Re: Neat RFE: Save recorded macros

On 12/8/2014 2:12 PM, John Yeung wrote:

On Mon, Dec 8, 2014 at 1:25 PM, Buck Calabro <kc2hiz@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On 12/5/2014 6:04 PM, John Yeung wrote:

It's totally a reasonable RFE, but I have to ask: Do you really
re-record the macro every time? You don't have one set up with
AutoHotkey?

I use AHK for more than RDi automation, and the 'good' key combinations
are spoken for.

So, from the sound of it, you have some "good" key combos that you'd
like to use for RDi, but you're using them for something else already.

Yes, but 'good' here means 'easy for me to remember.' Ctrl-Shift-p in
RDi might mean 'retrieve the source from a compile listing' but in
Notepad++ it might mean 'bring up the HTML colour picker' and in
ADISimPLL it might mean 'calculate PLL filter bandwidth.'

My choices aren't totally arbitrary: Ctrl-Shift-P might have a
well-known use, like 'Patterns' in the Gimp. There are conflicting
ideals at work. On the one hand, most of the really useful shortcuts
are already implemented natively and so I have a 'memory' of the things
I do often. Almost by definition then, things I implement in AHK are
either 'bundles' of functions that are just too atomic for my workflow,
or the odd thing that the developer hasn't made a shortcut key for. On
the other hand, there are only so many shortcut sequences I can remember
at any one time. Human nature being what it is, the oldest memories are
the strongest - I can tell you that 42 Upper Function Select, Dup is the
way to get a System/3 Model 12 job stream from the 3741 to the job queue
but I may not remember what I had for breakfast.

Which brings up two questions:

1. Are you aware that hotkeys can be context-sensitive? In other
words, have one key combo that does one thing in Notepad and another
thing in Excel and another thing in RDi and another thing when none of
the above is active.

Yes.

2. If the key combos you want to use are taken, then presumably even
if the RFE is implemented, you would have to invoke the macro via
mouse click(s).

Maybe. I already have keys assigned to action keyRecorderStart,
keyRecorderStop and keyRecorderPlay so I don't actually use the mouse to
access this current RDi functionality. If the lab were to expose the
RFE via an editor action, I could assign /that/ to a key - probably the
same one I use for Record.

If that's the case, you could also write an
AutoHotkey script that is executable on demand (via double-clicking
its icon, just like any other executable). AutoHotkey is a
full-fledged programming language, not just a resident hotkey manager.

Yes it is a full-fledged programming language. Some day I might really
get into it, but not today. I trimmed out a whole novel on what I use
macros for when I realised it's pointless because virtually no one uses
editor macros. And I don't mean this list, this product. I mean
Eclipse - there's no macro functionality in Eclipse because no one wants
it. We had the Monkey project for a while but it withered due to lack
of interest. The bottom line: if I need a full fledged language to
accomplish something in the editor, I feel like I'm doing something
wrong. Macros were just a touch more sophisticated than the plain
keystroke recorder, which was the sweet spot for me. C'est la vie.