December 9, 2008

Direct Access 2.0 – Text Shortcuts

Filed under: Announcements, General — Marcus Tettmar @ 9:07 pm

Direct Access - Text Replacement MacrosVersion 2.0 of Direct Access, a great text replacement, text shortcut tool, was released by our friends at Nagarsoft today.

Direct Access lets you assign actions and autoreplacements to text abbreviations. I use it to launch frequently used applications. E.g. I’ve assigned the text “ftp” to Filezila, my FTP client. So now, wherever I am in Windows, whatever application I’m in I can just type “ftp” and hit F12 and Filezilla is launched.

You can also use it for text replacements and text insertions. E.g. type “sig” when you need to insert your signature into an email or usenet or forum post. And of course you can also have Direct Access run Macro Scheduler macros. So you can make text shortcuts that run Macro Scheduler macros whatever application you are working in.

Version 2.0 has a redesigned interface to enhance ease of use; support for inserting rich text; network support for sharing action groups between PCs; confirming commands with delimiter keys such as SPACE and ENTER; and more.

Because Direct Access compliments Macro Scheduler so well we’ve arranged a special discount for Macro Scheduler customers. Macro Scheduler users can get 25% off the regular price of Direct Access. Registered users will find a discount coupon in the secure download area.

Congratulations to Nagarsoft on a great update to an already superb tool. Check it out.

December 8, 2008

Macro Scheduler 11.0.31 Update

Filed under: Announcements — Marcus Tettmar @ 10:42 am

Macro Scheduler 11.0.31 Update is now available with the following fixes:

Added: SetDialogObjectColor function
Change: Binary File Import now surrounds label and data in block comment to prevent an attempt to execute it
Fixed: SMTPSendMail not setting result code correctly
Fixed: Shift-Esc to Stop Window showing in GetWindowList
Fixed: Error in compiled macro if /NOSTOPKEY compiled in as last option
Fixed: Dialog Designer: After copying an object to clipboard, cannot paste it
Fixed: Dialog Designer: “Pinned to Designer” not staying pinned while moving design form
Fixed: Y array result variable default missing from FindImagePos code builder
Fixed: Index out of bounds error if start debug step from last blank line in script
Fixed: News Feed Notification was dependent on Show News Feed on Startup
Fixed: Main form shows correctly when clicking news feed notification
Fixed: Issue with Folder Browse button on Custom Dialog

Registered Downloads/Upgrades | Evaluation Downloads | New License Sales

December 5, 2008

Automated Software Testing Success

Filed under: General, Testing — Marcus Tettmar @ 5:20 pm

A couple of great posts in the new Software Testing forum are demonstrating the power of Macro Scheduler for automated testing.

Antonius Momac says in this post:

I’ve looked at more than 8 other automation tools. Some were from the big companies with many products like IBM (rational), HP/Mercury, and other more focused shops like Automated QA, Tethy Solutions, Redstone (eggplant) ….. However, the application I was putting under test was very particular. In fact, plain and simple, Macro Scheduler was the only tool that worked.

In this post Gale Dyvig said:

We found the problem with object orientated test tools like WinRunner, QTP, SilkTest, etc is the partial or nonexistant support for the objects under test. As new technologies are created the problem gets worse.

These tools have image based workarounds, but they need the script to specify the image location on the screen. We tried some workarounds based on a WINAPI command similar to GetPixelColor to find the images. It worked but was nowhere as well developed or convenient to use as Macro Scheduler’s FindImagePos. If you have bmp’s the images your application will display, you can write a script before the application is coded.

Macro Scheduler and AppNav are great because the same solution works for all technologies runnable on Windows. Because the solution is image based it works in development, independent test, and production environments.

Are you using Macro Scheduler for automated software testing? If so please post an introduction in the Software Testing forum. I’d love to know more about how people are using Macro Scheduler in automated software testing scenarios.

December 4, 2008

Another Update: Build 11.0.28

Filed under: Announcements — Marcus Tettmar @ 5:38 pm

I’ve just made another update available – 11.0.28:

Fixed: Issue with StringReplace could cause unresponsiveness
Fixed: SMTPSendMail: some email clients not deciphering attachment filenames

Apologies for two updates so soon after release. Doesn’t seem to matter what we do something crops up after release. We do need to work on improving testing in the future, but I hope our ability to release fixes quickly makes up for the small issues encountered. I do believe in releasing small fixes often rather than rolling them all up into large less frequent updates. You can always skip an update if it doesn’t affect you. Thanks for your understanding.

December 2, 2008

Macro Scheduler 11 is Shipping!

Filed under: Announcements — Marcus Tettmar @ 5:07 pm

I’m pleased to report that Macro Scheduler 11 is now available!

Here’s a summary of what’s new.

* A completely overhauled script editor with even better code folding and bookmark support and improved syntax highlighting. The advanced editor and macro properties windows have been combined into one to make things much simpler and give easy access to things like the custom dialog designer and the debugger. Feedback from beta testers is that the new editor and combined macro properties window has made Macro Scheduler much easier to use.

Macro Scheduler 11 Editor

* Macro Scheduler 11 has full Unicode support. Finally use any language characters in your scripts, detect Unicode text and output Unicode text.

* Competely overhauled FTP functions with added TLS/SSL support and support for more flavours of FTP server.

* Added SSL support to HTTPRequest

* With v11 you can compile macros in “console app” mode and write to STDOUT

* We’ve added the ability to embed any kind of file in a script, and export it at runtime.

* And more.

Release notes are here.

If you have current upgrade protection you can download v11 now from the registered download area. Upgrades can also be purchased by logging into registered downloads. Or for new licenses go here.

Thanks to all who helped beta test this new version!

December 1, 2008

Help Choose a New Logo

Filed under: Announcements, General — Marcus Tettmar @ 11:57 am

Help us choose a new logo. The designers have come up with two concepts, both of which we really like. Which one do you prefer?

A)

Logo Concept 1

B)

Logo Concept 2

Place your vote on the forum here (You need a forum account to vote. If you don’t have one feel free to post a comment here instead).

November 26, 2008

November 25, 2008

Easy Text Extraction and Conversion

Filed under: Announcements, Scripting — Marcus Tettmar @ 11:58 am

If you’ve ever had to write code to read through large text files looking for patterns of text and extracting data you’ll know how fiddly it can be, even with Macro Scheduler‘s simple file reading and text parsing functions.

Well, there’s an amazing tool called TextPipe from DataMystic which makes extracting and transforming text data much easier. TextPipe can read huge files really quickly and allows you to create filters to process and extract the data without having to write any code. And the bonus is that TextPipe plays well with Macro Scheduler too, via its command line interface or ActiveX COM interface which you can call via VBScript.

I think TextPipe is a really nice add-on to Macro Scheduler so we’ve cut a deal with DataMystic to give Macro Scheduler customers a 25% discount off TextPipe Lite, TextPipe Std or TextPipe Pro. Registered users can log into the secure download area to grab a discount coupon which you can use at their site.

Once you’ve created a filter in TextPipe you can easily run it from Macro Scheduler via the command line, or from some VBScript code. And if you want to get really clever you can create filters on the fly with VBScript.

Here’s a simple macro which grabs some log files from a server, then runs a TextPipe filter and does something with the output:

VBSTART
Sub RunTextPipeFilter(filter_file)
  Dim TextPipeApp, Filter

  Set TextPipeApp = CreateObject("TextPipe.Application")
  Set Filter = TextPipeApp.newWindow
  Filter.openFilter( filter_file )
  Filter.execute()
  Set Filter = Nothing
  Set TextPipeApp = Nothing
End Sub
VBEND

//download the server logs
FTPGetFile>server,admin,7Gh63^,21,c:\filters,\logs\,*.log,A

//run the filter
VBRun>RunTextPipeFilter,c:\filters\extract_login_errors.fil

//transfer the output file
CopyFile>c:\filter\login_errors.txt,\\pluto\reports\login_errors.txt

For more on what you can do with TextPipe’s ActiveX interface see the VBScript Examples at DataMystic.com which can easily be used inside Macro Scheduler.

November 19, 2008

Macro Scheduler 11 Beta Update

Filed under: Announcements — Marcus Tettmar @ 3:14 pm

Build 022 is now available:
http://www.mjtnet.com/usergroup/viewtopic.php?t=5018

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