margaret

Well, nothing happens in ME3 when I double-click a menu item in the Macro Explorer. Any way of clicking it during editing does nothing. I put in a bug report on this last week. Thanks.

That worked. I've never double-clicked on an EXE file from within a running instance of that same EXE file before! Normally I wouldn't attempt that. Thanks.

I don't see any icons when I browse to that folder (after clicking on the Change Icon button). Attaching a screenshot of what I do see.

I tried assigning different icons to my macros, but now I want to return to the default icon. How do I do that? I can't find the default icon in the "Icons" folder.

I haven't tried changing the names because that wouldn't be a very good solution. I have three sets of these macros for use with different applications, an instructions web page, a table of keyboard shortcuts, and three sets of practice sheets that I'd have to change, in addition to changing the names of the macros themselves, changing the names wherever they are referenced in other macros, changing the popup menus I made, and changing the names where they are referenced in a macro that runs through all the macros to test them! I'll put in a bug report.

Well, obviously, they should have had you doing beta testing!

I don't even get to see any letters of the filename. I'll put in a bug report, thank you.

"should" -- but doesn't always. I have thirteen macros. For the first ten, the hot keys are assigned as you describe. Then three of them have a capital G in the name. All of them get the hot key G. Now, of course I know you can just press G again and then press Enter when you get to the item you want, but that kinda defeats the purpose of having the hotkey in the first place. And it's not necessary in that other letters are available. It's as if the hotkey-assigning routine gets stuck at G somehow. These are the names and I put a & in front of the hot key plus putting it on the right side. I'm sending you a screenshot of the menu. &CinJustSTOP C C&inLeaveNewCopy I Ci&nMainOnly N Cin&MainPLURAL M CinIn&vertName V CinInv&ertCompoundName E Cin&PasteMAINAddSub P CinP&asteSUBAddMain A CinI&TALICIZEAddAuthor T Cin&QUOTESAddAuthor Q Cin&GetPageNumber u, b, and r are available CinInvertName&GetNewPageNo r, w, and o are available CinInvertCompoundName&GetNewPageNo r, o, and u are available

I just upgraded from 3.7d to 3.8 recently. I'm noticing that now the Reopen menu item on the File menu shows the entire pathname, so I can't actually see the macro names, which renders that menu item useless. I haven't been able to find anywhere that I could change this. The program looks for files in the appropriate directories, so it doesn't seem to have to do with that setting. Since Macro Express appears to default to My Documents unless you tell it otherwise, the entire pathname doesn't seem like a good idea in that the path to My Documents is always something like "C:\Documents and Settings\UserName\My Documents", so the file name will often if not always end up invisible. I used to use the Reopen menu a lot and it's very helpful when you are dealing with a lot of files with similar names. Am I missing somewhere that the path can be set as an option so that the entire pathname won't show up?

I've made a popup menu in the Windows standard style. Hot keys have been automatically created in each macro name on the menu, which is very cool except that one particular letter (G) which occurs in three macro names is the hot key for all three macros. This isn't necessary as there are enough other letters in the names to go around (only 13 macros on the menu anyway). Is there anything I can to do get unique hot keys for the ones that now all have "G" for the hot key? Thanks.

Well, my files definitely do NOT open with the last-used category selected. I just took a screenshot of when the System macros appear over mine and a screenshot of how it looks normally. The thing is, the users have to see the Macro Explorer when they first installl the software, because otherwise they cannot load my macro file. They are not in my location -- we are all freelancers -- so I can't install it for them. I tell them to run ME minimized after installation, but I don't see how to avoid their ever seeing the Macro Explorer. But really it's more of an annoyance for me -- suddenly the system macros show up over my macros, in alphabetical order. It's as if normally I would see AppMacro1 AppMacro2 AppMacro3 AppMacro4 AppMacro5 AppMacro6 Suddenly I see AppMacro1 AppMacro2 Menu of Macro for Topmost Window Resume / Pause [etc.] then other AppMacros that begin with letters after the last letter of the System macros I think I'll write to tech support about this as I don't want to post my screenshots publicly.

Oh, I see the source of the confusion! Sorry. All of the macros are "mine" in that I've written them, but each user needs all of the macros. I put the default macros that come with ME into a category called "System." I put the "subroutines" (macros with no activation, which are only called by the macros that the user knows about) into a category whose name begins with "X" so it'll go to the bottom of the list. The macros the user uses are in a category with a name indicating the application that they work with. There's no corruption; the files are fine and have been tested many times. It's just that sometimes the appearance of the list of macros in the Macro Explorer changes unpredictably, with the "System" macros appearing in the lower part of the list only. Then I have to click on "System" and back on the application category in order to see only the application macros. I'll see if I can take a screenshot next time this happens.

I don't quite follow your idea. Each macro file has the "main" macros (the ones the user needs to know about), plus four "subroutines" that are called by other macros (reduces errors as if there's a problem, I just fix the subroutine one time and don't have to fix all the macros), plus the default "System" macros. The user doesn't need to know about the subroutines or the system macros. If I have no categories, then the user sees everything every time. Right? There are no differences between one user's file and another's -- except that I have four sets of macro files, for accomplishing the same tasks working with four different programs, so the user gets the file appropriate for the program that he/she is using. Why can't there be a default category instead of defaulting to all categories?

What most drives me crazy with this program is that it always opens with all the categories visible and it won't always stay in the category I choose. 1. Is there any way to make it always open with only the category you want visible? It could be confusing for the people I'm writing the macros for, since they don't need to know anything about System or my "subroutines". 2. I have my main macros in one category named after the program they work with. Then I have macros that are only called by other macros in another category (category name starting with X so it will sort to the bottom of the list -- this is what I refer to as my subroutines). Then of course there's System. While I'm editing and going back and forth with different macros, sometimes the System macros appear, covering up some of my macros. Then I have to click on System, then back on the main category in order to see only my main macros. Thanks.

No, they both work fine. I started a long time ago always to use down and up, based on someone's recommendation here, or maybe it's recommended in the book. So I stick with that, but I just was working on macros today and found that in a few older ones, I had used the Keyboard-three steps method, whereas in most of them I had used the TextType-oneline method. Just wondered if there should be any performance difference. I don't *think*( I've noticed any performance difference, but then again I'm not timing the macros and comparing the time. I don't do more than one keyboard shortcut combination per line though. I'm going to make them all the same method now for consistency. Thanks, Meg

Should there be any difference *whatsoever* in performance between these two ways pf programming a keyboard shortcut in which you hold down the Control key: 1. Use the Keyboard section to insert the Control keypresses, so you have Control Down and Control Up as separate steps with TextType in between them for the letter key (three separate steps) 2. Use the Text Type section and have Control Down, whatever letter key, and Control Up all on one line ? Thanks.

I've got a dialog box where the user can input new information, and it becomes information that the receiving program saves and resuses, and that's all fine. What I would like to do is to give the user a dialog box where the initial value is the content of that variable before the edit. In other words, let's say the variable is now 198. If the user wants to change it to 199, as things stand now, he gets a dialog and has to type the entire 199 (set variable from promt). Is it possible to present the 198 as an initial value in the dialog, such that the user can just backspace over the 8 and add the 9?

Yes, it does! Wonderful! Thank you!

Is there a way that I could create a text file of all the macros in a given .MEX file, short of copying and pasting out of the Direct Editor for each macro? The idea is to be able to search across different versions of a similar sequence, especially to check the variable names, or to check whether anything was not done the same way in all the files? I have a good search program that can search ASCII text files and HTML, XML, RTF, and PDF formats. Or if I could get a version that would essentially look the way the macro does in the Scripting Explorer, but just be text (that's probably not possible, but thought I'd ask anyway). Thanks, Meg

I don't type directly into the Text Type box (unless I'm typing only text, which in these macros is rare). The <> are there, the caps are there. I got around the problem another way. I wanted to select what was in the field and delete it. Wouldn't do it. The text to delete would vary in size. So instead I copied what was in the field, put the length into a variable, and then had the macro press Delete as many times as the text had been long. Now that works, go figure.

This is the only keystroke problem I'm having (except for a new one that I'll mention next). In the program I'm typing into, at that point in the data entry, "Enter" is how you create a subfield, and it's the only way you can create a subfield, and "Enter" is what I'm sending via Text Type (and it works in other similar macros). I faked it out by putting in what seems like an unnecessary delay, which seems to work so far. What would make Macro Express type in the text of a sequence like SHIFT DOWN, ARROW DOWN, SHIFT UP instead of performing the actions?

Having a very odd problem. I was making some changes to a macro, and it was acting as if it had pressed Backspace, and meanwhile it was not pressing Enter, which it was supposed to for the first step. Now I think it's somehow interpreting the instruction to press the Enter key as if it were an instruction to press Backspace. I've never seen this before. On a related note, should I expect that a "wait for keypress" command should NOT work if the immediately following keypress is the same as the one the wait command was waiting for? Thanks, Meg

But it is a Text command -- like Text Type: %10% for example -- with %10% being the modified variable. I can't do an actual paste or I wouldn't be able to modify the string in between the copy and paste. Unless I can essentially put the modified variable into the clipboard? Would that be better? We're never talking about a large amount of text -- let's say under 10 words each time, not whole sentences even, often just one word or a few words. No images at all in the receiving application; there may be images in the file that's being copied from, but those images would never be copied.

I looked at that dialog again. The default for clipboard commands is expressed in milliseconds but the Text Type delay is microseconds (300 microseconds = .3 milliseconds I guess). OK, that's a lot less time than I was thinking. In most cases in my macros, text is not being typed in. It is being pasted in from a variable -- originally text is copied to the clipboard, then the macro evaluates the string and trims off extra spaces, etc., and in some cases manipulates it further, then from the resulting variable, the text is pasted in. (Or should Wait for Text Playback not apply when it's one paste rather than a number of keystrokes??) In the few cases where the user is typing something in, speed shouldn't be a problem because in those cases the macro has to wait until the user presses Enter before it continues. I might not need all the delays I currently have now that I have this Wait Text Playback. I'll do some more experimenting. It's the time to allow for switching windows that seems to vary the most from one program to another. Thanks! Meg