Marcus' Macro Scheduler Blog

Today I was asked if Macro Scheduler can trigger an action if the number of connected monitors changes. Yes, all we need is a way to determine how many monitors are connected to the system. VBScript is one way to do that. So then all we need is a loop that constantly checks this value. So we end up with something like this:

Did you know there was a Macro Scheduler SDK? It allows you to run Macro Scheduler code from right within your own apps. You can run and interact with MacroScript code within VB, C++, C#, Delphi, VBScript … or any other programming language which lets you use a COM object or Win native DLL.

It even works in Python. Here’s a small example which uses the screen image recognition functionality to find and click on the Windows Start button:

Another slightly more complex example which opens Notepad and types into it. It also demonstrates how you can call chunks of code at a time instead of all at once and set and get the value of script variables during execution. It also gets the result of the script set via MACRO_RESULT:

More information about the MacroScript SDK can be found here.

A number of customers have used the SDK to build macro-ing capabilities into their own products and/or create tighter integrations between their own software and automation routines using MacroScript.

If you’re interested in trialling a copy or getting pricing info drop us a line.

Today we had two different support requests asking how to have a Macro Scheduler macro determine which page IE is on.

One person was asking about using Image Recognition for that. You could also use the IE functions to examine the HTML or look for the existence of a specific HTML element.

You could do one of those, sure, but I think that’s over complicating things.

My motto is “keep things simple”.

IE’s Window Title adopts the page title of the web page it is displaying. IE also shows the URL in the address bar. So why not just look at one of those. Like this:

//Two simple methods to see which page IE is at.

//Method One - Just look at the window title
IfWindowOpen>Bing - Internet Explorer
  //Bing is open - do this
Else
  IfWindowOpen>Google - Internet Explorer
     //Google is open - do that 
  Endif
Endif

//Method Two - Look at the Actual URL in the URL bar - I used the Wizard to get this code and then altered the window title to make it a substring match
UIGetValue>- Internet Explorer*,{"Address"},curVals,Positions,nHeight
Position>google.co.uk,curVals,1,pGoogle
If>pGoogle>0
  //must be at google
Else
  //must be somewhere else
  Position>bing.com,curVals,1,pBing
  If>pBing>0
    //must be at bing
  Endif
Endif

You might find that when you run a compiled macro and you also have Macro Scheduler running, Shift-Esc – the default stop key sequence – doesn’t stop the compiled macro.

This is because the stop key sequence is a system wide hot key. And system wide hot keys can only be registered for use by one application at a time. So if Macro Scheduler is already running when you start your .exe the .exe is unable to register Shift-Esc because Macro Scheduler already has it.

Of course when you deploy your .exe to people who don’t already have Macro Scheduler – which is usually the case – there won’t be any problem because Macro Scheduler won’t be running and so your .exe is able to register the Shift-Esc hot key.

But what if you want to define your own stop hot key, or you want to give your users the option of setting it? Well what you need is a KEY_DOWN event handler:

//CTRL-Z is stop key
OnEvent>KEY_DOWN,VK90,2,doExit
Let>paused=FALSE

//sample code here ...
Wait>20
MessageModal>hello

SRT>doExit
   Exit>0
END>doExit

Here we have set up a key down event handler for CTRL+Z. VK90 is Z and 2 is the modifier key for CTRL. See the OnEvent help topic and Virtual Key Codes List.

The event handler basically sets up a concurrent thread that is running all the while the main script is running. This allows it to respond to events such as this KEY_DOWN event. So when you hit the specified key sequence – in this case CTRL+Z, the doExit subroutine runs and all that does is call the Exit function which terminates the script.

You could be smarter and ask the user if he really means he wants to exit:

SRT>doExit
   Ask>Are you sure you want to exit?,ynExit
   If>ynExit=YES
      Exit>0
   Endif
END>doExit

When you compile the macro there is an option to disable the standard Shift-Esc sequence. So you could do that to completely replace the stop key system with your own custom one using your OnEvent.

Consider an INI file and possibly another config script using a custom dialog to allow the user to set his own stop key sequence. Other apps could already be using it. My CTRL+Z example is probably not ideal as although it is used in Linux to suspend the current process it is usually the short cut for Undo in Windows.

If you’re seeing odd results when trying to send keys to Citrix Receiver windows try going into legacy mode:

Let>SK_LEGACY=1
Send>some text

This has come up a few times lately so I thought I’d post it here.

One or two people have been asking about writing a Macro Scheduler script that performs a Google search and pulls back the resulting URLs. They have discovered that trying to automate Google can be awkward because of the dynamic nature of the page. As soon as you type in the search box the page changes because it is updating in real time.

Some people suggested using HTTPRequest to get the page content directly and then parse it with RegEx. This can be done but is also tricky because you’re getting back all the dynamic code and other stuff like adwords ads etc and it is hard to find the right patterns.

There’s an easier way. Use their API URL instead. E.g.:

http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/services/search/web?v=1.0&q=Apple%20Pie&rsz=large&start=1

This performs a search for “Apple Pie”. Try it in your browser and you’ll see the content is less cluttered and it is easy to parse. It returns 8 results. For the next 8 you would change the start parameter to 9, and so on.

So here’s a simple example script which takes a search term, specifies how many results to get, extracts the URLs and writes them to a text file: