KEYPRESS DOWN - INCONSISTENT BEHAVIOUR

[danman]

I am having an issue with a macro, where one user gets one result and another gets something different.



1 | 500 | 300 | 125 | Keypress F8


2 | 500 | 500 | 125 | Keypress DOWN

For myself and most of our users, this macro does the following:

Press F8 Key, then press the DOWN key.
The macro is set to loop, and we use this a lot to save time and banging on repetitive keystrokes.

I have one user that excecutes the same macro and instead it types

f8downf8downf8downf8downf8downf8downf8downf8downf8downf8down

into a field until the field lenght is met or exceeded.

What can cause this?

[Steve]

Caps lock can cause this.

If CAPS LOCK is on during playback then KEYPRESS DOWN becomes KEYPRESS down and KEYPRESS F8 becomes KEYPRESS f8. f8 and down are treated as whole words in MMM whereas F8 and DOWN have meaning; Function key 8 and DOWN arrow.

I'd put money on caps lock being enabled on the host your talking about.

[danman]

Doh!

That makes sense.  We use CAPS LOCK a lot in the environmnet we are in.

So much so, that I might have inverted a lot of stuff in MMM.

I'll test on both systems and report my findings here.

Thanks,
Danny

[danman]

Steve  (Steve)

So, this was very helpful.  I was able to fix several macros that were having issues once I took case into consideration

However, this issue was not resolved.  I tested both users, WITH and WITHOUT CAPS LOCK.  Below is the macro.

1 | 500 | 300 | 125 | Keypress F8


2 | 500 | 500 | 125 | Keypress DOWN


== TESTING ==

USER 1 - My laptop - Logged into SERVER1 Remote Desktop
CAPS LOCK ON - Macro ran as intended.  No issues or errors.  (Function8 & Down keys)
CAPS LOCK OFF - Macro ran as intended. No issues or errors. (Function8 & Down keys) 

USER 2 - Their laptop - Logged into SERVER1 Remote Desktop

CAPS LOCK ON - Macro typed f8down instead of using the Function8 & DOWN key.
CAPS LOCK OFF - Macro typed f8down instead of using the Function8 & DOWN key.

== WROTE NEW MACRO ON USER 2 LAPTOP ==
Since this is such a simple macro, I remade it on the USER 2 laptop.
I used the RECORD process.  The macros looked the same, but when I ran it on the USER 2 laptop, it worked.

I pulled up both macros to compare.  Below are both macros.

== ORIGINAL MACRO ==
1 | 500 | 300 | 125 | Keypress F8

2 | 500 | 500 | 125 | Keypress DOWN



== NEW MACRO ==
1|500|500|125|Keypress F8

2|500|500|125|Keypress DOWN


The only difference seems to be the spacing between the delimiters.

There was another macro not working for this user.  I removed the spaces between delimiters on that one, and it runs as well.
(However, it runs much slower.  I'm beginning to troubleshoot that now.)
When USER 1 runs this macro, it finishes the macro instantly, even though one of the first commands is a prompt for input.

1|RUN ACTION|INPUT BOX|What is the title of the FROM window:::FROM::STRING1

When I run the NEW MACRO above, looping it 1000 times, as USER 1 I see the count decrementing, but no keystrokes occur.

Does this make sense?
For USER 1 ONLY works with spaces surrounding delimiter.
For USER 2 ONLY works if the spaces are removed from around the delimiter.

Thanks,
Danny

[Steve]

Jul 20, 2020 17:48:21 GMT danman said:

== WROTE NEW MACRO ON USER 2 LAPTOP ==
Since this is such a simple macro, I remade it on the USER 2 laptop.
I used the RECORD process.  The macros looked the same, but when I ran it on the USER 2 laptop, it worked.

I pulled up both macros to compare.  Below are both macros.

== ORIGINAL MACRO ==
1 | 500 | 300 | 125 | Keypress F8

2 | 500 | 500 | 125 | Keypress DOWN



== NEW MACRO ==
1|500|500|125|Keypress F8

2|500|500|125|Keypress DOWN


The only difference seems to be the spacing between the delimiters.

