbers are not increasing linear, but they jump (gaps in the names exist due deleting photo's in the camera itself). I just would like to have a macro which first counts how many files are in the directory and then copy those 5 with regular intervals. So not 5 in a row but taken from the whole directory with more or less regular intervals. The filecount is not needed if there is another wat to do it. No special plans for copying and how to handle the next time. For each existing (or new) folder I would like to make a backup folder with these 5 copies. A check to see which folders have to be done or already been done is nice but not very needed at first because it might get too difficult for me ;-) Thanks again, Burt

Can this be done with Macro Express. In Windows Explorer i have folders with i.e. 100 files (digital photo's). I want to make a macro which first counts the number of files in a folder and then makes a copy of (i.e.) 5 files to another directory. It shouldnt be the first 5 files but i.e. the first, the 26th, 51th, 76th and the last file. The files do not always have logical filenumbers in the filename. Is this possible? Thanks, Burt

Probably I'm just not experienced enough to make it work. The capture tool seems to outline the needed frame successful within the program. The frame/window I want to set the focus to belongs to a "tab". When I click on another tab next to it, the name of the frame is still AfxFrameOrView58s, but it has a parent with another name (name of the tab). Maybe that causes the problem. So I thought just to set the focus to "AfxFrameOrView58s" without using the (parent) tab name. But it doesn't work yet. What works is get the control name for each tab and make a long macro with "if/end if". But then I have to change the macro each time a new tab is added. Thanks for the replys, Burt

Hi, I use a program with a layout of 3 childwindows docked in a main window. Now I want to set the focus into a certain child window with a shortkey. What I did: Get Control %C1% (SOR - debit: AfxFrameOrView58s) Set Focus to %C1% It works, but only if I use "get control text" option. But the problem is that the mentioned window is named "SOR - debit" now but when another document is opened it is named "SOR - credit" or else. So I tried to change the "Top Level Window Caption" into "SOR" and checked "Partial Title" Now it doesn't work anymore. Isn't it possible to just set the name of the window (AfxFrameOrView58s) and use that for setting the focus? Bye, Burt

Thanks Cyberchief! A working solution within 15 minutes It workes fine. I had a dummy solution with using of notepad and the search and replace option, but I thought there should be a more intelligent way without the need of external programs. I will study your code and see if I can manage to get the author info extracted myself. And sometimes there will be more lines on the clipboard from which I only use the first line to determine the subject. Thanks again! Bye, Burt

I want to use a portion from a text string to use. The text begins at the clipboard. Example Raw text on clipboard: Message-ID: <cvhgf6$us6$1@sport.gtinternet.org> Subject: Accuracy with January report Author: "Stony" <stony@openworld.org> Date: Tue, Feb 22 09:27 The result has to be: Accuracy with January report So this is what should be deleted at the leftside: Message-ID: <cvhgf6$us6$1@sport.gtinternet.org> Subject: and this on the rghtside: <TAB>Author: "Stony" <stony@openworld.org> Date: Tue, Feb 22 09:27 The text string doesn't always start with Message-ID: but it is also not random. A few other known words are possible. Notice the using of tabs which are used at the leftside from Subject:, Author: and Date: What's always the same is the word Subject: It will be always there. Also the word Author: is what all these text strings will have in common. Can this be done in Macro Express?

Hey Joe, All is clear now for me, thank you for the tip to simplify my macro even more. I am going to play with all the tips and hints, this is really a cool program but a danger for my amount of sleeping hours at night Hey Nicolas, Thank you for your hints. I'm gonna experiment with those also.

Hey Joe!, Ha, your solution is indeed very simple just do copy&paste. Explorer doesn't move the cursor. The difference is that I use ACDSee and if an a new file gets in the directory it get's selected so the selectionbar jumps down in the list. I tried to make my question not program specific and I didn't realize that explorer handles this in another way than ACDsee does. I should have mentioned this immediately. But I want to give it a try with the variables. I discoverd that if I do ctrl-c on a selected file in ACDSee, and paste that in a textfile it pastes the whole <driveletter:\filepath\filename.ext> as plain text, so that makes things easier. Now the whole path information is clear and I can use the standard file copy functions in ME. But then again, even if ME copies the files in the same directory, ACDSee will select them, no one can do anything about this I guess. So I have to stick to the macro I made: Text Type: <F2> Text Type: <CONTROL>c Text Type: <ESC> Variable Set String %T1% from Clipboard Text Type: <CONTROL>c Text Type: <CONTROL>v Variable Modify String: Save %T1% to Clipboard Clipboard Type Text This is my solution which is not perfect but works good, I have to read more about variables and how to use them, its new for me. So thanks for the help, maybe you can give me the exact ME function for as you refer to. And I dont know if you read what I wrote about copying the clipboard contents (a filename) to a textfile and type that texfile as keystrokes with "Clipboard Type Text" (in Explorer). Because ME adds a Return/Enter in the textfile, the same Return/Enter is executed when you use Clipboard type Text i.e in Explorer which launches the file (I use typing out a filename for selecting a file, this is standard Windows Explorer behaviour). In my situation this is unwanted. Is this wanted in all other situations, or could this be something for the programmers to change in ME that an (unasked) Return/Enter can set optional or removed in an future version? Thanks for the help. Bye, Burt

