The LA Fox Develooer Newsletter

July 1997

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

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

(Con’t, page 9)