joe

Macro Express is not a development language like VB, Delphi, Foxpro, and so forth. It is closer to a script language like VB Script. Script languages for the most part lack GUI interfaces. It is not what they do. Macro Express was originally designed to automate our keyboard and mouse tasks but it has grown so much and has had so many new commands added to it, that it tantalizes and teases us with possibilities that go way beyond its original scope. Because it is so powerful, because we constantly find new ways to use it, we always think that it should do more and that it should have even more features. Macro Express has, in my opinion, grown so much that it has become a hybrid. It is much more powerful than scripting and less than a development language. It is in a class all by itself.

Hello Cyberchief! C'mon! ... be adventuresome. Take a chance. What could happen? There are sites that are not critical, like this one. And yes, I use this auto login macro on my personal computer. But for as many as sites that I log into, there are still a couple that I do manually ... and they will remain that way for the obvious reason that the data is too sensitive. Also, it is sometimes necessary that clients which we generate macro systems for give us their passwords. These are never placed into an automatic login macro. Ever. All that being said, I think that this macro will be very useful for many many people. Not for everyone. Actually, this macro was originally started as a way to test data mining and the DOM. It grew from there ... like the Frankenstein monster. Does this macro have a place in the PGM Functions Library? Does it belong with the other data mining macros (now in development)? Randall does not think so, what do the rest of you think?

I used to have a password to fire the {IE Login Popup Menu} function, but it defeated the purpose. In other words, it didn't make sense to have to enter a password to not to have to enter a password. I like Kevin's idea about the jump drive. Portable, removable, safe. We used to have a similar device called a "floppy disk" . Speaking of which, anybody remember cassette drives? The most convenient way to protect oneself is to have a biometric device for your laptop or desktop. So I agree with Kevin on this, too. I would rather protect the whole thing with one device rather than try to protect hundreds of macros and web sites with an equal number of passwords. Convenient, however, does not mean "most secure". Anybody can yank a hard drive from a stolen computer and place it in another computer. The {Generate an Internet Login} macro is a nice convenient shortcut that makes no claims to being secure.

Hello Randall! Including it does no harm. I'm sure that, like you, other users and developers realize the danger of leaving sensitive information laying around. Just because the function exists, does not mean it has to be used, as is true with any of the other functions. And I will include a warning in the docs. What the encrypted text might do, and we are still looking at it, is to encrypt the password until it is needed. We might be able to substitute text with variables in the target macro. It will mean, however, a change to both how the target macro gets generated and also how it gets called. It is important for the upcoming Macro Express data mining and/or screen scraping functions that these issues get resolved, and I appreciate your feedback. Keep it coming.

Well, the only time the *PIL* message occurs is when an illegal name and code is used to license Macro Express. To correct this, you must purchase a valid license from the Macro Express web site. Here is the link.

Welcome to the group jxt! Working with a web page is fairly straight forward. Your best friend will be the Text Type command. Use it to emulate your keyboard. The key to working with web pages is to always start from the same place. I always start from the address bar. if you are using IE typing Ctrl+D after the web page is launched will place the cursor there. Then it is just a simple matter of counting the <tab>s needed to get to the first input field, filling it in, and then tabbing to the next field, and so forth. All of this is done using the Text Type command.

Randall: Have not looked at Hotmail yet, but I will. No. I have personally set up over 20 logins and use them on a daily basis. They are called from a menu. Each one I generate goes into a folder on the server. When I want to log in to a web site, I run a macro that dynamically gathers them into a Multiple Choice menu. Then I just click on my choice. The advantage of this approach is that I need only to generate a login and save it to the same folder as the others. Since the macro builds the menu dynamically, the new login is automatically included as a choice. The macro itself is fired by simply clicking my mouse in the upper-left corner of my display. Obviously, it is a Mouse Click activated macro. Very clean. Very quick. Very easy!

Randall: This is VERY true. Anybody that generates a macro like this, whether with Macro Express or some other software, should always be aware that the logins and passwords are right there on the hard drive. Yes, they are buried inside scripts and text, but they are still there. The downside to convenience I guess. Bob: Great news! Thanks. At least we know for sure what the problem was. Edited/Added: After doing some investigation into the FRAMES problem, we are leaning towards not handling these types of logins in this release. A workaround for the user would be to view the source (View | Source) and retrieve the link inside the <IFRAME> tag, which is what I did. Again, this is just how we are leaning. A final decision has not yet been made. We still need to determine if there are a lot of these types of login sites compared to what we are already handling.