Hi Danny,

If laptop 1 records like the original macro with delimiters like this ' | ' (note the space) and laptop 2 records with delimiters like this '|' (no space) then the settings for the laptop 1 and laptop 2 are not the same. Under settings - recording options there are options to change the delimiters. It seems as though those settings have been changed on laptop 2.

Playing back a macro that has different delimiters to what is set in the settings will result in inconsistent behavior and errors. Exactly like that you are describing.

The fix for this should be to match the delimiters on both laptop settings.

Hope this helps.

[ak]

Hi Steve,



On a related note: is there a way to check for or ideally toggle Caps Lock in a MMM script? To help programmatically avoid issues like danman mentioned? Because I've had Caps Lock adversely affect my scripts as well.

[Steve]

Sept 24, 2020 21:30:36 GMT ak said:

Hi Steve,



On a related note: is there a way to check for or ideally toggle Caps Lock in a MMM script? To help programmatically avoid issues like danman mentioned? Because I've had Caps Lock adversely affect my scripts as well.

Hi,

Yeah this is what I've got to detect a caps and prompt. You could prob compress this down to a few lines:

1 | RUN ACTION | FILE CREATE | C:\Users\test\Desktop\caps.txt
2 | RUN ACTION | WAIT SECONDS | 1
3 | RUN ACTION | RUN PROGRAM | C:\Users\test\Desktop\caps.txt
4 | RUN ACTION | WAIT SECONDS | 1
5 | x | x | 500 | Keypress test
6 | X | X | 500 | Keypress Ctrl+ | a
7 | X | X | 500 | Keypress Ctrl+ | c
8 | X | X | 500 | Keypress Alt+ | f
9 | X | X | 500 | Keypress x
10 | X | X | 500 | Keypress n
11 | IF | CLIPBOARD | VALUE | TEXT IS | test | MESSAGE PROMPT | Caps is not on::CAPS - Status::0 | ELSE | 11 | RUN ACTION | MESSAGE PROMPT | Caps is on::CAPS - Status::0

This detects and toggles capslock:
1 | RUN ACTION | FILE CREATE | C:\Users\test\Desktop\caps.txt
2 | RUN ACTION | WAIT SECONDS | 1
3 | RUN ACTION | RUN PROGRAM | C:\Users\test\Desktop\caps.txt
4 | RUN ACTION | WAIT SECONDS | 1
5 | x | x | 500 | Keypress test
6 | X | X | 500 | Keypress Ctrl+ | a
7 | X | X | 500 | Keypress Ctrl+ | c
8 | X | X | 500 | Keypress Alt+ | f
9 | X | X | 500 | Keypress x
10 | X | X | 500 | Keypress n
11 | IF | STRING VARIABLE | %CLIPBOARD% | CONTAINS | test | GOTO MACRO LINE | Down 2
12 | X | X | 500 | Keypress capslock
13 | RUN ACTION | MESSAGE PROMPT | End of the macro::The End::1

[Jae Song]

Hello,

I'm getting an error report on command "1 | -346| 231| 100 | Keypress Alt+ | f5".
Here is the error message: 1 | -346 | 231| 100 | Keypress alt+ | f5 - Unable to process macro line. Check the entry check the delim value between entries [|]
I currently have Mini Mouse Macro version 7.0.0.0. 
Please help!

Jae

[Steve]

May 2, 2023 4:23:13 GMT Jae Song said:

Hello,

I'm getting an error report on command "1 | -346| 231| 100 | Keypress Alt+ | f5".
Here is the error message: 1 | -346 | 231| 100 | Keypress alt+ | f5 - Unable to process macro line. Check the entry check the delim value between entries [|]
I currently have Mini Mouse Macro version 7.0.0.0. 
Please help!

Jae

Hi Jae,

Update you're Mini Mouse Macro version. You are running a version that is a few years old now and we've had a lot of improvements and changes since then.
You can download the latest version from minimousemacro.com/.

The error is due to bad delimiter entries on the macro line.

This:
1 | -346| 231| 100 | Keypress Alt+ | f5

Replace with this:
1 | -346 | 231 | 100 | Keypress Alt+ | f5

Regards,
Steve.