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================================================================================ (C) 1991 by Atari Corporation, GEnie, and the Atari Roundtables. May be reprinted only with this notice intact. The Atari Roundtables on GEnie are *official* information services of Atari Corporation. To sign up for GEnie service, call (with modem) 800-638-8369. Upon connection type HHH (RETURN after that). Wait for the U#= prompt. Type XJM11877,GEnie and hit RETURN. The system will prompt you for your information. ================================================================================ ************ Topic 22 Tue Sep 18, 1990 SFRT-ASST [Ken] at 02:30 EDT Sub: CodeKeys, the Macro Tool This topic is for support and discussion of CodeKeys from CodeHead Software. CodeKeys lets you automate any procedure with your ST, by recording and editing all your key and mouse button presses. 212 message(s) total. ************ ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 1 Mon Nov 26, 1990 VINCE.A [Vince-Cubed] at 10:57 EST I find the macro function in NeoDesk 3 and CodeKeys to be perfect complements. I use ND3 macros for all my desktop functions and CodeKeys macros for all my application functions. CodeKeys makes using some older programs (like TimeLink) much easier, since many came at a time when keyboard equivalents just weren't included. ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 2 Mon Nov 26, 1990 FAIRWEATHER [David] at 20:03 PST Hi Charles, I just received my CODEKEYS today and will send in my registration form tomorrow. But I thought you should know that I was distressed to find that CODEKEYS seems to be completely incompatible with the NEOCONTROL.ACC. Every time I try to define a trigger key I get 8 or 9 bombs and a message about a privilege violation. I will leave this message in the Gribnif category also. I don't want to start a war, I'd just like to be able to use both. Thank you. ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 3 Mon Nov 26, 1990 FAIRWEATHER [David] at 21:34 PST Only the latest version of NEOCNTRL.ACC (the one that comes with NEODESK3) seems to be incompatible with CODEKEYS. The one that came with NEODESK 2.03 seems to work just fine. ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 4 Tue Nov 27, 1990 CHAZ at 00:11 PST CodeKeys has got to be about one of the most addictive utility programs ever marketed - slick product! Just realized the power of the linking feature - I have an Atari computer with a CodeHead interface now. One tiny little thing I noticed, which has nothing to do with the programs operation and is only cosmetic, but the CodeKey accessory window just has "CodeKeys" typed at the top - the MultiDesk window is almost identical in appearance except that you have MultiDesk written in it's distinguishing logo-format, not at all important - it just doesn't quite "match" :) Something I didn't realize until today was that CodeKeys will create macros to select desk accessories - what >will< you guys think of next...? ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 5 Tue Nov 27, 1990 J.EIDSVOOG1 [CodeHead] at 02:35 PST David, I just loaded NEOCNTRL.ACC (from Neodesk 3) into MultiDesk while inside of Aladdin and recorded and played back a macro with no problem at all. So the incompatibility is NOT between Neocontrol and CodeKeys. Perhaps it has something to do with Neoload being installed. I noticed that Neoload installs itself rather heavily into the system and my quick test did not include it. John ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 6 Wed Nov 28, 1990 WAYNED. [Wayne] at 18:47 EST John, I believe I found something 'slightly' disconcerting with CodeKeys. I was in Flash which has a .key file for it, and ran another program from within Flash which also had a .key file. CodeKeys loaded in the new .key file just fine, but when I exited back to Flash all of a sudden my Flash .key file didn't seem to be working properly. Upon loading up CodeKeys.acc I found that CodeKeys had not loaded in my Flash .key file but instead loaded in my Hotwire .key file. Wayne ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 7 Wed Nov 28, 1990 C.F.JOHNSON [CodeHead] at 18:35 PST Wayne, That's due to the way CodeKeys handles its 'linked' macros. When you first run a program that is linked to a .KEY file, CodeKeys allocates a small piece of memory and saves the current .KEY file (in compressed form) in that memory, before loading the linked set of macros from disk. However, this 'saving' of the current .KEY file only takes place at the level of the first program you run. If you then run another program without exiting the first one, and the second program also is linked to a .KEY file, CodeKeys _will_ load the linked .KEY file but it _won't_ save the current set of macros. In other words, linked .KEY files will work in nested programs, but the 'save/restore' function cannot be nested. - Charles ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 8 Fri Nov 30, 1990 J.EIDSVOOG1 [CodeHead] at 10:34 PST Wayne, The best trick for using Flash with CodeKeys is to add commands to your DO files which call LOADKEYS with a command line to load the desired KEY file. This enables you to have different sets of KEY files for different services or programs that you might run from Flash. John ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 9 Fri Nov 30, 1990 WAYNED. [Wayne] at 19:43 EST John, Yep that would work. However I don't know if it's worth the effort. The only thing I run regularly from within Flash is ArcShell and I don't have a .key file for that one. The other odd times that I might run something from it is rare. Wayne ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 10 Sat Dec 01, 1990 J.EIDSVOOG1 [CodeHead] at 02:02 PST Wayne, The idea of using LOADKEYS from Flash is not so much to have KEY files loaded for other programs that are executed as to have different KEY files for each DO file or service that is called. In other words you can have a Delphi KEY file loaded with your Delphi DO file, another for CIS, and another for your local BBS, etc. John ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 11 Sun Dec 02, 1990 WAYNED. [Wayne] at 19:26 EST John, Good idea! Oh boy, more playing around with CodeKeys! :-) I really need to stop though and figure out some type of triggering convention to make it easier to remember all my 'keys'. I'm sure the longer I have CodeKeys the more uses I'll find for it, but I've had Flash so long that just about anything that could be automated I've already written a .DO file for. :-) Wayne P.S. However while typing this message I did think of LOTS of uses for CodeKeys for typing in redundant things in programming in C, GFA, etc (Like Prinf, Print, #define, etc) P.P.S. Let me know when CodeHeads finally abandon Atari and move on to the Mac. That'll probably be the last straw that breaks my back and forces me to move on to the Mac. I can live without support from Atari since I've never gotten any, but losing developers like the CodeHeads and....... ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 12 Mon Dec 03, 1990 J.EIDSVOOG1 [CodeHead] at 08:47 PST In the Aladdin RT there has been a discussion about my use of CodeKeys to select alert box buttons. I've got three macros for 3-button alert boxes and two macros for 2-button alert boxes. I was asked to upload a KEY file, but instead I decided to post a message showing how they were constructed. They are very simple. Here is an example: L X=0241 Y=0254 Pause: 20 UP X=0241 Y=0254 This macro will select button one in 95% of all 3-button alert boxes. The other four macros can be created easily. First record a timed macro (I use left-shift 1 as the trigger) with a single mouse button press and edit it so that it looks like the above listing. Now you can make four copies of this macro (using shift-drag), assigning it to four other trigger keys (I use left shift 2-5). Then using "replace", edit the X coordinates to the following: 3-button alert boxes: Button 2 of 3, X=315 (left-shift 2) Button 3 of 3, X=389 (left-shift 3) 2-button alert boxes: Button 1 of 2, X=286 (left-shift 4) Button 2 of 2, X=344 (left-shift 5) Of course, you can easily use whatever trigger key combination you like. These macros are for high-res. To create medium-res macros, you will have to change the Y coordinates (approximately double although I haven't tried). Since these macros are global (they are valid within all programs and the desktop), I keep them in macro numbers 21-25. I then make sure that the macro files which are loaded automatically through the link process are saved as 20 macros or less so that they won't be loaded over my global macros. This way my global macros are available always, while other KEY files are loaded in and out of CodeKeys. John P.S. With all these tips and suggestions, could there be anyone who's not using CodeKeys? Hardly... :^) Could there be anyone who's not BOUGHT CodeKeys? Maybe... :-( ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 13 Mon Dec 03, 1990 H.WOOTAN [Harry] at 21:14 CST John, I don't have CodeKeys (yet...), so I don't really know what I'm talking about. But would the Y values need to be doubled for medium? Wouldn't they need to be halved instead for medium? (Just slap me if I'm wrong! I can see it going either way.) Harry ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 14 Tue Dec 04, 1990 J.EIDSVOOG1 [CodeHead] at 01:18 PST You are correct, Harry. It was my mistake (and the first one I ever made as well). :^) John ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 15 Wed Dec 05, 1990 A.HAMILTON1 [Alan] at 06:56 MST I just got HotWire and CodeKeys, and I'm keeping their hot keys seperated by using a different shift key pattern for each. For CodeKeys it's LEFT SHIFT- CTRL, and for HotWire it's ALT-CTRL. / / * / Alan <--- CodeKey Macro (LEFT SHIFT-CTRL-A) * * ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 16 Sun Dec 09, 1990 M.ABREU [Abe] at 11:23 EST Codeheads, I *really* appreciate the demo's you provide. It's really the only way I know whether I want the products or not (no dealers here). That said, I've downloaded yet another CodeKeys demo and I just can't get the hang of it. I think with a little time I could edit some of the macros to do something useful, but 8 minutes just isn't enough time to evaluate this product. To be honest, it's kind of frustrating, and I think it works against your product. Could you find it in your hearts to make this a 30 minute demo? ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 17 Sun Dec 09, 1990 C.F.JOHNSON [CodeHead] at 12:05 PST Abe, Actually, I forgot to edit the description in the text file accompanying the CodeKeys 1.2 demo...but the time limit has been raised to 15 minutes in this version. (Almost doubled.) Please note this, folks: the new CodeKeys demo (file #17508, CKEYDEM2.ARC) has a time limit of 15 minutes, not 8 minutes 43 seconds like the documentation says. :) - Charles ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 18 Fri Dec 14, 1990 A.HAMILTON1 [Alan] at 02:33 MST I seem to be having trouble doing a drag operation in a Codekeys macro. The icon will "ghost" like it should, but when the mouse pointer jumps to the new location, the ghost stays behind, and de-ghosts right where it started when the mouse button goes up. Is there a special trick to doing drags? / / * / Alan * * ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 19 Fri Dec 14, 1990 C.F.JOHNSON [CodeHead] at 10:17 PST Alan, The current version of CodeKeys does not play back "drag" operations in most programs. It records and plays back only button clicks (and releases), and GEM usually expects to see all the mouse movements in between for a drag operation. One program in which you _can_ perform drag operations with CodeKeys is Calamus, because it uses its own "drag" routines and doesn't call the GEM ones. - Charles ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 20 Sun Dec 16, 1990 B.POSTON [BARNEY] at 19:16 CST CodeHeads, Just recieved my copy of CodeKeys. It is great but difficult to figure out where to put all the files. Manual wasn't much help there either. Just one small problem when printing my lists of triggers. First I loaded and printed a .KEY file with seven macros in it. It prints just fine. Then I loaded a .KEY file with two macros in it. It printed triggers for the two macros in this file and also the last five triggers from the previous .Key file. Am I doing something wrong? Barney <--- My macro did that! ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 21 Sun Dec 16, 1990 J.SAFFER [JASON SAFFER] at 17:43 PST John and Charles...I'm trying to figure out if I can create a macro that would do the following -- maybe you can help on this one: I'd like to be able to hit one keystroke while in MaxiFile that will automatically change the file listings from date to size. I know I can hit HELP to access the More button, but I don't think I can use a key to highlight Size, true? I've tried doing this manuever using the mouse but it's not working for me. I also notice that I can't seem to start up a macro (create a macro) while in MaxiFile. I'm not trying to call up Maxi, I want to do this date ==>size while already in Maxi. Can you lend a hand.....? =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= .......Jason ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 22 Sun Dec 16, 1990 C.F.JOHNSON [CodeHead] at 19:08 PST Barney, Glad you're enjoying CodeKeys! I'm a bit puzzled about why you think it was difficult to figure out where to put all the files; in what way did you think the manual wasn't clear on this point? Wasn't the section titled "From Which Directory Are My Files Loading" any help? When you print your macros, CodeKeys prints the entire list of macros. When you load a .KEY file with only two macros in it, the other 30 macro slots may still be occupied...so when you print the macros, CodeKeys also prints the ones that were there before you loaded the 2-macro file. - Charles <-- a macro did that too! :) <-- and that! ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 23 Mon Dec 17, 1990 M.EASTER [Mike] at 01:16 PST Barney - re "loaded a key file with seven..then loaded..with two..printed..also the last five..from the previous" See manual page 26, under Load; also readme for 1.2 under Number of Macros Saved in a File. A clever feature. CodeHead and the US Mail set a record for me when I ordered Codekeys. Telephone order one afternoon, and received in the mail next noon. Yes, I live in the same state, but not the same city or county. I was amazed. Has anyone done much testing with creating macros which conflict with existing keypresses in an application? Flash has a lot of alt- commands which have no operation in the capture mode, but do function in terminal mode. They would be handy to use for one-handed (left hand on the keyboard, right hand on the mouse) macro operations in capture mode. What happens if a conflict occurs? (I know, I know. Try it and see :-) ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 24 Mon Dec 17, 1990 M.MOTOGAWA [MEL] at 07:33 PST Mike, If I remember right, one time I had a macro set up in the capture side of Flash for alt-s, which is an u/l command for Flash in the terminal mode. When I was in the terminal mode and wanted to send a file, the first time I hit alt- s nothing happened, but the second time the command took. I haven't tested compatibility extensively since after this I realized what was happening and reassigned my macro. But there wasn't any unusual effect on Flash. Mel ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 25 Tue Dec 18, 1990 B.POSTON [BARNEY] at 19:52 CST Charles, Left my CodeKeys manual at work in my briefcase so I wont be able to tell you specifically what my problem was with the "From Which Directory are My Files Loading?" chapter. It seems like it posed the question then never answered it. Sometimes I'm really tough to get through to. I'll get back to you when I can be more specific. Would it be possible for future upgrades to allow the user to change the format of the date and time functions? Thanks for the quick response. Mike, I can't look at page 26 for the same reason. But I did check out hte README file. I haven't grasp the significance of it yet, but I do appreciate the info. Barney <--- You guessed it. Both of them were. ----> Barney ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 26 Wed Dec 19, 1990 J.EIDSVOOG1 [CodeHead] at 01:51 PST Jason, You should be able to create the macro you described for use within MaxiFile. Make sure you are recording a timed macro if you want button presses to work. The other trick within MaxiFile is in defining the trigger key. This might be where your problem was. In order for MaxiFile to use keypresses, it must turn all keypresses into "Return" keys, so after you define your macro you'll need to go back into CodeKeys and redefine your trigger key. For instance, if you wanted Alt-H, it would show up as Alt-Return and you'd need to redefine it as Alt-H. Barney, Another source of your confusion may be the fact that we added the "default path" feature after the manual was printed. For documentation of such new features, we (as do most developers) supply a README file on the disk. Please read that file for more information about where files are to be kept. Which files were you confused about? Maybe we can help you here. John John ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 27 Wed Dec 19, 1990 B.POSTON [BARNEY] at 21:01 CST Charles, Getting back to my problem with the manual and figuring out where to put all the files. I'm neither a novice nor an expert so I expect other folks have had the same problem. First I discovered that installing CodeKeys.acc in Multi-Desk has a small disadvantage. When you ask to exit the acc for recording, the first thing that the recording sees is your exit from Multi-Desk. Then you need to go edit that out of the macro. I suppose Multi-Desk could be set-up to overcome that snag, but I was too lazy to research that manual also. Back to the files location problem. I had trouble following "From Which Directory Are My Files Loading". After a few hours of trial and error I found the proper location for everything. I think half a picture is worth 500 words. An example in the manual like this would be a big help. C is my boot drive...... | .LNK file reads..... | AUTO:\ | CODEKEYS: CODEKEYS.PRG | ; CODEKEYS:\ | GRAPH.PRG C:\CODEKEYS\GRAPH_HI.KEY ALADDNHI.KEY | ALAD.PRG C:\CODEKEYS\ALADDNHI.KEY GRAPH_HI.KEY | etc. etc. | CODEKEY2.LNK | CODEKEYS.ACC | Another example for those who wish to put the acc into Multi-Desk would also be useful. I'm offering this as constructive criticism. I'm a procedures writer and I know how difficult it is to communicate via the printed word. I think CodeKeys is great and use it regularly. Keep up the good work. You don't need to spend your time answering this message. Barney ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 28 Wed Dec 19, 1990 C.F.JOHNSON [CodeHead] at 21:44 PST Barney, MultiDesk has an option in its 'Config' screen called 'Return'. If this button is selected, you'll always return to the MultiDesk dialog box after closing down an accessory. If you want to quit all the way out of CodeKeys _and_ MultiDesk when starting a recording, just de-select MultiDesk's 'Return' button. Thanks for the suggestion re: an illustration for file locations. Perhaps we'll include something like that in the README file for new upgrades. And I'm glad to hear that you did manage to get it all straight. - Charles ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 29 Thu Dec 20, 1990 J.EIDSVOOG1 [CodeHead] at 13:51 PST Barney, I can't help thinking that your "constructive criticism" of our manual would be taken more seriously if you'd avoid using the phrase "I was too lazy to research that manual also" in the same post. :^) I would think that you expended more energy by taking "a few hours of trial and error [to find] the proper location for everything" than carefully reading the page and a half (28- 29.5) explaining locations. I still find this area quite explicit every time I reread it. Maybe I'm too close to the program to be confused by it. I do agree, however, that a sample LNK file could have been listed for those who do not wish to use MAKELINK.PRG. BTW, if you like to leave the "RETURN" button selected in MultiDesk, you can still force a temporary "RETURN" for recording a macro by simply holding down the Alternate key when CodeKeys shuts down. John ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 30 Thu Dec 20, 1990 B.POSTON [BARNEY] at 20:46 CST John and Charles, Hopefully you will take my 'constructive criticism' seriously in spite of my poor choice of words. The term 'lazy' was used in place of 'it seems like more fun to play trial and error than to dig out the old MultiDesk manual again'. My objective was to help anyone in the future who might have the same problem. Read page 28-29.5 several times during installation. When rereading them now, they seem perfectly clear to me, and I wonder how I could have had any problem. The point is, I did have problems and I suspect that others have also. Still think page 29.5-29.99 could have been used more productively. Your plans for the README file is an even better idea. Thanks for both good pieces of advice on how to get out of the ACC cleanly with no affect on the recorder. Barney ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 31 Fri Dec 21, 1990 C.WALTERS1 [Chet] at 09:33 EST Barney - I agree that "T & E" is sometimes fun. But, I must agree with John and Charles that when your "T & E" begins to involve using the customer support of the software company which produced the software and manual which already explains the procedures then it's time to get serious about reading the dox first. ______Chet at \/\/iz\/\/orks :^{) ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 32 Fri Dec 21, 1990 H.WOLFE1 at 20:44 EST I have recently bought Codekeys, another of your amazing products, but I am having some small problems with it. First, I can not make Codekeys activate the function keys in UIS III. Everything seems to be recorded OK, but then when I play back the macro everything is fine until it gets to the function keys, then it seems to skip over that part of the macro (and yes, I checked the macro and it has recorded the pressing of the function key). Secondly, if I understand your sample macro files correctly, then when I click on the menu bar to activate it, I should have a pause of 1 between the down and the up (except sometimes there seems to be no pause in your sample macros), but if I click on any item in the menu to activate it, I need a pause of 20 between the down and the up. Is this correct? Finally, how long should the pause be between the first and second click in a double click? Thanks, Harvey ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 33 Fri Dec 21, 1990 C.F.JOHNSON [CodeHead] at 18:31 PST Harvey, The problem you're having in UIS 3 is due to the way UIS reads its keypresses. Basically, UIS uses the same technique to read its keys that earlier versions of my Little Green Selector did (in case people didn't notice, I was first to add key commands to LGS...methinks Chris did a little disassembling :/ ), and that technique is essentially a dead end -- it requires an actual physical keypress to work. There's nothing I can do to fix this on the CodeKeys end; it will take an update to UIS. Of course, you could always use the latest version of the Little Green Selector instead; it works just fine with CodeKeys in all respects. <grin> The pauses necessary to activate menu items and other GEM objects will vary from system to system, depending on many factors...like which accessories and AUTO programs you have installed, whether you have a 16MHz board, whether you're running an ST or a TT, etc. On my Mega ST with Jim Allen's Turbo 16 board installed, I've found that I don't need any pauses at all between the up and down events in a menu selection macro...but your mileage may vary, as I've said. As for double clicks, I think the manual mentions (under the 'Tricks and Tips' section) that a pause value of '1' between clicks will reliably generate a double click. It will take a little bit of trial and error to determine the optimum pause values for your particular system, but you can use these values as a guideline. - Charles ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 34 Fri Dec 21, 1990 R.GOFF at 20:51 PST I worked quite a while trying to get a double-click on a drive icon to work in Codekeys, trying several timing combinations that never worked. I could get it to select the icon, and I could get it to select and deselect it, but I couldn't get it to open it. Odd. Then, as usual, the workaround I thought up works better than the original idea: simply use the macro to select the icon, and use the macro I already wrote as a keyboard equivalent to the desktop menu 'open' command to open the directory window. Two keystrokes, but more flexible because I can either open it or do a show information on it. Bob ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 35 Sat Dec 22, 1990 V.PATRICELL1 [Vince] at 10:42 EST Codeheads: I was playing around with Qindex the other day and noticed my system was running at 92% in the top 4 categories of the CPU ratings. I decided to try to find out which program or programs were causing the slowdown since I have many programs running from the auto folder. (One of the benefits of 4 megs :) ) After fiddling around a while I fofound Codekeys to slow the system by 5% and Hotwire to affect it by 2%. Is this normal? It must be that these TSR programs (I also found that ILNMULTI.ACC affects the CPU by 1% slowdown) are looking for a keypress or something and they steal CPU speed. Is there anything that can be done? I love your programs and am really nitpicking, but I was just wondering. ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 36 Sat Dec 22, 1990 C.F.JOHNSON [CodeHead] at 11:18 PST Vince, Yes, that's normal, and no, there's nothing that can be done about it. Any TSR program that intercepts system vectors is going to slow the system down a little bit...it can't be helped. And all of our code which does this is already optimized as much as possible; there's no way to get it going any faster. By the way, without Quick Index to tell you about it, do you think you would have ever perceived a slowdown? :) - Charles P.S. Try installing GDOS.PRG if you want to see a _real_ slowdown. And you won't need Quick Index to discover it... :) ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 37 Sat Dec 22, 1990 GSCOTT-MOORE at 17:29 CST \\\--- I have had a number of problems using CodeKeys inside of Dr. T's KCS sequencer. I have found regardless of timings that the bulk of the time a click on a menu item is just not acknowledged. Things work about 1 out of 8 or 9 times and usually leave a pull-down menu down. I have created a macro that goes to another window, opens it and closes it in order to "clear" have finished macros. CodeKeys works great with most other things but periodically I will run into situations where things just don't work. So the solution I stumbled upon recently: If I issue every single click as a double click with moderate pauses between each, it will work as a single click, and rapidly. ec o P If find many things about Dr. T's software that are kind of a nuisance in regard to relationship to system. It wouldn't load with ACC's present at all a few years. It still doesn't behave well with them. \\\--- Gerry Recently ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 38 Sat Dec 22, 1990 C.F.JOHNSON [CodeHead] at 16:20 PST Gerry, That's rather odd. And you say fooling around with pause values doesn't help the situation? Unfortunately, I don't have a version of KCS which allows desk accessories or AUTO programs to work; I have a much earlier version (which I acquired to do a review for ST-Log, lo, these many moons ago), and that version refuses to run on anything but a totally clean system. In any case, I'm glad to hear that you've found a work-around, and thanks for posting it here; perhaps others will be able to benefit from your experiences. - Charles ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 39 Sun Dec 23, 1990 A.HAMILTON1 [Alan] at 03:58 MST I've had something like that happen to me. It will pull down a meny okay, but the click on the menu item isn't recognized. It may have something to do with Kyle Cordes' Mouse Doubler v3.0. When CodeKeys fails to activate a menu item, the mouse doubler is turned off. The "off" code is LS-CTL-ALT-Left Button, which isn't used anywhere in the macro. The doubler can be turned back on just fine by typing LS-ALT-CTL-Right Button. The funny thing is, this doesn't happen every time. Sometimes CodeKeys selects menu items just fine. The correlation between failed selections and doubler turned off is 100%, though. The program I've had that trouble in is ST Alladin, but that may be because it's the only program (right now) that I use macros in. / / * / Alan * * ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 40 Sun Dec 23, 1990 M.SQUIRE [Mike] at 14:36 EST Charles, I designed a CodeKeys .KEY file to use in conjuction with LDW Power (v. 1.1) and have run into a problem. The vast majority of my macro definitions read something like "F5 a Ret" where F5 is the GoTo key and "a" is the name of a cell in the worksheet. Anyway, whenever I am using these macros in a file in which I'm using all capital letters and have the Caps Lock button depressed (i.e., Caps Lock set to on), when I execute my CodeKey macro, it executes and then turns Caps Lock to off! It doesn't matter whether my trigger is defined as Control-A or Control-Alt-A for my macro, the result is the same. Am I doing something wrong or is there a workaround for this problem? Incidentally, I am loading LDW Power from a HotWire menu (v. 2.3) with its corner clock and its Caps Lock arrow visible and it is changed by the CodeKeys macro executing as well. Also, I am using CodeKeys 1.1. ... Mike ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 41 Sun Dec 23, 1990 C.F.JOHNSON [CodeHead] at 13:51 PST Mike, You've encountered a teensy tiny joke in CodeKeys 1.1. After playing a macro, that version always turns CapsLock status off. That will be fixed in version 1.2a. - Charles ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 42 Tue Dec 25, 1990 M.EASTER [Mike] at 03:31 PST Re timed vs untimed macros I'm a little unclear as to when a macro needs to be a timed macro. The manual suggests that those macros needing the mouse should be timed, but I have created both timed and untimed macros to save or append a block (menu items) while running Flash, and both types run. (I have Quick ST installed.) Do some mouse actions need to be timed, but not others? Re compatibility with file selectors I assume that since there was some upgrading of the LGFS for compatibility with CodeKeys, that your old STart selector can't accept a CodeKeys command, such as escape to clear the selection line. (I like the STart selector because I am a memory miser; as soon as I'm satisfied with my Flash Key file, I'll be leaving out the CodeKey acc while in that application.) John E.