kistonewa

Thanks for the prompt response Cory. You are correct I am UTC -8. I can get the data from the text file into variables & manipulate as integer or string variables without problems. My problem is that I do not know how to convert the string variables into into dtVariables including hours & minutes. The example sited above does the dates but not hours & minutes. ken

Have not used MEP for some time. Need to find documentation on working with time/date variables & calculation with Run Macro in Variable. I have downloaded Macro Express User Macro - Date String to DateTime Variable (macros.com) But can't modify if for want I want to do. Googled & did not find much discussing how to use these. What I need to do is to use text file process to capture dates & times. This is not a problem. The lines to capture are of a general format like: Saturday, November 21, 2020 1:10 AM. The problem is that these are stamped based on GMT and I am GMT + 8. I am wanting to correct the times to my time & adjust the date when necessary. If I can learn how to do it, MEP will do it correctly. Can anyone point me in the right direction? I could find almost no examples using for doing similar things. Also very little on hours/minutes as opposed to dates. I noticed that if I copy the above macro directly into a blank macro, I have to redeclare the text variables when I run it, but I could not get dtResult declared correctly. Any help would be appreciated., thanks ken

My mom is significantly limited in her vision. She uses her computer a modest amount, and I would like to help her remotely when she has problems. I have tried unsuccessfully to use ME3 & Pro to generate the request to be sent to me. I can't get ME3 to do anything with the Windows Remote Assistance window when it pops up. I would like to be able to automatically generate the request for assistance and email it me with the authorization code in the email. I use ME3 somewhat regularly and have Pro but don't really use it. I will happily purchase a copy of whichever can do this for her computer if it can do it. ? suggestions?

I haven't written many macros recently, but I have a lot of older macros. At one time I wrote a macro which was activated by Ctrl+N. I need to inactivate this macro now because it prevents an important hotkey activation built into a commercial program I am using, but I can not find it in the Macro Explorer listing. When sorted my activations jump from Ctrl+LMouse to Ctrl+Page Down. If I open notepad to full screen and press Ctrl+N, the ME icon shows it is playing for a couple seconds then disappears; therefore the macro exists,but I can't find it. Any suggestions. Thanks, ken

Thank you for all of the suggestions. Resetting mouse hooks seems to have done it. ken

I have several macros which pause until a right click is detected. They have worked well for several months. Today they won't work. I wrote a macro that only pauses 400ms then waits for a right click then pops up a dialog box. I never make it to the dialog box. If I put a time limit on the wait, it times out every time. I tried this is several programs, including notepad, without making a difference. The ME version is 3.5.4.1. Running WinXP version 5.1 (Build 2600.xpsp_sp2_gdr.080814-1233 : Service Pack 2) . This is a computer in the Emergency Department. I am a physician, and I do not have access to update any program. I don't know if there is a new Windows patch that changes things or what. What step should I take next in troubleshooting this?

There is a program called Vocola which is designed to add macros to the Preferred or the professional version of DNS. I have experimented in a very limited extent with it. I was able to get it to run my shortkey macros; however, I was writing a very short Vocola macro for each activation. For example one macro I would say "plink 18" and it would pass on the shortkey text to activate a shortkey macro which charted the full documentation for starting an 18 gauge IV. Vocola can use some recursive functions which incorporate part of the spoken phrase; therefore, I think it may be possible to define a macro in Vocola which starts with a phrase such as "macro x" in which you would say "macro .k11" and it would run its macro function passing on .k11 as the macro text. This would activate the macro shortkey. I would recommend posting this question in www.speechcomputing.com. There are a number of Vocola users that frequent that user group. They would be able to tell you if it is possible and point you to the most active Vocola sites. In experimenting using ME with DNS I have found that one has to use advanced scripting SendDragonKeys function to pass text to MacroExpress. SendSystemKeys may also work. Advanced scripting is only available in the Professional, medical, and legal versions which are expensive.

I purchased Macro Express Explained a couple years ago. It is an excellent reference for me since I am not a programmer. There is thorough coverage of all major topics, and I picked up many ideas on how to write macros that I would not have attempted otherwise. ken

I recently switched from prefix activation to suffix activation for my shortkeys to allow more shortkeys that are similar, ie ;fxra for "fracture right ankle" and ;fxrar for "fracture right arm". I currently start all shortkeys with ";" so I don't have to worry about normal text entry activating them. After switching I noticed that the firing of some shortkeys was inconsistent. I mentioned this to one of my partners that I had introduced to shortkeys. He has always used the suffix setting, and he told me that suffix shortkeys had to be preceeded by a space to work reliably. I notice that when using prefix activation, there is a solitary/ non solitary setting to handle this. Is there a similar option or work around when using the suffix option? If this is not an option, could it be added in the future? Most of my shortkey use is in a template program for emergency medicine, Tsystems, and it handles text in boxes in ways that may not be standard. I know that Dragon NaturallySpeaking can't edit in its text boxes by voice once the mouse has been moved. However, since adding a leading space before the shortkey is typed resolves the problem, I thought there might be a workaround.

