HeyJim

Some - preach Christ even of envy and strife - Clarke, Adam. Commentary on the New Testament (Kindle Locations 43117-43118). Titus Books. Kindle Edition. Just copied line 1 from Kindle and then line 2 is automatically added. It's not a straight Windows copy/paste in that when one highlights text then a separate window opens giving one the opportunity to copy that text. Somehow the Kindle programming does its own unique copying into Windows clipboard and adds that extra line.

I don't even know where to start on this one as simple and basic as it is. Virtually nothing on Kindle here from a quick search. When I copy text from a Kindle book and then paste it into a doc what I get is the content that I specifically copied plus info documenting the book and author that originated that text. The paste is only for me, not to be published, so copyright info is just intrusive and space wasting. Any thoughts how to strip out this source info as it is copied or pasted? Thanks.

No new software installed. No computer problems. Had to reboot three times before I could stop it during the one incident. No new installation of ME. The offending macro was simply one command: Activate window. As it turns out, I had one macro that activated the wrong window maybe 50% of the time so under PROPERTIES I also checked WINDOW TITLE and added the window title there. Crucial mistake. Stan, support, looked through my .mex macro file and quickly suggested that the above, also checking WINDOW TITLE, was my problem. That appears to have been the case as - so far - everything now seems to be fine. Thanks, Stan from support. Again: this is one of the most valuable pieces of software I have ever purchased and I've been working with computers since before the WorldWideWeb and the advent of graphics! (Yeah, I'm really that old.)

I've been using ME for a long, long time. Just recently I remember thinking that this is the best investment in software I have ever made and ME is constantly being used more and more as I write new macros. And then a couple of weeks later weird stuff starts happening. It may be connected to opening active windows. I wrote a very short macro just to open one particular window. It worked fine for a month or two and then suddenly one day recently it opened the correct window but then it returned to my original window, then back to the target window, then back to the original window, etc. I had to restart the computer three times before whatever was going on stopped. I disabled that macro! Thought that was all behind me now. Today when I used ME to open an active window (different program this time) but then I switched manually to another window shortly thereafter and then ME immediately returns me to that active window accessed by the macro and would not stop doing that. Every time I went to another window I would automatically return as if the macro was running non-stop. Somehow it even spilled over into Outlook so that when I tried to type a message in a new email it kept kicking me out and the cursor disappeared. I seemed to have stopped the nonsense by shutting down MacroExpress but I hate to think about running without ME. Anyone have any clue as to what is going on? I'm going to now add in clearing hooks at the end of every macro to see if that helps but I'm not too optimistic about that being the solution. I also just noticed that ME windows are not even opening correctly now. I tried to change the schedule on one macro, clicked schedule and there was only a brief flicker of the screen. After doing this a few times I tried an ALT+TAB and discovered the window there. I've been running Windows 7 for the last year on this machine with no trouble until that described above.

it's a universal problem. I just used IE as an example. There are actually ten different macros set up to function this way and there are a combination of some just "Activate Window" and others "Activate or Launch." I think the next time this problem pops up though that I will check and see if it is limited to those using "Activate or Launch" then make a change. Thanks for the suggestion.

Activate or Launch: "Windows Internet Explorer" OR "iexplore.exe" That's it. And I have a hot key attached of Alt+Page Down. There are several other similar setups. They all choke occasionally. Screen shot attached.

I use ME and my numeric keypad to open different windows at various times during the workday rather then do an ALT-tab or even click on one of the icons/tabs at the bottom of the screen. In the course of a normal work day I wind up with so many windows open that I can lose several seconds just looking through all of my tabs. That's a real momentum breaker there when you have to do it as many times as I do through the day. The ACTIVATE window function in ME comes in really handy but the setup startles me occasionally when I click to activate a window and it doesn't happen. What does happen in that situation is that the appropriate tab is highlighted at the bottom of my monitor instead which, once I realize it, needs a click in order to activate that screen. Momentum stumble again. I thought the problem might be related to too many hooks being open so I went back and added a reset hooks (or whatever it is) to the end of most of my macros but it does not resolve the problem. Any suggestions on how to make ACTIVATE window fail safe are greatly appreciated.

I never gave that a thought but it sounds like my best solution, too. I'll probably buy the cheaper edition of iMacro and use that for much of my web work. Other than playing around with the free Firefox plugin for a few minutes I have no experience with iMacros. Is there any trick to calling an iMacro into the Macro Express work flow? I haven't made any new macros in probably the last two years.

I think your theory is less bunk than my theory. My theory is that the internet in general is 80% technology, and then in math that only a witch doctor could understand, 25% Voodoo and I base this on all of the inconsistencies we've all experienced over the years. For Macro Express I'll stick with your procedures. Before long though I'll probably have to bite the bullet and learn a new system by purchasing iMacros. I played around with their free Firefox plugin a few months ago and it doesn't seem to have this problem. But I really like Macro Express...