- Thanks for the recent upload of ShowMem3. It seems to be a newer version than the '88 one by the same name. ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 43 Tue Dec 25, 1990 C.F.JOHNSON [CodeHead] at 13:17 PST Mike, All I can tell you is, if a macro works, it works. Usually, when you're doing macros that have to click on GEM objects, window parts, or stuff like that, you'll get better results if there are pause events between the button clicks that approximate the same pauses you would get by doing the action manually. For instance, I've found that I really do need a pause of about 20/100ths of a second between a mouse down and up event to reliably click on a button in a GEM dialog box -- but clicking on a drop-down menu entry usually seems to work fine without pauses of any kind. And obviously, if the system takes a certain amount of time to draw a dialog box, you'll need to have a pause to allow the box to finish drawing before continuing. (GEM does do some limited "buffering" of mouse button clicks, but it doesn't work predictably most of the time.) It's really a case of ... whatever works for ya. The CodeKeys macro editor makes it pretty easy to play with different pauses, so experiment! :) Actually, since the Start Selector (yech...hate that name) didn't have any keyboard equivalents for its internal commands, CodeKeys will work just fine with it to do things like type in a filename, or hit Esc to clear an editable text line. - Charles ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 44 Tue Dec 25, 1990 M.SQUIRE [Mike] at 19:46 EST Charles, I await the opportunity to upgrade my copy of CodeKeys eagerly, especially now that I'm having this Caps Lock problem. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= I've discovered something related to CodeKeys LNK files that I don't think the manual makes very clear. The manual suggests that when running CODEKEYS.PRG from the AUTO Folder that CODEKEYS.CNF, CODEKEYS.LNK, and CODEKEYS.KEY should be placed in the root directory of your boot disk. When I did this with my LNK files, CODEKEYS.PRG failed to recognize that they were out there. Just as I was about to tear my hair out in frustration, I read through the Version 1.1 release notes file and found the answer - Version 1.1 expects to find the LNK files in the "default path" saved by the CODEKEYS desk accessory using Options Save operation. Now that I've relocated those files to there, CODEKEYS.PRG finds its LNK files every time. While I know that you know all of this, I thought I'd post this information in this topic and point this out explicitly to other CodeKey users. ... Mike ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 45 Tue Dec 25, 1990 M.MOTOGAWA [MEL] at 17:46 PST Mike, I had a similiar situation where I couldn't for the life of me figure out why one of my desk acc's was accessing drive B during the boot process. They should have all been reading their data files off drive C. Finally, I figured it out that somewhere along the line I had done an option save in Codekeys after it had read a .key file from drive B. Changing it to drive C solved the mystery. That path saving ability is a pretty neat feature, though, if you want to nest your .key file somewhere. Mel ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 46 Tue Dec 25, 1990 C.F.JOHNSON [CodeHead] at 20:20 PST Mike, Er, well... you're right, the manual doesn't make that very clear -- because the feature was added after the manual was printed. That's exactly why the manual tells people to be sure to read the README.TXT file on the disk; for instances like this. I don't know how much more explicit we could have been about it, short of tossing out a thousand manuals and starting over...which of course, is not an option. - Charles ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 47 Wed Dec 26, 1990 K.BAD [Ken @ Atari] at 13:48 EST Vince: Although I'm not a Codehead, I'll put my $0.02 in here regarding programs that slow your system down. Auto folder utility programs generally take over what is known on the 68000 as "exceptions." Some have to hook into TOS, some have to take over keyboard handlers, and some handle other interrupt-driven things. Processing these exceptions takes time. Even when these utility programs are doing "nothing", they still have to be on the lookout for the kinds of exceptions that will wake them up. That's why when you run QINDEX, you'll see that some of your processor time is taken up by these programs, which are on the lookout for the specific exceptions they were designed to handle. Poorly designed "exception handlers" can take as much as 25% of your CPU time, even if they aren't actually doing anything but waiting for something to do! Not only that, but normal things that interrupt the CPU will show slowdowns with QINDEX. Try running it some time and while it's doing its test, move the mouse around a whole lot. You'll see a dramatic slowdown... but what you're really seeing is the mouse exception handlers taking care of moving the mouse around on the screen. In short: yes, it's normal for TSR utilities, or anything that has to hook into TOS to slow your system down. Five percent is an extremely small price to pay for the utility of a macro program like CodeKeys. In fact, you generally won't even notice anything unless you have enough exception-handling TSRs loaded to take ten percent or more of what you're used to. Did you notice your system slowing down before you ran QINDEX? If you did, you're more sensitive to the speed of your system than most users. Anything less than a 10% change is negligible in normal usage. Another reason I'm going to such lengths to explain this is that exception handling speed is