joe

Wait! .... I'll be ... I just got it.

Ageing Hack, that was funny.

Yes, it was throwing code, The home page's picture was a picture of code.

Very good, Very good, indeed! Thanks for the smile :-)

When a CMS change is made to the site, or something else, I always test prior to publishing. For testing I use three devices:

1) My desktop in IE (ver 11.0.7) and Firefox (ver 28.0)

2) My Samsung Galaxy 10 pad (Android 4.0.4)

3) My cell phone (Chrome 33.0.1)

No errors have popped up for me yet, at least nothing that I can see.

The only aggravating one I know of at the moment are the sub-choices in the main menu when using Firefox. Firefox adds a few pixels of space between the menu line and the choices. So if the mouse is moved straight down, Firefox thinks you left the menu.

As it so happens, I posted an article today on the PGM website titled "Anchors Aweigh". It covers some of the use of using MXPro for Internet automation.

Hope it helps.

http://www.pgmacros.com/index.php/macro-express-pro/mx4-articles

Thought I would pass this along to the forum ...

Started the new Professional Grade Macros website. Not much there yet, but over the past few weeks I was working on its overall design and layout.

The first task was to get all the tutorial videos, as well as the mex library, which were created for the Macro Express Explained book onto the site so people could still get access to them. Over the past couple of weeks there were plenty of downloads.

Posted an MXPro article today.

- Joe

Are the lines that you want to change in your file the only ones containing a semi-colon? And if so is that semi-colon always in the same position like you have here in your examples?

Video tutorials that were on the companion CD attached with the printed edition of the Macro Express Explained book are now available at PGMacros. They can be viewed or downloaded from there. They can also be viewed on YouTube.

The video turtorials were produced many, many moons ago by Mathew Frandsen formally of FormaQuest.

Another item placed on the site is the macro file which was also supplied on the companion CD. This MEX file holds all of the sample macros that were in the book.

Paul -

A form generator, a means to run it, and the ability to return the values back to Macro Express would be a wonderful tool for the community. I would buy it and I would use it. Not sure what you have in mind for pricing but something akin to the price of Macro Express Pro itself would be reaonable to those of us that generate systems for clients.

And AutoIt is an excellent choice for this considering that AutoIt scripts can be run using the External Script command.

- Joe

Sorry for the multiple posts but they are separate issues and I don't want to overload folks with a huge amount of text.

 

I just wrote a macro that attempts to divide by zero to generate an error for the log. Annoyingly I get "Wednesday, September 30, 2009 12:09:23 PM: Divide by zero". Is that it? Is there no way to get more definite information in there? At least the error popup tells me the line number. Am I missing something or should I put in a feature request?

 

I suppose I could write a macro that looks for the "Script Error" dialog and logs and emails the contents of the box. It just seems that the logging options should work the way we want, ya know? Ideally I would like much more information when the macro fails. I'm thinking time, line number, error, and optionally a copy of all the current variables in a dump file someplace. Maybe that should be a feature request too. I know I can 'handle' errors but that would mean I would need to modify each and every command and write some error output subroutine.

I am fairly certain that the error info you want is given only the Catch Error system ... as you already mentioned. I can see no direct way of trapping that info other than by your suggestion of using the Handle choice ... but geez that would be a lot of coding, again, as you already mentioned.

How do I log errors without also logging the start and stop of the macro?

Although I have not looked at this in depth, I did do some experimenting and I can find no way to prevent the Start/Stop entries when using the Miscellaneous tab. It seems that all logging except the Log Error command place both a Start and a Stop entry into a log.

I created a simple macro and used the Log Errors command and manually set the file name and it worked, sort of. But when I set a variable to that file name and put that variable in the file name field it does not. Can anyone else verify what appears to be a bug or explain to me what I am not understanding about this command and its usage?

 

Oh, also it seems that the Log Errors command and the option in the Miscellaneous tab are intended to do the same thing and you may have already seen my post about it logging starts and stops but for this command the help file states it will log the start and stop but I am only seeing it log the stop f the macro. Can anyone else confirm this?

Using your example I can confirm that using a variable for the log destination in the Log Errors command does not work. I can also confirm that the Log Errors command is only logging the error that occurred and a "Macro Completed" entry. It does not log "Macro Started" probably because the command can be placed anywhere in a macro and not just at the beginning.

This forum has a stupid limitation that one can't search for strings less than 4 characters.

C'mon ... tell us how you really feel!