Welcome to the group sak! What we do in almost every instance is to have the called application write something to either the Registry or a test file signaling when it's assigned task is completed. Macro Express then waits for that Registry key or file to be written prior to continuing. Some think, even in my own organization ... f l o y d, without mentioning any names that this is "cludgy" (sp?), however I find that it works every time and is easy to implement. Within a macro: Launch program Wait for file "program done.txt" Continue macro here

Hello Jim! Macro Express can read information from text, CSV, and tab delimited files. It can also write to these files. It has some tremendous string manipulation commands built in, too. Macro Express has logic commands such as If/End If, Case/End Case, and so forth, that enables decision making constructs in your program. If you are familiar with any other programming language then the learning curve for Macro Express is very short. If not, then it will be longer because of new concepts that will take time to learn. Without more detail, it is difficult to know which approach to use for your exact situation. Are the log files, for example, text files? Can they be accessed using something like Windows Notepad or can they be read only by whatever software generates them? It is best to break large projects into smaller tasks. Take part of the project and make a macro that works, then move on to the next task, and so forth, until you have a completed project. As to Macro Express Explained, I have no idea who reads it or what particular problems they are trying to solve. There is no particular group of people buying it. I get orders from single users, small companies, corporations, colleges, universities, and government agencies, and have shipped to 20 different countries. The book is what it is: one of many places to go that may, or may not, help. Hopefully the former! Everyone's idea of a *very good* manual (book) is different. Those users who have written to me have liked the book and found it useful. I have not heard from those who dislike the book ... at least not yet

Hello Bob! Try creating a login macro using this link and then let us know the results. The page will look strange because it is actually an unformatted FRAME within the main page. A FRAME, however, is just another link to another page. If this works then we will determine what it will take to resolve this type of FRAME situation. By the way, within the FRAME are standard TEXT and PASSWORD fields ... which makes sense.

Very interesting Randall - I need some detailed, step-by-step instructions on how to use it. Including which files go where and what to do first.

Welcome to the group robert-hk! The Repeat with Folder command uses either string variables or literals. If, for example, one environment was C:\Enviroment1\FolderX and another was Z:\Environment2\FolderY, you could set: %T1% = "C:\Enviroment1" %T2% = "FolderX" when you need the first environment and set: %T1% = "Z:\Enviroment2" %T2% = "FolderY" when you need the second environment. The Folder field would then contain %T1%\%T2% for either environment.

I launched the Windows Task Manager just before renaming a file to see if there is anything that may be trapped that the Repeat with Processes command could grab. Nothing new appeared in the Task Manager pane. If there is a way to trap for this, it is beyond me ... as are plenty of other subjects.

Hello Randall! It is true that some web sites act this way. If you do not log out prior to exiting, it assumes that you are still the same person when logging back in even though you have different identities. PayPal is like this and so is Netscape. I have gotten into the habit of logging out ... which is a good habit as habits go! I still want to determine if it will be possible to generate a macro for those sights that do not contain a <INPUT TYPE=PASSWORD> field.

Hello Bob! Yes. The problem was the macro only tested the input string for an occurrence of "http://" and would prepend it (real word?) if it was not found resulting in "http://https://ezonline.ibmtefcu.org". I changed the macro to also test for "https://" and posted it. Edited (added to response): I've tried duplicating this problem without success. I can have many IE windows open, including a clone of the one that the target macro will open, and everything still works fine. The User ID and Password get entered, and submitted without fail. The underlying VBScript is designed to launch its own instance of IE, navigate to the designated web page, fill in the fields, then hit the <Enter> key via a call to objShell.SendKeys. In other words, the "Submit" button is never touched under any circumstance.

The parsing functions use the {DateTime - Julian to Date} function to convert the passed Julian Day number and then parses out the string from the result.

Hello cyberchief and Randall! There is no function to convert the formatted date string "20050531" to "05/31/2005" or any other pattern. I would suggest using something similar to the code Randall found in the {DateTime - Format Input String} function or you can use the Run Macro in Variable command to format the string to any other pattern, say "May-31-2005": Variable Set String %T1% "20050531" Variable Modify String: Copy Part of %T1% to %T3% Variable Modify String: Copy Part of %T1% to %T2% Variable Modify String: Copy Part of %T1% to %T1% Variable Set String %T1% "<DT:mmm-dd-yyyyT:01:2:%T1%/%T2%/%T3%12:00:00 AM>" Run Macro in Variable %T1% <TVAR2:01:01:20050531><TMVAR2:10:03:01:001:004:><TMVAR2:10:02:01:007:002:><TMVAR2:10:01:01:005:002:><TVAR2:01:01:<DT:mmm-dd-yyyyT:01:2:%T1%/%T2%/%T3%12:00:00 AM>><RUNMACVAR:1> The Run Macro in Variable command is running a dynamic Macro Express Text Date/Time command.

