Linda

On my version (3.0.4.1), I can click directly on the AM/PM, and toggle it between the two.

If it helps, the "Variable Set Integer" command, on the option 2 pane, allows you to set a variable to the current minute (0-59), or to the current second.

I'm glad it worked! And I'm glad all the text-conversions/initializations wern't neccesary- I wanted to err on the side of caution and give the most conservative case. I've only been following the newsgroup since it moved to the new format, and haven't worked with timing the functions myself, though if this information is out there, it would be of interest to me as well. I know that the company that hosts this site has a collection of timing functions in the macro library that they sell, but I've never used it myself, and can't speak to it.

Hi! I have an older version of MacroExpress, so my windows may not look quite the same as yours. I got to this dialog by looking at the script in the scripting editor, clicking the "properties" tab on the upper left, checking the scheduling checkbox and hitting the "Set schedule" button: ... Erg, upload doesn't work, hot-link doesn't work, let's try this: The "AM/PM" And here's how I got there: Step 1 Step 2

I have a logitec optical mouse with a mousewheel, but if I understand correctly, that shouldn't make a difference to ME, since the signal isn't actually coming from the mouse (the scroll-wheel command, for example, should work even if your mouse doesn't have a scrollwheel. Agian, IIUC.) Perhaps if you posted the source code, someone might be able to figure out why it isn't working? Try using the test macro I used- just one line, "Mouse Wheel Forward", set to ten clicks, and a command-key invocation. Wether that one-line macro works or not should help narrow down the source of the problem. (Remember, this will cause it to scroll UP, so start at the botom of a page)

It worked for me. At first it didn't look like it did, because I expected "Forward" to scroll down the page, and instead it scrolls up- so if I was already at the top of the page, nothing happened. Might this be the issue? I just used a simple one-line macro, that invoked ten clicks on the mouse-wheel and did nothing else.

Will this work? * Create a blank text file * Start a "Repeat with Folder" loop, set to look at each folder in the folder -- Set %N1% to zero -- Set %T2% to the group (folder) name -- Start a "Repeat with Folder" loop, set to look at each file in the folder + Increment %N1% -- End the "Repeat with Folder" loop. -- Convert N1 to a string, and append to %T2% -- Append %T2% to a new line in a text file. * Move on to the next group folder Now, you can read in the text file to get your group-folder names and the number of files within each group folder.

EDITED FOR CLARIFICATION: Have you considered using an INI file? I've found them a useful way to get around ME's limited variable-space and lack of arrays. * Create an INI file with key names 1-99 (or whatever) , and set them all equal to 0. Then, say %N1% is the variable that comes back as 52 or 93 or whatever, depending on what you want to incriment. Each time this value comes back: * Convert %N1% to a text string, %T1% * Read a vairable, %T2% from an INI file (using %T1% as the key-name) * Convert %T2% to an integer, %N2% * Increment %N2% * Convert %N2% back to a text string, and save to the INI file at key-name %T1%. Not the most elegant peice of code ever invented, but it beats a switch statement with dozens of cases!

I use Firefox at home, but at work (where I have ME) I only have explorer, so I can't test it. I'm debating buying MacroExpress for home use as well, if I do so in the next day or so and you don't have an aswer yet, I'll be happy to test it.

Weird- I've just been using the scripting editor- not editing directly in the Direct Editor- what would cause the command to be corrupted internally like that? It seems to be happening a lot today- a lot of odd bugs that sometimes go away when I re-type the commands. We've found with the software we're using that this sometimes works and sometimes doesn't-- so I've been doing the up-downs just to be safe.

Hi, I have a macro that contains a section <TEXTTYPE:<CTRLD>2<CTRLU>><WAITPB><PAUSE> In the applicaction this is invoked from, CTRL-2 takes the cursor to a particular edit field in a particular pane. When I invoke the macro, instead of typing CTRL-2 to change the focus the macro types "<CTRLD>2<CTRLU>" into the currently focused edit-box . (If I manually hit CTRL-2 from this same edit box, without using the macro, it shifts focus properly). I'm using MacroExpress 3.0.4.1 Why does it do this, and how can I make it stop? (I had a similar proplem in an earlier section of the macro, which was solved by deleting and retyping the commands That didn't work here.) Thanks!

Thanks for the info!

Hi! We'd really like to move up to the latest version of ME, but that's going to require carefully testing a large number of existing macros before we switch everyone's ME versions over. To do this testing (and still be able to get other work done), is it possible to have two versions of ME on the same computer, so that I could switch between them (stop one and start the other, and then back again)? Or will downloading the new version over-write the old? Thanks for your help!

Hi- Another library user! I've never used Sirsi Unicorn, but there are also difficulties getting controls to register in the various panes of Aleph (another Library program) due to the controls being "dynamically allocated" rather than having fixed IDs that ME can recognize. Does Unicorn have command-key equivilents? That's been very helpful with Aleph. Or sometimes command-equivilents can get you part-way there, and then you can tab around- not the most elegant solution, but it works (in some cases). The difficulty with the library programs, I think, is that they are so much more complex than most of the software that ME has to deal with. (BTW, I'm using a slightly older version of ME, so there may be more elegant solutions using the newer version that I'm not aware of.)

