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Macro Express News
June 25, 2007 You have received this message because you are subscribed to the Macro Express News email list. To unsubscribe from this email list go to www.macros.com/esubs.htm, click on the unsubscribe link and follow the instructions. Contents 1 - Macro Express v 3.7a 2 - Macro Express and Windows Vista 3 - Macro Express and Internet Explorer 7 4 - New feature: Enhanced Mouse Cursor Commands 5 - New feature: Set Command Line Parameters in Preferences 6 - Tip: Determine what computer is running a macro 7 - User submitted macro: Improved define word macro 8 - From the discussion forums: Multiple Choice Menu tip 9 - Past issues of the Macro Express News 1 - Macro Express v 3.7a Macro Express 3 version 3.7a has been released and is now available for download from www.macros.com/download.htm. All licensed Macro Express 3 users can download and install this update without cost. What happened to Macro Express v 3.7? After we released Macro Express v 3.7 and before we sent the Macro Express News newsletter announcing it, we received reports about several bugs. We decided to defer the update announcement until we were able to fix them. We recommend that anyone using Macro Express v 3.7 upgrade to Macro Express v 3.7a. This update contains several new features and a number of bug fixes. But the biggest change is to allow Macro Express to work better with Windows Vista. Other changes include:
http://www.macros.com/rev3_7.htm and http://www.macros.com/rev3_7a.htm 2 - Macro Express and Windows Vista Macro Express v 3.7a contains many changes to work better with Windows Vista. The list of changes for Vista is too lengthy to include in this newsletter. If you are using or plan on using Macro Express on Windows Vista you should read the knowledgebase article 'What changes were made to Macro Express for Windows Vista' at http://www.macros.com/faq//2.24.html. Macro Express v 3.7a contains a number of changes to work better with Windows Vista. If you are using Vista and installed an earlier version of Macro Express, we recommend that you uninstall the previous version before installing Macro Express v 3.7a. You will need to reenter the Macro Express 3 license information. 3 - Macro Express, Internet Explorer 7 and Windows Vista In the January 31, 2007 edition of the Macro Express News http://www.macros.com/newsletters/MENewsJan2007.htm there is an article describing how to get Macro Express to work with Internet Explorer 7 on Windows Vista. The solution was to disable Protected Mode on IE7. After working with Microsoft for guidance on this specific issue, we were able to make a change to Macro Express. It is no longer necessary to disable Protected Mode in order to allow macros to work in Internet Explorer 7 on Vista. 4 - New feature: Enhanced Mouse Cursor Commands One of the great features in Macro Express is the ability to wait for a specific mouse cursor to appear or disappear. For example, you might have your macro wait for the hourglass mouse cursor using the 'Wait for Mouse Cursor: Hour Glass' command or you could include an 'If Mouse Cursor is Internet Navigate' command. These commands contain a list of mouse cursors that they can watch. This works fantastic unless the program you are automating defines its own mouse cursor(s). Windows allows any program to define a custom mouse cursor for specific actions. And, in the case of your Internet browser, an item on a web page may also define a unique mouse cursor. Unfortunately, Windows does not provide a way for Macro Express to identify these unique mouse cursors. A customer discovered this when working on an application that accessed pages on their website. They could see the mouse cursor change when they moved the mouse pointer over a part of the web page but Macro Express did not detect that the mouse had changed to the 'Internet Navigate' mouse cursor. We determined that the component on the web page was using a unique mouse cursor. This prompted a change in the 'Wait for Mouse Cursor' and 'If Mouse Cursor' commands. While these commands still cannot wait for a unique mouse cursor, they can now wait for the mouse cursor to change. Using this new feature, the customer was able structure their macro to wait for the mouse cursor to change from a standard cursor. 5 - New feature: Set Command Line Parameters in Preferences Many organizations such as call centers, libraries and corporations use Macro Express in an environment where they do not want the end users to make changes to either their macros or the Macro Express settings. These organizations may have one or more employees write the macros and determine the preferences to be used by other employees. Macro Express has always had command line options that allow you to select the macro file and to specify the preferences to use when Macro Express starts. But, there is an obstacle. The shortcut that is created when you enable 'Run on Windows Startup' does not contain these special command line options. Until now. Beginning with Macro Express v 3.7, you can specify the command line options you want and Macro Express will put them into the shortcut used to start Macro Express when Windows starts up. Special conditions apply if you are using Macro Express on Windows Vista. Be sure to read the knowledgebase article about running Macro Express on Windows Vista at http://www.macros.com/faq//2.24.html. 6 - Tip: Determine what computer is running a macro Joe Weinpert, of Professional Grade Macros, was puzzled about a problem he was troubleshooting for a client. A scheduled macro was running when it shouldn't. The macro was set to run when Macro Express was started and used the 'Set Variable to Name of Machine' command to run only on a specific server. It turned out that the macro was also running whenever someone used Remote Desktop Connection to the server. The solution was to use the 'Terminal Services Session ID' command in addition to the 'Set Variable to Name of Machine' command. The 'Terminal Services Session ID' command returns the session ID. It turns out that this value is always 0 when the macro is running directly on the server and non-zero when using a Remote Desktop Connection. Another way to determine what computer is actually running a macro would be to use the 'Get IP Address' command. Note that a computer may have more than one IP address and that a computer's IP address may change from time to time. 7 - User submitted macro: Improved define word macro Michael Stevens sent us another revision to the ever popular Define Word macro. This macro uses your Internet connection to look up the definition of any highlighted word at a number of online dictionaries. The improvements include the ability to work with either Firefox or Internet Explorer and to use the multiple tabs in your browser. Michael says further, "The original was too slow because it was waiting for the web page to load before pasting the word into the form. There is no need to do this - you can just append the word onto the end of the URL and then open the web browser with the completed URL as a parameter". Get more information and download this macro by visiting http://www.macros.com/usermacs/umdefinewordrev4.htm. Michael wins a cool Macro Express T-Shirt for his submission. 8 - From the discussion forums: Multiple Choice Menu tip The Macro Express 3 Public Discussion Forum is a place where Macro Express users can ask questions of others, share advice, tips and techniques, and to openly and freely exchange information, ideas, and solutions. Visit http://www.pgmacros.com/community to access the Macro Express discussion forum. Free registration is required to post questions and reply to other posts. The forums contain dozens of tips and suggestions. One recent tip was posted by Cory Jackson to have a macro populate the choices contained in a Multiple Choice Menu. Put the list of choices in a text variable like %T1% and put %T1% on the first line of choices. Read the entire topic by visiting: http://pgmacros.com/community/index.php?showtopic=1796&st=0&#entry7128 We thank all those who contribute to the Macro Express 3 Public Discussion Forum by posting questions, comments, and suggestions. And we thank Professional Grade Macros, again, for hosting it. 9 - Past issues of the Macro Express News Are you a new subscriber to the Macro Express News email newsletter? Did you miss an issue? Past newsletters are available online at www.macros.com/newsletters/MENews.htm. Comments and Suggestions We welcome customer feedback. Let us know what you like and dislike about Macro Express. Send questions, comments and suggestions: Insight Software Solutions Home Page: www.wintools.com Macro Express Home Page: www.macros.com Email: info@wintools.com Mail: Insight Software Solutions, Inc. PO Box 106 Kaysville, Utah 84037-0106 Thank you, The Macro Express Development Team |  |
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