I found where they are in the reg but as you pointed out one would need to make the changes outside of MEP as it will read from in the beginning and write back at the end. But one simple measure I could take is to have a macro check at startup that the one and only file I want is there and send me an email when there' a problem. Once set up ideally the file should never change. But I still have a feature request in with ISS to give us some tools, command line or whatever, to allow us to manage user files in distributed environments.

 

You don't suppose I could change the reg with a macro then use the reload preferences thing, do you? Hmmm... Might have to do a little test.

Actually I got the key wrong, it is this key instead: HKCU\Software\Insight Software Solutions\Macro Express 4\Files (Files instead of MRU).

Maybe this would work? ... Create a playable macro and run it from a batch. Remember to leave whichever library (at least one) you want loaded in the key or else the sample macros will be loaded when your users fire up MX Pro.

F13 - F24, Attn, CrSel, ExSel, Erase EOF, Play, Zoom, PA1 are from the IBM 3270 Terminal.

I hate to bug our IT guys here at work (they're not actually on site unless they are setting up a new work-station).

Can't help specifically, but if the IT guys are "bugged" by your problem (i.e. can't be bothered) then they would do well to find other employment. Isn't it their job to solve computer related problems? Truly. ... I'm just saying.

The last 10 open MEX file names are stored in the Registry at HKCU\Software\Insight Software Solutions\Macro Express 4\MRU.

Find a way to automatically delete the keys "file 0" through "file 9" prior to launching MX Pro. They will be recreated automatically as needed.

I am planning my roll out and conversion from ME3 for my main client and I was wondering if anyone had any thoughts or advice.

Hard to give advice on this because every system and installation are unique. I would setup a VMware session and take a snapshot prior to doing anything so you can rollback what you just rolled out. Then convert all the macros. Locking the player is, I think, the default action taken by the conversion. Test each macro, or group of macros. Make sure the MXPro system is working identically to the MX3 system prior to making any other moves. Once you are satisfied that it is all working, test it again ... because you missed something. I can guarantee it. And have a user test it also. Have as many users test in a controlled VMware session as is possible.

Now you can move on to your next set of challenges ... run time only installations, preferences files, unattended installs and many other issues

Still, it does work nicely and quickly. I can now present myself with a menu of, say, 8 choices, 1-8, and respond as soon as any number from 1-8 is entered ...

Very nice OzMan ... you are an innovator, to be sure.

Hopefully there will be a break soon and I can get to some of these nagging forum issues. One of them I can answer now: I was told that the 3-character limit on search strings is sort of fixed ... whatever that means.

External scripts can pass in parameters. "Macro Run" does not, as far as I know.

 

After about 10 hours of testing to figure out how the variable scope chain works, I think I figured out a way to create an in-memory truly global variable scope (no registry, env vars, files, etc). That's the good news.

Floyd, I and the rest of the community are interested in knowing your solution. Please advise.

There is only a license after the 30-day trial has expired. There is only a 30-day trial period for XP. A Vista installation cannot have a trial period due to the way it handles security issues, therefore, a purchase is required with a 30-day money back guarantee.

The trial period for XP contains no source code, but the purchase options (with a 30-day money back guarantee) contains all the source code. Here is how it is spelled out in the website:

Windows XP users

Try the PGM Functions Library free for 30 days*. Use beyond 30 days requires that you purchase a license.

 

Vista users

A trial version of the PGM Functions Library is not available for Windows Vista users. Use requires that you purchase a license.

I prefer INI files for this type of work.

You could place a VBScript or Javascript code section within the HTA/HTML document to read/write INI files and it would work. But it would be easier to use the Macro Express INI handler commands to do the job. The return string from the HTA/HTML document would need to contain a tab separated list of the values from each field which you would use to update sections in the INI file.

If you want to use the values from the INI file for a subsequent call to your HTA/HTML document, simple read the values into variables that are embedded into your script. Remember that Macro Express substitutes the %variables% with actual values prior to writing-out the script.

I have already asked Joe about this and he was going to look into it when he had time.

Have not done so yet, er, just in case you didn't notice what I didn't do.

Popup and floating menus could not be exported in MX 3 either. This is not new.

It seems neither Kevin nor Stan were aware of the issue when I reported it above, so makes me wonder about the bug-management documentation.

As far as I can tell, there is nothing wrong with the ISS bug-management docs. ISS has always been able to answer questions about any particular bug I have reported. Sometimes I like the answer and sometimes not. But I have always been able to get an answer.

How about using the Options->Customize Favorites menu choice to add it to your Favorites list?