Well your macro works but I always work in different directories. The directory contains the object name and the "copy of ..." files become samples which I rename and they must stay in the same directory on top of the list. All this renaming is done with a macro ofcourse! You describe other way''s of working, i'll give that a try. But my main question is now: Can Macro Express get the filename and path of a selected file? Thanks again ps. The first macro I made was to make a new folder in Explorer. And maybe give explorer2 a try (http://netez.com/xplorer2/) as an alternative for Powerdesk and Explorer. Even the free version is very powerful.

Well the situation is I am a photographer and I sometimes make 200 or more photo's a day. So after transferring my photo's to a harddisk folder I have a long list of files named DSCN2004091215 and 199 others named automaticly by the camera using a sort of filestamp. After that I look at them with the arrow down keys and when I see a photo which I want to save I do copy/paste. So after looking at all the photo's I have a few named copy of etc. which I will handle further. But It is very annoying to scroll back in the list every time I have copied a photo because all the filenames look so similar . . . So that is the situation. I know what to copy after I see the file. And it's always the selected file. (And I do this in ACDsee but I didn't mention that not to make things even more complicated)

Ok, thanks, But even if the full filepath would be on the clipboard i.e. "c:\data\0234.txt", "Copy of %T1%" would result in the filename: "Copy of c:\data\0234.txt", which is an impossible filename. And changing "Copy of %T1%" in "%T1%_Copy" would end in "c:\data\0234.txt_copy" so now the extension gets corrupted. So I don't understand how you manage this with copying files in the same directory. With different directories there is no problem. This is a headbreaker for me as a new (4 days) Macro Express user.

Thanks for the reply. Played with your hints, but I couldn't get it to work. I managed to get it working, but your way would be better because there's no jumping around of the selected file. With your method nothing were copied, I guess because the filenames doesn't include extensions visible over here. But what I found was the "Clipboard type text" function. The whole macro is like this. Text Type: <F2> Text Type: <CONTROL>c Text Type: <ESC> Variable Set String %T1% from Clipboard Text Type: <CONTROL>c Text Type: <CONTROL>v Variable Modify String: Save %T1% to Clipboard Clipboard Type Text Buffering the filename to a file didn't work because after the last character a return was given, so after typing out the last character in the end of the macro an Enter was given so the file was launched! Although it does everything I need, what you suggested would be a better solution. But I can't get that to work. Text Type: <F2> Text Type: <CONTROL>c Text Type: <ESC> Variable Set String %T1% from Clipboard Everything ok until here, but Copy File or Files: "%T1%" ----------------------------------------------- With file extensions visible in explorer: Files(s) Path/Name: c:\%T1% New Name: d:\%T1% File copied ok ----------------------------------------------- With file extensions NOT visible in explorer: Nothing copied. Rather logical But how into the working directory because it must work in every directory? ----------------------------------------------- File extensions visible in explorer: Files(s) Path/Name: %T1% New Name: %T1% Nothing copied. ----------------------------------------------- Is there a way to copy a filename with extension to the clipboard, and how do I get this to work in all directories? How do I readout the filepath from the selected file? Anyway, your help with introducing me to variables was great! Thanks, Burt

I am a new Macro Express user and I am trying to make a macro which does the following: I have a long list of files say from 0001.txt - 1000.txt I want to make a copy of a certain selected file say 0234.txt with copy/paste and jump back to the file I just selected before copying. All in the same directory. So when I have file 0234.txt selected and I do copy/paste the file is named "Copy of 0234.txt" After that I want to jump back and select file 0234.txt automaticly without scrolling back. This can be done manual to type in 0234 in explorer and the file will be selected (Windows XP). But how can I do this in a macro? I did the following: File 0234.txt is selected in explorer. TEXTTYPE:<F2> TEXTTYPE:<CONTROL>c TEXTTYPE:<ESC> CLIPST2:0:C:\Temp\clip.txt ;now the filename is copied to the clipboard and saved to a file named clip.txt (i'd rather do this in memory, but yet I don't know how to do this) TEXTTYPE:<CONTROL>c TEXTTYPE:<CONTROL>v ; now the selected file is copied to "Copy of 02345.txt" From here it doesn't work as I would like to. I read the filename back to the clipboard and what shuold happen is that the characters from the clipboard must be typed in sequence with a slight delay, because when I do just paste the filename it doesn't gets selected. CLIPF2:2:C:\Temp\clip.txt SPKEY:500 TEXTTYPE:<CONTROL>v I ment here tot read the file name back into the clipboard, put in 500ms delay in the pasted text what's typed in explorer. But this doesn't work and file 0234.txt isn't selected. Any experienced user can give me a hint? How can I manage that the filename from the clipboard is typed in just as I sould do it manually. Thanks, and best regards to all, Burt