macex.mex settings edited with text editor?

[TsunamiZ]

Can the macex.mex file be properly edited with a text editor?

[kevin]

Can the macex.mex file be properly edited with a text editor?

No.

 

A playable macro (a file that ends in .mxe) can be edited with a text editor as long as you follow the correct syntax but there isn't a document that describes the syntax. Instead, you have to observe it by comparing a macro written in the Script Editor in the Direct Editor.

[Yehnfikm8Gq]

I was a bit puzzled by the filename. I search my PC and found none. I also thought it referred to .mxe. I googled "macex.mex" and found it did apparently exist:

 

Macro Express Features

When first installing the program, two macro files, samples.mex and macex.mex, are installed. The samples.mex file contains a number of sample macros that ...

www.macroexpress.com/features.htm

 

So what's the story?

[kevin]

A file containing a collection of macros has a file extension of .mex.

 

A playable macro can be created that contains a single macro. When you click on a playable macro, that macro runs. A playable macro has the file extension .mxe. (A playable macro requires the Macro Express Player.)

[Yehnfikm8Gq]

Here is the entire paragraph from the ISS website:

 

Macro Files

Macro Express allows you to create multiple files of macros. When first installing the program, two macro files, samples.mex and macex.mex, are installed. The samples.mex file contains a number of sample macros that may be used for reference. The other file, macex.mex, is the default file that may be used for creating macros. Or create a new file for this purpose.

 

The thread refers to a specific file, not the .mex or .mxe file types.

 

 

Edit: I found reference to the file in the Help, Program Overview:

"The macex.mex file is an empty file that can be used to store the macros as they are created. This file is installed in the My Documents folder."

 

I can't find any other info but I'm guessing that if you want every new macro file to contain some specific macros, you add them to macex.mex which is called every time you do File/New file. Anybody?

Edited December 15, 2009 by JohnS

[kevin]

A macro file always contains the file extension .mex but can have any name including the default name of 'macex.mex'.

 

The original poster's question was asking if they can edit macex.mex using a text editor. The answer is No. You cannot edit any .mex file with a text editor.

 

You can, however, edit a .mxe file with a text editor. A .mxe indicates the file is a playable macro.

[Yehnfikm8Gq]

I don't know what TsunamiZ intended to do. I looked at editing .mex files when I upgraded to MEPro. I use a lot of small text files for memory when running macros. I kept them in the Macro Express 3 root folder. When I installed MEPro I now had hundreds of macros referring to the old file path. I did not want manually change them as I had no idea which macros were affected.

 

I took a look at the .mex files with the idea of changing paths in bulk. They have a lot of plain text; file paths and comments in particular. However, much of it is truncated so apart from any other considerations, it could not be done. I ended up writing a macro to automatically go through a macro file and change the affected file paths to Macro Express Pro, using Macro Explorer and Script Editor. Slow but no effort required!

[TsunamiZ]

i also intended to update a lot of file paths