Fill Block in a Macro

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Tue Apr 15, 2003 2:16 pm

Can someone advise on the use of Fill Block in a macro. I created a macro that highlights a specifc block and then Pastes text into the "With Characters" field. When I run the Macro the macro pauses on the Fill Block screen. Is this a deficiency of the using Macros with the Fill Block command.

Thanks.

Bob Hansen · Post by **Bob Hansen** » Tue Apr 15, 2003 9:48 pm

Two items come to mind:

1. Fill Block only enabled when word wrapping is turned off and a fixed width font is selected. Be sure your macro makes those settings before doing Fill Block.

2. Macro does exactly what you recorded before stopping record.

Did the Paste operation actually work?
Did macro "stop" before Paste or after Paste?

When recording macro:
Did you continue after doing the Paste?
Did you Tab/Enter/OK button, etc.

I am not sure about macro Paste, if the macro records what was in the clipboard, or if it will get the current clipboard value and paste that. I seem to think it keeps the value at record time vs. using current value. One way to overcome that may be to have the same macro do the Copy to the Clipboard before doing the Paste.

Hope this helps....

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Wed Apr 16, 2003 12:47 pm

The Macro did have other actions that it did perform once I completed the Fill Block command. When I recorded the Macro I did a CTRL-V to paste followed by OK button. The Macro then had further actions defined. When I replayed the Macro the Fill Block screen stopped without the pasted text. Once I manually completed the paste and hit the OK button the Macro performed the remaining items I had recorded.

Also wordwrap is turned off and the font is set Courier New.

Thanks for the help.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Wed Apr 16, 2003 1:37 pm

One more piece of information is that it appears that the problem is that the Paste does not work in a macro. Because of this the OK button is not available and the Macro 'pauses'. The information is in the clipboard and if I perfrom the Ctrl V manually while the macro is running it pastes the correct information into the Fill with characters field (The macro had previously copied information into the clipboard).

I was also on version 4.5 and have upgraded to 4.6 but the problem still exists.

Could this be a possible bug?

Thanks again.

Bob Hansen · Post by **Bob Hansen** » Wed Apr 16, 2003 5:57 pm

I just did a simple cut and paste test macro. Results:

1. Cut and paste worked as expected, Paste operation was done, and next steps continued. This was in straight text mode, not in Fill Block mode.

2. I changed the section that was cut and ran the macro again, and the macro cut and paste pulled in the new value which means that that recorded macro does use the current value of the clipboard, it does not keep the value that was in clipboard at time of original macro recording. I was curious about that, and now I know the answer.

And I just made a simple FillBlock macro, with no Cut/Paste, using mouse navigation, just typed in the value to be inserted. WordWrap was off, and using fixed width font. The macro toggles Block Select mode ON, does its insert process, and turns off Block Select mode.
I ran the macro and nothing was inserted into the block. I toggled the beginning Mode to already be in Block Select Mode, and ran macro again, same results....no data inserted.

Just did another test but made sure to use all keystrokes vs. mouse movements. Same macro as above, but different performance. When macro ran, it paused, waiting for manual entry. Made manual entry, clicked OK, and macro continued running, completing following steps as defined in macro. Again this was done using typing for data entry, not Paste operation, so the Cut/Paste is not a part of the problem. It is the Fill Block operation itself.

If I look inside both of those two macros withmouse movements, and with key movements and noticed that the macro with the keystroke navigation did include the "insert text" that I typed, but the macro that used mouse navigation did not include the "insert text" that I typed.

My conclusion?
I see same results as Guest, looks like macros do not work in this mode. Maybe this is a design "feature"?, for some reason should not work in macros (cannot imagine why not), or maybe it is a bug? Or maybe other conditions must exist first? It also looks like key navigation vs. mouse navigation may be preferred when recording macros.