I'm not sure how experienced you are with this but undoubtedly you have more experience than I do so I pose this question to you. His idea worked for my Google example but not for the Ebay page while you on the other hand did actually have success with the Ebay page. Do you, or anyone for that matter, have any wild guesses on why it won't work for me with the Ebay page. I tried with Firefox 1 and 3 and IE6 & 8 over two computers and experimented with it on Ebay for quite a while with absolutely no successes. It worked for you at least once but never for me so I'm really baffled now. I thought it was just an absolute limitation of ME but then it worked for you on the Ebay page.

Ok. Bad example. My apology offered. This ebay page seems to represent more accurately the problem I have had in the past. https://signin.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Si...www.ebay.com%2F I'm trying it with "User ID" and "Password" and your very good suggestion doesn't seem to work in Firefox or IE 8 on this page. Your suggestion does work in some situations but apparently not in all?

Let's use Google as an example. https://www.google.com/accounts/NewAccount You want your macro to enter the text box just to the right of "Your current email address:" Use ALT + d and the cursor jumps to the address bar as a universal start point and then *maybe* you can then TAB the same number of times and hit that box every time but in practice it doesn't work very well consistently. So how would you approach jumping right to that specific text box for entering your current email address? I've spent hours trying to master this problem and still don't have any clue on a 100% effective solution. Thanks for any input.

I gather from iMacros that I need macro software that has its own browser built in but still hoping for an alternate solution here.

I'm dusting off my old copy of ME3 Explained (the paperback) and preparing to make some new macros. I've been using the same dozen or so since 2005 and haven't had to do much of anything in the way of new macros in quite a while so this is going to be a bit of a stretch getting back to speed. First problem: locating and clicking a text link on a browser page. First off I remember that other than starting off in a browser window from the address bar and then maybe I TAB 14 times to get to suchandsuch a link to click there was no good way to locate that link on a page. Is there a better way? I mean, tab counts do change with minor page redesigns. For instance, if we look at http://slashdot.org/. Upper right hand quadrant there is a link to "Create Account". What is the most direct and effective way to nail that link first time every time (to click it) and do so pretty much for any page and any text link? Doing a FIND doesn't do it and I remember that when I tried this a couple of years ago I gave up on there being a good way to do this. Just TAB "x" times and hope for the best. There will be instances (such as with slashdot.org) where I'm allowed to go directly to the url that is generated by clicking that link. How then do I locate/enter text boxes on a web form? http://slashdot.org/login.pl?op=newuserform. How to easily enter the Nick Name box? Any and all ideas on how to accomplish this will be greatly appreciated.

Just a FYI to anyone considering a similar approach on their computer, it's been nearly a week and the macro has not created any problems. I rarely see the update happening and even though it's a bit startling if I'm in the midst of typing something I've yet to lose even a keystroke. Simple solution. Works great for me. I'm actually using a Task list effectively/regularly.

I think I'd really be a bit more efficient if I could just learn to use the Outlook Task window for my daily TODO list since I'm checking my email frequently but I can find no way to run the Task window simultaneously with the Inbox and Reading pane. So, I just cannot get in the habit of using it. I just did a quick scheduled macro to run every hour, activate Outlook, run the keyboard shortcut to open the Task window then do an alt tab back to the originally focused window. Yeah, this will work ok when I'm on the phone or doing paperwork but I can see it occasionally irritating me when suddenly the program I'm working on loses focus while the Task window is being opened. I think I can live with this but is there a better way? Can the keyboard shortcut be run in Outlook via macro without bringing it to the foreground?

I keep telling my business partner that there's money to be made with ME but I just can't come up with a multitude of ideas. I use it in the office for non-internet related marketing routines and it saves me lots of time (money) over a given month but that's about the extent of the benefits for me. I can contribute one idea to start. I'm currently using a macro in Yahoo Search Marketing (see my other post this day) to check the bids tool page and change my current position bid from X to Y in order to find the most cost effective position for my ads in my industry. I'm still learning but already it's made me a tiny bit of extra income. Anyone else have any ideas on how to effectively use ME to mine the internet for gold?

Thanks, Jason. That should do it. I was also reminded of the "clipboard contains" and maybe I can use that to screen for the word "error" in the clipboard contents. A quick reading seems to indicate I can use that method as well.

