Macro Editing Reverse Engineering

General questions about using TextPad

Moderators: AmigoJack, bbadmin, helios, Bob Hansen, MudGuard

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mvealey
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Joined: Thu Oct 08, 2009 3:35 pm

Macro Editing Reverse Engineering

Post by mvealey »

I don't understand why Helios hasn't listened and added macro editing considering all the requests but that's neither here nor there. Fact is, they haven't.

With that in mind, has anyone tried to reverse engineer the macro files and create an editor for them? I'm more of a business systems programmer so I'm not going to get too far but if anyone out there who has the skills can do it, we'd all be mighty grateful!
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Bob Hansen
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Post by Bob Hansen »

About four or five years ago, a group of about five of us started to undertake that as a project. We had made some progress, but ran into some roadblocks that really needed Helios input, but we could not get what we needed. I don't recall the issues that caused us to stop, but it seemed to be correct at the time.

Some of our notes and progress are probably still here on the forum. I can't look for them now, but this lasted for a few months and should be obvious when you see them. I remember that Jeffy and Al ??? were involved. We may have done a lot of emails off-forum

Wait .....

This looks like the link I was referring to: http://forums.textpad.com/viewtopic.php ... sc&start=0 It is from Jan 2003, longer than I thought. I have just adapted myself to using Macro Scheduler ( http://www.mjtnet.com/macro_scheduler_pro.htm ), and I have no more issues with TextPad macros because of that.
Hope this was helpful.............good luck,
Bob
mvealey
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Joined: Thu Oct 08, 2009 3:35 pm

Post by mvealey »

I figured as much but I didn't find anything when I did a search. Well, retro-kudos for the attempt. I have a copy of the code so I might fiddle with it in VB if a get a chance.

Anyone else up for the challenge?

Thanks!
Mike
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webber123456
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Joined: Wed Jul 30, 2003 2:55 am

...

Post by webber123456 »

you'll be better off spending time with a third party macro tool.

all will allow means of building and editing your own macros which can be applied on tp files.

I use this a a tool for organizing my own executables.

http://www.aspkey.net/aspkey/_store/asp ... #quickbars
Ryck
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Joined: Thu Mar 17, 2005 4:20 am

Post by Ryck »

Bob Hansen wrote:About four or five years ago, a group of about five of us started to undertake that as a project. We had made some progress, but ran into some roadblocks that really needed Helios input, but we could not get what we needed. I don't recall the issues that caused us to stop, but it seemed to be correct at the time.

...
Incidentally, I tried to do something like that too. Even reverse engineer TextPad's macro compiler. But ran into too many unknowns and then my time became very limited as I got busy with other things.
Ryck
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Post by Ryck »

By the way, Bob. I just realized something. Although you are the community board admintrator you have no access to the TextPad programmer and had to branch out on your own on this difficult project some five years ago?

I'm shocked!! :shock:

I'm curious - do you have any idea why the TextPad programmer won't even consider this enhancement? Is the TextPad programmer even around to answer questions?
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Bob Hansen
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Post by Bob Hansen »

I am just an end user like yourself. I volunteered many years ago to be a moderator since I get the opportunity to browse the forum frequently. Helios does reply here a few times a week, but I have no direct contact with them.

I have been able to work around most TextPad shortcomings and still find it better than most other text editors. May not be perfect for all, but is close enough to perfect for my needs.

I love TextPad, still use 4.73 vs. 5.x. I use Macro Scheduler ( http://www.mjtnet.com/macro_scheduler_pro.htm ) to handle my macros on all programs including TextPad. I use these two products daily to support my needs of supporting my customer base problems.
Hope this was helpful.............good luck,
Bob
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