The web-forum format is much more user friendly than the newsgroup format

Until someone with more knowlege than I comes on with a more elegant solution, perhaps you could just have it wait 250 miliseconds or something? I once used that as a work-around to a similer problem. (Obviousy, this only works if you are comfortable relying on the window closing that quickly.)

Have you tried waiting for the second window to gain focus instead? Just a thought.

Hi, I'm still rather new to Macro Express myself, but I'll give you my experience in case that helps. (Also, I'm using a slightly older version of Macro Express, 3.0.4.1) I suspect you may be clicking on the control before it's become active. Clicking on an inactive conrol causes the older version of ME to crash, I imagine in the newer version that's been fixed to just "give an error" as you describe. Try using a "Wait" statement to wait for a fraction of a second after the window appears before grabbing and clicking the control. This helped me with a problem similer to the one you describe.

Hank, Have you tried copying the text immediately from the clipboard into a variable? Then the restore command could restore it from the variable, rather than worry what the clipboard had been changed to. The macro at Ctl-1 woud copy the text to the clipboard, then save it to variable T1, and the Alt-1 macro would type the contents of variable T1, regardless of what had happened to the clipboard in the meanwhile. Hope this helps,

I was, but your first response cleared that up . I confused the matter by including an old example, and saying things like "Since at the time I thought..." which unnecesisarily complicated the issue. I've edited my second post to (hopefully) remove the confusion of my example. Except... when I tried to create a simplified example (as I should have done before my initial post), I didn't see the behavior I complained about above, so my error must have been elsewhere, and I was unfairly blaming variable behavior. So nevermind on the variable question in the second post. And thanks for your help clarifying the variable issue! I'll check it out. Good choice . It's the most basic part of any programming language, yet so poorly explained in the help files...

Thanks! So... I only need to do Saves and Restores to save values between sessions? That simplifies things (and complicates them)... I thought I had to do it every time I called a subroutine macro (or at least any sub-macro that required even a single argument from it's parent) to pull the sub-macro into the same "namespace" as the parent. But I'm still confused about some of the unexpected behavior I encountered. For instance, I had two macros: Macro A: // Do some stuff. // sets up Text variables. // sets up Integer variavles Variable Save: Save Interger Variables Macro Run: Macro B // The Integer values from B are fine // ACK! ALL MY TEXT VARIABLES WERE BLANKED OUT!!! ============== Macro B: Variable Restore: Restore Integer Variables // do the same stuff it did before. I now understand that the "save" and "restore" were unncesseary. But why did all my Text variables go away when I did a save and restore of Integer variables? I'm still confused as to why a command refering to Integer variables erased all of my Text variables? Sorry if I seem dense here, but I'm finding the help file very unhelpful. (It's trying so hard to sound non-technical and unintimidating to the non-technical person that it generally leaves out whatever bit of info I'm looking for.) BTW, can you reccomend any books on MacroExpress with a more technical slant? I'm going into a bit of withdrawl here, trying to get used to macro programming (as opposed to C++, Perl, Java, etc) Thanks!

Yes, I understand how they work in simple situations, with say, two macros the first of which calls the second which completes and returns. However, the help-file never says exactly what the saves and restores are doing, just that (in paraphrase) "Uh, yeah- Save Variables and Restore Variables are, like, for passing variables between macros n'stuff." And it describes the simplest situation. In more complex situations, the save and restores have behaved in ways that seemed counter-intuitive to me. So I want to find a description of what, exactly, in technical terms, the save and restores are doing, so that I can predict complex behaiors. Thanks!

Thanks again for the help! Most of the macros I'm working on are for use inside a complex industry-specific enterprise database program, so closing and relaunching the application, logging in, finding the correct section of the application, correct pane, correct tab, correct record, and reproducing the workflow up to that point make steps 2 and 3 a little bit difficult But there are always exceptions- never know when that trick would come in handy!

Thanks for the info! We're working on getting MacroExpress updated, but between the testing and beauracratic requirements, it may take a while, so I have to work with what I've got for now. Hmm... the "co-ordinates on the screen" seems even riskier than the tabbing-and-text-check method. I don't know the work habits and screen sizes of everyone who will be using these macros, so I want to make them as un-dependent on external factors as possible. But I'll pull that in if I need to. The easy part is buttons with command-key equivilents- just use the keystroke. The hard part is edit-text boxes with no initial text in them... Anyway, thanks for the info/help!

We're still using MacroEpress 3.0.4.1, and that's outside my power to change in the near future. The "Control" comands in ME assume statically allocated controls- that the ID the control has with a test-run will always be it's ID. But the primary peice of enterprise software that I'm writing macros for has dynamically allocated controls- the ID number for the control changes each time the application is run. Lacking a static ID , I've been finding controls by tabbing between them and checking the control text to see if its what I'm looking for:blink: There has to be a more elegant (and somewhat faster!) method to deal with dynamically allocated controls. Has anyone else found it? EDIT: Aside from the inherent awkwardness of the text-checking method, If I grab a null control (such as the in-focus control when there is no focus, or a control that no longer exists) MacroExpress crashes- doesn't just give me an error and stop the running macro, but actually crashes , complicating debugging. Is there a better way that I'm overlooking?