I'm going through my ME Explained book looking for options. Half an hour last night and I didn't stumble across anything but I'm picking up the search again this morning. Meanwhile, maybe someone here will come across my post and be able to give me a quick and simple solution to the below problem. I wrote a macro that along the way calls up a page (the bids tool in Yahoo Search Marketing) which only actually loads properly maybe 70% of the time. When it doesn't load properly I have to right click the running man icon, etc., and start over. I'd like to insert in my macro a popup window that gives a choice then the macro proceeds appropriately. Click YES - the macro continues on one path Click NO - the macro gives focus to that page then sends a refresh then returns to the YES NO window while I wait to see if the bids tool window actually loads properly. It seems to me I used something like this is one of my other macros but since I write macros few and far between I'm coming up blank. The only other method I can think of using to automate a solution to this problem is to check on the page for the word "error" and if it finds "error" refresh the page, no "error" do the other. That sounds more complicated to me. Yes? Any help appreciated.

Sometime after the above post I was on the road and thought that maybe if I never closed the bid window that I wouldn't get what I think is a server error from Yahoo. Just tried it. Doesn't make any difference. I can run a few checks and then get the error with the info not loading on the page. Still need a way for the macro to check whether it's the error page it's processing and then move on from there. (And, it's probably something simple I'm missing.)

I'm new to Overture PPC (ok. Yahoo Search Marketing now) and learning to deal with changing my bids according to the approximate position that I want in the search results. For those that are not familiar with the process you tab to or click from the price box to the bid tool which in turn opens up a new page/window that shows you the top X bidders and their bids so then you can, at least theoretically, bid for the postion that you can afford. It's a really slooooow process begging for the right macro. Software to do this is extremely expensive and involves monthly payments. I've written a couple macros but it still takes me 5 minutes to do a block of twenty search term/bids. Considering that I have thousands of search terms updating is a drag. I'm not too concerned about updating daily but even week to week is a real time consuming problem. The couple of macros I have are a big improvement but it would be nice to be able to automate two additional sticking points and it's those two points I'd appreciate some insight on. First, although the success rate this morning is better than normal on some days the bid window opening fails as often as 30% of the time which throws a real monkey wrench into a simple macro. The page title doesn't change with the error. The only difference to trap for would be the word "error" on the page or in the source code. I've played around with running CONTROL F first and searching for the word "error" but can't get my head around what/how to do anything with the page if I do find it as opposed to not finding it. Currently my macro pauses to see if the bids tool page opens properly and I click YES or NO and the macro proceeds accordingly. It would be nice to automate that step. The next hanging point is automating picking up the appropriate amount to bid. Let's say I want to be in position X for all of the terms in a particular group. With Firefox the macro searches for a recurring phrase X times. The macro pauses, I left click on the appropriate position, the macro resumes and highlights the amount I want to bid, closes the window and places the amount in the bid box. Time saving but still not completely automated. If X = 20 and there are only 7 competitors I end up in the wrong position because Firefox starts the search over from the beginning of the page and doesn't stop until it's found the target phrase 20 times. With my current macro it's not that big of a problem because I then just scroll down to the point I need to be (last bid on the page in this example) click, highlights, etc. But, there's gotta be a better way. Any suggestion on either sticking point greatly appreicated.

It's copied into the clipboard as with this heading (Lastname, Firstname M.) but later in the macro I need it to be rearranged and spit out as Firstname M. Lastname. Seems as though it wouldn't be all that difficult but, well, I don't have a clue how. I've had help in the past with other text related questions and have been able to modify the answers and use them but I really still don't understand this part of processing text. Thanks.

Thanks, Cory, Joe. I used both suggestions. Not that I had to do that. I had to remove the clipboard cut command from the macro and then it worked perfectly. Had me scratching my head wondering for a couple of minutes but no big deal. As I suspected and everyone else on the board probably knew it was WAY faster than the way I had been using. Then I couldn't help but try your way, Joe. Didn't know I could use a ^p for the replace. Also found out it's case sensitive. I've learned from both of you. Thanks again. Jim

I've been running a macro in Word that does a control-f, inserts a comma, exits the FIND window when it encounters a comma and then TEXT TYPE's an ENTER. I'm thinking doing this through the clipboard would be lots faster since it's currently taking us over 30 minutes to do this in Word even using REPEAT 1000's of times in just one extremely large document. (I'm converting documents from 100+ pages of text to an extremely long list.) I've been playing with variables and repeats because it should be pretty simple but no dice so far. Could someone please post the couple of lines of code necessary to replace all of the commas in clipboard with ENTERS and then spit the result out of clipboard on to a blank page I'd have open? Thanks.

Hey, Randall. As usual your input is fantastic and the macro runs great. With this as the foundation I should be able to put the rest of it together. I've only studied your solution for a few minutes and think I'll be able to understand it eventually but in all honesty I'm not sure I would have ever figured it out on my own. Thanks.