Cory

Well you pass parameters to a script easy and you can read the result back into a variable. Look at the External Script section in the help file. "Script Language Parameters", and "Save Console Output to." The help file is a very good resource for things like this.

I'm not sure what you're trying to do but you can look at all the activation methods in the help file. If someone types a series of letters or numbers you can make that activate a macro. You can use a VBA macro to launch the MEP macro. Again look in the help file under Command Line Parameters. You can use the MeProc.exe with parameters that will launch a macro.

2D 41 0D 0A 2D 42 0D 0A 2D 43 0D 0A 2D 44 0D 0A 2D 45 THis is how your text actually looks like to the computer internally. Each of those pairs is a hexadecimal representation of the binary. Each represents a byte, 8 bits, of data. By applying the ASCII encoding, you will get the letters and such that you are used to seeing. Click here to see a table of the value, E.G. 2D is a hyphen, 41 is "A". I think it helps people if they can see what it's happening behind the scenes. And in binary. How it actually is in memory or on disk. Cut those into chunks of 8 and you can manually decode them yourself. If you're really bored 🙂 0010110101000001000010100010110101000010000010100010110101000011000010100010110101000100000010100010110101000101

When you do the replace, include a newline set. A newline in Window is two non-printing characters carriage return and line feed. 0x0d and 0x0a. That's what gives you the line break. Click here for my instruction on how to create them in MEP. You will want to add them to the end of the string you want to replace.

No easy way I can think of.

I don't know for certain, but I believe that's needed for use in 64 bit operating systems but only some functions. Ask ISS support.

You should be using MEP control commands if it's a Win32 (WinForm) application. If you are in a web page, it's very difficult. You're better off tabbing around.

For anyone wondering about variable scope, click here to see my explanation.

I have written some very complex and powerful macros. A hospital back east had banks of computers running a macro I wrote around the clock for years. But the two that I have gotten the most use out of are simple. The first one simply types a date stamp. I use it in file names, notes on task, and dozens of other places. I'm amused at how often that's useful The second is a task tracking number. I type "TTN..." and it looks up the last number, increments it, and types out something like "TTN4521". I create tasks in Outlook with this in the subject, tag emails, time logs, task folders, and many other things. Later it's easy to find all relevant correspondence, file, whatever. And I have another "TTNR" which re-types the last number. Funny that I've written so many complex and powerful macros, and yet this is what I use most. Of course when professionally developing macros, one doesn't use those oneself. On a related note, I don't write as many macros as I did. I have been programming now for years and when it comes to automating most things, a proper program is better. Like web scraping. MEP is just not suited for that kind of stuff. But what MEP is great at is things like this. The little macros that save seconds a hundred times a day. Also things that are semi-automatic. Like a macro to file a PDF file from a scan where the user has to answer some questions and the macro blasts though all the menus and dialogs. One just can't beat it for things like that.

I don't have an answer to your question, but early on in my big batch automation projects i completely gave up on using the mouse in web pages and would learn to do everything by keyboard. Usually a bunch of tabbing. But even that was slow and frustrating so I started writing programs to automate web browsers instead, so I haven't even done that in ages. But you might try to use the keyboard more.

There is no way to do it with a native command that I am aware of. Terry likes to do things visually, but if it were me, I'd use an external script I could run invisibly. Something like this one.

Using the Controls commands, why can't you get the control's text? I should think it would be the list separated by newlines which you could split into an array then make your decisions in logic.

I can't help you with that Terry. Years back I had a task to seek out and extract data from thousands of XLSX files. But there weer some inconsistencies so I need to use some logic to find the data i needed or flag those which needed to be done by a human. I started messing with VBA and MEP but then I tried Microsoft.Office.Interop.Excel. VBA is designed to in in Excel. Interop is an API for other programs to access Excel programatically. Exactly what you want to do. It's very cool and it works much the same as commanding a human. And since it's going to be in a modern language like VB.NET, C# or whatever, it's much simpler to write the program. I was intimidated by it but I installed the free version of Visual Studio and created my first .NET program. It was surprisingly simple. Since I didn't really know enough to write the whole program in VB, I simply exported a worksheet to CSV and then did the rest in MEP. Later I did many other projects with Inerop and each time it was a joy. One doesn't even need to have Excel visible. Just BAM and done. For more reliable and simple that trying to mess around with MEP to export it. I know it's not the kind of solution you're seeking, but if you're interested in such an approach, let me know and I can either write a program for you quick or help you learn. Here's a good example as a teaser. But if you decide to keep going the VBA method, I hope it goes well.

I don't understand your problem. It sounds like a simple condition. If the macro starts and evaluates the time to meet your criteria, then exit the macro. That am I missing?

If it's only one column, then text is good. Use Text File Process. But nothing wrong with using CSV also. I would create an integer variable %Pointer% before the loop and each time it loops, increment it one. I despise the use of the stock variables as they were meant to make transition easier form ME3. Instead create an string array variable %Values%. each line that is read in, you send it to %values[%pointer%]%. IN this example yo would have 5 elements in the array numbered 1 to 5.

If you have a new issue, try making a new post and referring back to this one if relevant. Sorry I don't have time to digest your entire port. It seems too convoluted and complex for me to have the time to answer right now. BTW, I live in Fallbrook. 🙂

Are you wanting to save one macro to an .MEX file or are you wanting to save your open MEX file to a new name?

Are you using ASCII File Process? Are you using controls? Assuming you are, as you look though the file line by line, you would detect by the content of the first array value if it's "Group" and then switch you method in the loop to add the GroupElements. Once group row appears again, do the other thing.

Most browsers have account synchronization including bookmarks.

No. I think it's practically impossible with MEP.

No

Why don't you use "replace all"? in FrameMaker?

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.

This got me thinking about something I saw in a Windows Insider announcement a long time ago. A few month's back Windows Clipboard got an option for history. But instead of CTRL+v you use Win+v, it will show you your clipboard history. Just go into your Windows System Settings > System > Clipboard and enable it.

Sorry, short response. Not much time. You need to update the text box each time. Did you do that.