Drop Down Lists

[renee]

I have a Macro that goes to a drop down list. The item I want is Pharmacy Controlled. I have the macro written to type P (hits Pharmacy Non-Controlled) and then arrow down. I did have it hit P, P but it would go back to Pharmacy Non-Controlled more often then not).

 

Well suddenly it's going to X-ray. So I rewrote the macro to go home first at the very top of the drop down list. then type in P, then arrow down.

 

Is there a easier way for me to get the macro to hit the correct drop down item more consistently?

 

My dr. that uses this all the time, has it happen to her often. I finally got it to do it to me (selecting X-Ray rather than Pharmacy Controlled), and it was like the cursor for the dropdown was in the middle of the drop down lists when it got to that point in the macro, thus the reason for me adding "Go home" in the macro. I have a 2 second delay between all the commands.

 

Any help is more than appreciated! - Renee

[jason]

Without seeing your macro, I'm guessing at exactly what you are doing, but if you are using a Text Type command to enter the P, you should change it to a lower case p. Using the uppercase P simualtes the keypress of <Shift>P.

[another1one]

I'm assuming that there are no built-in shortcut keys, or any way to select the menu item other than arrowing to it or clicking on it? (User-friendly interfaces seem so rare...)

 

You could always try using the mouse, using the mouse locator to find the position of the item on the menu relative to the window, then giving it those coordinates in a Mouse Move and then Mouse Click command.

[kevin]

Rene,

 

In the macros that I use to select from a drop down list I make sure to go to the top before I make the selection.

 

In one field the topmost item begins with '<' as in '<not selected>'. This is easy to handle. I just do a Text Type '<' and then Text Type 'P'. This works if the list is in alphabetical order and the first letter of the topmost item is unique (substituting P with the actual first letter of the item I want to select).

 

However, if the first item in your list is something like 'Alfalfa' and the next item is 'Apple' then you will have to do something different. To overcome this do a Text Type 'A' followed by one Text Type <Arrow Up> for each item with the same first letter as the topmost item. For example, suppose the first item on your drop down list starts with the letter A and there are 5 items that start with A then your macro would look something like this:

Text Type: A
Delay 0.1 Seconds
Text Type: <ARROW UP><ARROW UP><ARROW UP><ARROW UP><ARROW UP>
Delay 0.1 Seconds
Text Type: P

If your drop down list is not alphabetized then you would need to find another way to make sure the topmost item is selected.

[renee]

I finally got it work, I think ... after I click on the drop down list, I then hit ctrl + home and then start from there. Thanks for all the good suggestions - Renee