Thank you for the suggestion. Unfortunately, anything that brings another window to the foreground, will close certain top windows in TSystems. While I can save the exact window name, Tsystems closes the window whenever I switch to any program or window. Tsystems is still running, but its topmost window now is the window from which I opened the window that I want to operate the macro on. However, there are of subset of times were your suggestion will help. Some windows which will not accept text do stay open. On these windows I can modify the initiating macro to open a tempory program or text file as you suggest to accept the name of the macro I want to activate with the longer descriptive name. This has the disadvantage that I will end up with several different macros which will be needed to intiate the chain depending on circumstances instead of one macro which can handle all instances. There is no way for ME to determine which TSystem windows would stay open and which would close. This will decrease the number of instances which have no work around. Thank you once again.

Cory, Thank you for the suggestion. Unfortunately that will not work. The window that closes was opened by clicking on one of many text completion lines on a page. I would have to have a way of recording all mouse clicks and tracking backwards to the one which opened the window initially. ken

Hi, I am using ME to automate some portions of completing an Emergency Medicine Template program called TSystems to document patient visits. I want to be able to activate a large number of macros which click check boxes, etc. or enter boiler plate text. Keeping track of the macro names is somewhat of a challenge as I develop more of them. ME's limit of 11 characters for shortkeys activation limits descriptive naming possibilites. Because of the characteristics of the TSystems program, I can not use ME popup menus in some areas of TSystems. When ME menus or dialog boxes open, the top window in TSystems closes, and that means I can not check boxes or enter text in that window from ME. My current work around is to run a macro (which is listed below) which waits for the letter z to be entered then deletes the Z and uses the Windows Cut function to move the last 21 characters to the clipboard. This allows up to 21 character names of macros to be input into a variable. I then use this to run the actual macro which modifies the TSystem template. I am using a Tablet PC, and I actually use a program called FITALY (soft keyboard) to enter text without a physical keyboard. It has a slide function which allows me to slide the stylus to the name of the macro I want to run. This is much faster than having to actually to type the name of the macro, and a 40 character name is as fast as a two character name to enter. The problem that I have is that sometimes I want to activate a macro when the cursor is not in a location which accepts text input; therefore, there is no text to highlight and cut to the clipboard. Is there a function in ME which can look at the keyboard buffer and capture the most recent input, or is there a user input function similar to "Set Text String Variables: Prompt for Value" which does not open a dialog box? Delay 150 Milliseconds // The name of the macro to run (with enough leading spaces to equal 21 characters // entered followed by the letter z Wait for Key Press: Z // capture the last 21 characters of text (after deleting the z) to the clipboard Text Type: <BACKSPACE><SHIFTD><ARROW LEFT><ARROW LEFT><ARROW... Delay 150 Milliseconds Variable Set String %T1% from Clipboard Delay 150 Milliseconds Macro Run: %T1% Thank you ken

I think one way to do this, while very inelegant, is to write macros which disable the popup menus. If there are a limited number of programs which you will be using, you can write a macro for each program which is activated whenever the title of that program is on top. This macro will issue a macro disable command for each popup menu macro which is associated with other programs. It then issues a macro run command for the popup menu that is associated with the active window. I have only tried this with WordPad and NotePad. As an example a Macro set to activate whenever wordpad is on top: "wpad menu activate" would be: Macro Disable: npad menu (the name of the popup menu for notepad) Delay 50 Milliseconds Macro Run: wpad menu (this is name of the popup menu for wordpad) One would need to create a keyboard macro which disables all of the popup menu macros so one could close the last popup menu when one went into a program for which one has not setup a macro like the one above. I haven't tried it, but one possible improvement would be to call the macro which disables all of the popup menu macros in the first step (where I have Macro Disable: npad menu in the example) before the Macro Run command to activate the desired popup menu. This would have the advantage that one has to edit only that one macro if new popup menu macros are created later.

I have used ME for several years now, and I find it indispensable; however, I am migrating to TabletPc (Toshiba Portege M400) for much of my work in the ED. In tablet mode I do not have access to the keyboard, and this has greatly hampered my use of ME. I have found that a program called FITALY ( www.fitaly.com in the forums section) allows much better text entry than the TabletPC's handwriting recognition or Microsofts default QWERTY keyboard emulation, but there are a number of times where being able to make a gesture to start a macro (or to activate the FITALY keyboard) would be greatly appreciated, and FITALY at the present doesn't easily emulate the <ALT> key and some other keyboard input. I have found a macro program called AutoHotkey which accepts gestures to activate macros, but I think it is generally inferior to ME, and it does not appear to support some functions I rely on in ME. Looking through this forum and the ME documentation, I did not find any capability to use gestures to activate macros. Have I missed something? Is anyone else using other programs which recognize gestures to active ME macros? I would prefer a fairly stripped down program to do this instead of a full program which includes handwriting recognition and the kitchen sink . Thanks, ken