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The LA Fox Develooer Newsletter
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July 1997
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An Alternative to Macro Files
by Todd Landrum, Rocky Mountain
Fox
User Group
THERE IS AN EASIER WAY
Using macro keys are a great way to make your development life easier. You can set up macro keys to quickly execute the commands you type over and over again in during the day.
As an example, you might use a macro key to run a project. use FlO for this and the macro command is:
{Ctrl+F2}Do MyApp{Enter)
The {Ctrl+F2} makes the command window active, the DO command is entered, and {Enter} runs the command. A couple other macro keys I use are:
Fl 1 {Ctrl+F2}build app MyApp.app from MyApp.pjx{Enter} F12: {Ctrl+F2}modi proj MyApp{Enter}
These macros work great for me, they help me work faster, and I manage to finish the project on time and on budget. Time for project #2.
I want the same macro keys for this project, but the name of the project file in this case ends up being MyApp2. No problem. 1 copy the macro file from project 1, edit the three commands and away I go.
Now I’m on to project 3, MyApp3. I copy the macro file, edit the three commands and away I go. Now comes project 4... and project 5... and project 6....
During project 6, I get tired of pressing Ctrl+F2 to bring up the command window. I want an easier way to do this. No problem. I create a new F2 macro key that does the {Ctrl+F2} command for me.
Now I go back to project 2 to do some additional work. I press my handy F2 macro key and nothing happens! Suddenly, I have a problem. I created the F2 key in the macro file for project 6 but I didn’t create it in the macro file for project 2. Or for project l.Orforproject3... or4... or5.
If I want the F2 key in every project, I am going to have to go back through projects 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 and add that macro. That doesn’t seem like an efficient use of time and, tomorrow, I’ll come up with another macro key I want in every project. I’ll have to go change every macro file again.
What I need is some way to define global macros that will be available in all projects and local macros that are available in a specific project. This is the problem I faced and here is the solution I came up with.
Start by creating a global macro file. This is the macro file you
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are going to use for every project. It is only one file. You never copy it. Instead of placing specific commands with the macro keys, you enter a generic command. These commands would look as follows:
F2: {CtrI+F2}Do MacroL with ‘F2’{Enter}
Fl 0: {CtrI+F2}Do MacroL with ‘Fl O’{Enter}
Fl 1: {CtrI+F2}Do MacroL with ‘Fl 1 ‘{Enter}
F12: {Ctrl+F2}Do MacroL with ‘F12’{Enter}.
Each of these macro keys calls a program named MacroL and passes the key being pressed. MacroL is going to be our local macro keys program and it would reside in the directory with the project. The layout of this program is:
PARAMETER IMacro
DO CASE
CASE IMacro
=
‘FlO’
Keyboard “{ctrl+F2)do MyApp{Enter}”
CASE IMacro
=
‘F11’
build app MyApp.app from MyApp.pjx
CASE Macro
=
‘F12’
Keyboard “{Ctrl+F2}modi proj MyApp{Enter}”
OTHERWSE
do MacroG with Macro
ENDCASE
RETURN
You can see that this program handles the FlO,
Eli,
and F12 keys. If you have any other macro keys that are specific to the project, you add them to MacroL.
Notice that the F2 key is not processed in MacroL. If F2 is passed as the parameter to MacroL it falls into the 0TH ER- WISE clause and MacroG is called.
MacroG is our global macro program. You’d only have one copy of this program located somewhere in your path. Mine is in the Foxpro directory. Any commands not processed by MacroL are processed by MacroG. The layout of this program is:
PARAMETER IMacro
DO CASE
CASE Macro
=
‘F2’
keyboard “{CtrI+F2}”
OTHERWISE
WAIT ‘Unknown macro key:
+
Macro WINDOW
ENDCASE
RETURN
This program handles all the commands that MacroL could not process. It also gives a warning message if it doesn’t know how
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