Staying Out Of Trouble With Me

[Rich]

Hi group,

I am a new ME user running XP Professional SE. I have already found lots of uses for this wonderful tool & I have already made lots of mistakes like testing a macro that requires a test window without a test window open, trying to append a file already open in another application, simple, stupid mistakes that I bet other newbees have made too.

 

Question: What mistakes, operations, commands if any should I avoid to prevent potential long term problems, or is ME and XP good enough at error traping that there is limited risk?

 

Thanks in advance.

[joe]

Welcome!

Question: What mistakes, operations, commands if any should I avoid to prevent potential long term problems, or is ME and XP good enough at error traping that there is limited risk?

Well, there is no good answer to this. Macro Express, like any other programming language, can do harm if not careful. If, for example, you create a macro to delete all files in a particular folder then that is what will happen ... no matter which language you use.

[Rich]

I appreciate that Joe, and I will be careful. I have been experimenting with a macro that waits for a control, then executes a few simple commands. The performance of the macro was erratic. That's what lead to my previous post because I was concerned I had corrupted something. I was saving my changes to the macro but leaving the scripting editor open. It turns out that if I close the editor completely the macro performs as desired. Is that normal ME functionality, or is there a problem?

[joe]

Floyd and I both have experienced different, and sometimes strange, things when running from the Scripting or Direct Editor windows, which of course is required when debugging. We don't put too much stock into the inconsistencies as long as the macro runs perfect when run normally.

 

One thing to check is the name of the macro you are testing from the Scripting Editor. Could the macro confuse it with your target window title as it is running? In other words, if I were running a macro that controlled the "Calculator" window, and my macro was also named "Calculator", and I was running it from the Scripting Editor, the macro could get confused as to which "calculator" window is to be accessed.