terrypin Posted November 25, 2011 Report Share Posted November 25, 2011 I'd appreciate thoughts from fresh minds on this issue that's been vexing me for several days. Some of the macros I've written recently are taking 5-30 seconds to actually start, after using their activation hotkey. I've changed the particular keys, and also tried shortkeys, but the problem remains. Other apps seem OK. And this app too used to be OK. So something has changed and I'm having no joy in isolating it. The macros are also taking 2-5 seconds to stop (i.e. for Forrest to disappear) and they are runnning slowly too. I'm wondering what sort of factors can make an app 'ME Pro hostile' like this? FWIW, the app is a complex one: my video editor, Magix Movie Edit Pro. BTW, it's not every macro that's affected. I just wrote a 1 liner to pop up a TBD and that ran immediately three times in succession. -- Terry, East Grinstead, UK Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
acantor Posted November 25, 2011 Report Share Posted November 25, 2011 Hi Terry, I have begun to experience something similar recently. One of my computers has an Intel Core 2 duo CPU, 3 GB RAM and runs Windows XP. I am wondering what would happen if I had a faster machine, but there is no way for me to know right now... Most of my Macro Express scripts for this machine are fine, except for those that run in Internet Explorer. Many scripts take five or more seconds from the time I activate them until they begin to do their thing. Furthermore, many commands that I have always placed one after another require timed delays between them. For example, I have been forced to add delays after "Wait For Window Title" commands. I have never needed to do this before. The problematic scripts are for a web-based application that runs exclusively in IE. My guess for the reason is that the HTML and/or JavaScript that underlie the application are getting in the way of Macro Express Pro. I have managed to get the scripts to work reliably, and have even found ways to speed things up; but to do so, I have had to sacrifice portability. Normally, I resist developing scripts that rely on mouse positioning. With this application, however, there is a significant speed penalty when I use my normal techniques instead of moving and clicking the mouse pointer. When I upgrade the computer I will likely need to rewrite everything. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
terrypin Posted November 25, 2011 Author Report Share Posted November 25, 2011 Thanks Alan. (I sometimes wonder whether the productivity gain we get from macros is more than offset by the time we spend trying to troubleshoot them!) One factor that I suspect may be relevant to my case is the size of the macro file. I have many hundred of macros in one large file, appropriately called FULL.Mex. I've always used this approach, for convenient access to all my macros. But it's grown and grown and my pruning sessions have usually been half-hearted. So perhaps the time has come to break the file down into smaller parts. What sort of MEX file sizes (number of macros contained) do others have open in MEPro Explorer? The reason I raise this now is that shortly after my post I experimented with exporting just 3 of my macros (some of those glacial ones I described) to Extract.MEX and then loaded only that file. The macros then ran properly. Another factor that may or may not be relevant is that MovieEdit Pro has a hundred or so hotkeys of its own. I wonder if that affects the activation process? Yet that doesn't square with the 'small file' experiment above. That should still have been affected in the same way, I'd have thought. -- Terry, UK Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
acantor Posted November 25, 2011 Report Share Posted November 25, 2011 The size of the macro file may affect performance? I just deleted 600 macros from my .mex file, emptied the recycle bin, and used "Pack" from the "Tools" menu. I will report back on changes in performance, if any. Size before: 2846 kb Size after: 895 kb Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
terrypin Posted November 26, 2011 Author Report Share Posted November 26, 2011 I did a similar pruning exercise and got down from about 1300 macros in a 5 MB file to 850 in 2 MB. I expect I'll get improvements in some operations, (although I also expect to find that some of my macros won't run because of missing submacros). But it's made no difference to the slow activation issue described. Edit: After further extensive testing I reckon this issue is due to some conflict with the application. It only happens if a certain type of operation has been performed before the next activation is applied. Specifically, the first time I activate the macro it runs immediately. If I then do nothing and activate again, that too runs immediately. But if I then select a different object in MovieEdit Pro (a video clip, a still image, etc), and activate the macro again, then there is a 5-10 second delay. This happens with any macro, such as a 1 line TBD. So far I've found no other operations within the application that have this delaying effect, only selection of a clip. -- Terry, East Grinstead, UK Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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