Hello cyberchief! Like most software, the PGM Functions Library requires administrative privileges to install because of the need to write information to the HKLM (HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE) area of the Registry. It is also true that the registration process also requires writing to the HKLM Registry area. However, the functions themselves do not. They read and write only to the HKCU (HKEY_CURRENT_USER) area in which you, as the user, can do without needing special permissions. All of the reading and writing takes place within the HKCU\Software\Professional Grade Macros key.

Hello Nevada! Windows closes the edit field as soon as it loses focus. Windows assumes you are done changing the file name at that point.

The {Generate an Internet Login} function creates a macro that will launch, activate, and log in to a web site that requires a user ID and password. It is a heavy function, which means that it carries with it all the code necessary to generate its target macro, including the VBScript code. The target macro is written to your desktop as a playable (.mxe) file and will contain everything it needs to run, including its own VBScript code. It is what we call a zero-footprint macro, meaning that it will run standalone without needing the support of any other function, macro, or external file. It generates, all by itself, everything it needs to work. I do not want to get into too much detail here as to how the {Generate an Internet Login} function works because you can read that within the function's code and inline docs. But here are some points: It must be imported into the PGM Functions Library in order to run because it uses some supporting functions within the Library. It only works with Internet Explorer. Any open web pages will be automatically closed while generating target macro. The information displayed by the prompts and text boxes will help guide you through the generation process. It uses your temporary folder to create whatever files it needs to run, which are deleted at the end. The target (resulting) macro that this function generates will contain everything it needs to work. You do not have to be at the target web page when this function starts. You will have an opportunity to navigate to it when the time comes. When the function starts you are prompted to enter a URL, which is the web page that contains the user ID and password fields. Knowing how long and weird these URLs can be, the function was designed to allow navigation to the web page while the macro is running. This means that you can type any URL into the prompt, and then after the function takes you there, navigate to the correct web page. This is explained in the text box as the function is running. Once you acknowledge the correct web page, the macro copies the address and closes IE because the underlying VBScript will launch its own web page instance and the user may get confused if two identical web pages are on the screen. The VBScript, which is launched by the function at this point, captures more than just your typed user ID and password. It also captures the related DOM <INPUT> tags of the relevant fields. This is accomplished by comparing which fields have data when the web page is closed. It is the OnQuit Event that tells the VBScript to get the data. So it is important to remember that after you enter your user ID and password, NOT to hit the <Enter> key or engage the <Submit> button but instead, just simply close the IE window. Again, this is explained in the text box as the function is running. The function will take control back once VBScript has recorded the data to a temporary file. Now you are prompted to confirm the user ID and password and to enter a name for the playable (.mxe) file that is about to be generated. That's it. In order to test the newly created macro, simply click on it. I have used this function to generate macros for PayPal, credit card, banking, eBay, membership, and other web sites, and have never encountered a problem. Let us know how it goes with you. Tell us any problems, opinions, suggestions, and so forth that you have. 2005.06.01 - JLW - Test for "https" in input string. Generate_an_Internet_Login_A.mxe

I have two answers for this: If you DO NOT have the PGM Functions Library, you can use the Variable Set from Path command to initially parse the string into drive, path, name, extension. And then hack away within a loop to parse the path. If you DO own the PGM Functions Library, you can use the {String - Parse} function to separate the string into different variables by parsing it on the "\" character in a single call.

Yes, unless the PGM Functions Library is installed, the functions wil not run. And yes, you CAN delete password protected macros ... but not manually. They can only be deleted using the Macro Delete command.

Welcome to the group -nic! Congratulations! It has been our experience that once a client sees a job that used to take hours now taking only minutes, they want more.

Randall - The problem is in the logic. Your Date/Time Save command subtracts the %N3% variable and then adds 1 month in order to get the %T99% result. So, when %N3% = 17 you are saying: Subtract 17 days from May-17-2005, which then equals Apr-30-2005, and now add 1 month, which equals May-30-2005. You must be very careful adding or subtracting anything other than days using Macro Express date strings. You need to into account that months contain between 28 and 31 days. The {DateTime - Go Months} macro within the PGM Functions Library handles these extremes very nicely. For example if today's date was Jan-31-2005 and you used the {DateTime - Go Months} macro to add one month, the result would be Feb-28-2005.