something the Codeheads pride themselves on. They do a really good job of writing streamlined utilities that give a lot without taking anything from you. If they took the time to squeeze an extra 2 or 3 percent out of their trap handlers, there is no doubt in my mind that they could do it. BUT, it would take quite a bit of time. Frankly, I'd rather see them spending that time working on new programs, or enhancing features. I mean, I can just see Charles, staring at his CodeKeys exception handlers, wondering if he could squeeze a few cycles here, skip that instruction there... It's not worth it, Charles! Don't do it! Counting cycles leads to the Dark Side... once you start memorizing those instruction timings, forever will they dominate your destiny! Consume you, they will! ttfn... (*ken*) ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 48 Wed Dec 26, 1990 C.F.JOHNSON [CodeHead] at 18:20 PST Ken, >> If they took the time to squeeze an extra 2 or 3 percent out of >> their trap handlers, there is no doubt in my mind that they >> could do it. Actually, if you can see a way for our exception handlers to trim 2 or 3 percent out of their overhead and reduce it from a 5% (with _both_ HotWire and CodeKeys installed) to 2% slowdown, please...tell me, I'd love to know! <grin> If you mean 2% of the _remaining_ 5%, though, I can see that...maybe. If I did count instruction cycles. Hmmm. Where was that table of instruction cycles again? Actually, it's useful to have knowledge of instruction cycles, even in a general sense, so you know which ones take the most time and how to optimize code effectively. But unless speed is the _only_ consideration, it's usually pretty foolish to count cycles and write your code according to their runic pronouncements. A little like pawing through goat entrails to read the future, if you ask me. <insert manic laughter here> - Charles ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 49 Thu Dec 27, 1990 NTACTONE [Ron Hunter] at 04:13 CST Unless, of course, you are trying to write something like Spectrum 512. Now THAT is a program with cycle counting, by the numbers! ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 50 Thu Dec 27, 1990 J.EIDSVOOG1 [CodeHead] at 03:09 PST Actually Ken, I did spend a few days working on a scheme to have a program share another's keyboard interrupt by hooking into an existing one if it found it. But by the time the scheme was honed and the protocol worked out, it just didn't seem to be improving things enough to implement it in all of our programs. Believe me, folks, we think a _lot_ about speed and the overhead our interrupts cause. We're also constantly reminding each other not to forget to add a little speed here and there in each of our programs...it's been a running joke since reading a comment on a very early registration card. The user wanted us to add more speed-related features to G+Plus. :^) John ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 51 Thu Dec 27, 1990 V.PATRICELL1 [Vince] at 19:23 EST I really haven't noticed any slowdown in the system, but even if I did, both Codekeys and Hotwire is worth it :^) I have an ICD Adspeed I got for Christmas I am having installed next week anyway. Thanks Ken for the great explanation and thanks John and Charles for *GREAT* Programs! .......................................Vince ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 52 Thu Dec 27, 1990 M.SQUIRE [Mike] at 21:07 EST Mel, I didn't nest my KEY files at first, but after awhile, it became apparent that for convenience sake, that was the way to go. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Charles, I didn't think that the READ.ME file was clear enough either. It states that the CODEKEY.CNF file -must- be in the root directory (when you run CODEKEYS.PRG from the AUTO Folder), inferring that, perhaps, the LNK and default KEY files may now (in Version 1.1) be located elsewhere. No criticism was intended in my earlier message - I just wanted to alert other CodeKey users who may read this GEnie topic that they needed to put their LNK files in the default path and spare them some need less grief. I gain new insights from this Roundtable on how to do things better and want to return the favor where I can. ... Mike ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 53 Fri Dec 28, 1990 ST-INFORMER [ ] at 03:28 EST Charles, Actually, I hate disassembling code to see how it works - I have enough trouble understanding my own code, let alone anyone elses. What I really did was something far simpler and more direct. I called you on the phone and asked you how _you_ did it in LGS... and you told me :-). I'm surprised you don't remember. As for your new method... when would be a good time to call again? Just leave me EMail and we'll go from there :-). --Chris Latham ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 54 Fri Dec 28, 1990 C.F.JOHNSON [CodeHead] at 12:45 PST Chris, You called and asked me? Really? Sheesh. Well, I guess I'm seeing the effects of the wild 60s and 70s on my grey matter then. Boy, is my face red. I still don't remember, even after having my grey matter jogged (maybe you talked to John at the office?), but hey, if you say so, I'll take your word for it. Sorry about the "dissassembling" comment. If you want to talk about the new method, call any time. - Charles ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 55 Sun Jan 06, 1991 L.OBRIEN2 [Lyn] at 20:15 PST This question probably has already been asked, but since I am using ST Aladdin to reply to this topic for the first time, I will just be finding out about some of the dialog going on in this top...... Q: How do you get CODEKEYS to load a default set of macros when it loads into MULTIDESK? Thanks! -Lyn- ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 56 Mon Jan 07, 1991 NTACTONE [Ron Hunter] at 05:47 CST Lyn, I don't have the most current version of MultiDesk, (shut up Charles), but it works on mine, PROVIDED I don't have one set up as a scheduled macro, which crashes the whole thing. You have to get the default file in the right directory. ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 57 Mon Jan 07, 1991 M.MENNINO [Mike] at 22:05 MST Charles & John, I got Codekeys a few days ago and it's great! It took a few hours to get the hang of it, but it was well worth the time. I've written a few useful macros (even some for my wife's use... is she ever impressed!), and have plans for many more. Heck, I don't remember having so much fun on the ol' ST. Here's some ideas I'd like to see someday: 1. How about a built-in function (what I call your special events, like INSERT DATE, PAUSE, etc.) that does nothing but display the current x/y coordinates as the mouse scrolls. That's all the macro would have in it. It could be terminated via an ESC key. This would eliminate guessing mouse coordinates when building other macros. 2. Speaking of INSERT DATE, I'd like to see a numeric format, as in mmddyy. (ex: 011591). I often make files using the date, like when saving GEnie captures, I'll save it as GEddmmyy.TXT. Another use could be with word processing letter files. With a numeric date, one could automate file creation based on the date completely. Well, that's it for now. Thanks for the great software! Mike ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 58 Tue Jan 08, 1991 M.MOTOGAWA [MEL] at 18:05 PST Mike, I thought of that too, of being able to insert the date in a format of mm/dd. That way you could type a filename into the file selector with 4 letters and let the last 4 spaces be for the month/date. Like ALAD0108.LZH. I keep track of some of my archives like this and can tell at a glance which one is the oldest. This would let you keep track of the date of your files without paging (in an alternate file selector) to the date section. But my files are timestamped and my disk cataloging program does show the date in the same window as the filename, so I don't know if this format would be more trouble for Charles to code. But I do like the idea of a general time/date insert for my wp needs. - Mel ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 59 Wed Jan 09, 1991 J.EIDSVOOG1 [CodeHead] at 00:23 PST We don't have plans to change the date format of CodeKeys, but very soon we'll be releasing a special program we wrote for Aladdin (a couple of them actually) call DATENAME. It renames files using the current date just as you mentioned. Chaining it (in HotWire) to Aladdin will allow you to automatically archive your Aladdin captures to daily files instead of accumulating a cumbersome multi-megabyte file. John ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 60 Sun Jan 13, 1991 R.GOFF at 01:51 PST I'm not sure you found this 'joke' in Codekeys yet, so I'll mention that it seems to choke on tabs in the link file. I added a program to the link file and used a tab to separate the program name and the link file name, then couldn't figure out why the computer wouldn't boot correctly. Took the tab out and all was well. Bob ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 61 Sun Jan 13, 1991 C.F.JOHNSON [CodeHead] at 09:53 PST Bob, The manual clearly states (on page 30) that the program name must be separated from the linked .KEY file by "any number of spaces," and tabs ain't spaces. No bugs here; you can't use tabs in a LINK file because CodeKeys wasn't designed that way. - Charles P.S. I sure am glad that these kinds of "bugs" are the only ones being mentioned. The new upgrade (soon! soon!) takes care of all the more serious ones that have been reported, as well as a few that haven't been. ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 62 Mon Jan 14, 1991 FAIRWEATHER [David] at 18:54 PST What about the Neoload/Neocntrl.Acc - Codekeys incompatibility? Gribnif's last message on this indicated they had more or less tossed the ball back to you on this one. ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 63 Mon Jan 14, 1991 C.F.JOHNSON [CodeHead] at 22:10 PST David, The upcoming release of CodeKeys 1.2a (soon! soon!) includes code to fix that problem. Once again, what we have here is a clash of techniques; no one is really at fault. (Or else both of us are. <g>) Dan has indicated to me that there may be a new release of NEOLOAD to ensure that the problem doesn't occur with anything else, somewhere down the line. - Charles ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 64 Wed Jan 16, 1991 GSCOTT-MOORE at 21:43 CST \\\--- Charles: This is probably long since done, but would it be possible to operate the cursor controls to move down the list of commands in a macro? In this way I could hit my down-cursor, hit "R" for replace, modify it, hit down-cursor again, hit d for delete, etc. In this way I could avoid shuffling about for the mouse between mods. Thanks for consideration. \\\--- Gerry ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 65 Sat Jan 19, 1991 J.SAFFER [JASON SAFFER] at 12:03 PST John and Charles....I've been trying to set up a macro that will invoke Hotsaver with the press of one key vs. having to press control/right shift/alternate/tab. But I've had no luck. Any advice on this one? I've tried to simply designate my one key of choice and then hit the control combination to call up Hotsaver. But it doesn't seem to work. Thanks for your help on this one. ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 66 Mon Jan 21, 1991 J.EIDSVOOG1 [CodeHead] at 09:10 PST Jason, The technique used by HotSaver to read its keys does not "see" keypresses used by CodeKeys (much like UIS). This will be fixed in a future version of HotSaver. John ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 67 Sat Feb 02, 1991 GSCOTT-MOORE at 19:21 CST \\\--- Codeheads: I have always been kind of unsure about that prompt you get after modifying macros and then exiting the program. I took an editor and searched for the "Macros may have changed" msg in your code and changed the question part to "Abandon? (y/n)" or whatever it is. It use to be "Save?", right? Save which? It was confusing. Don't know if I am all alone on this or whether the "abandon" item might be good for future use. Thought I'd pass it on. \\\--- Gerry ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 68 Sat Feb 02, 1991 WAYNED. [Wayne] at 23:40 EST John, I think I'm having the same problem as Sandy, or one very similiar. I have a couple macrose I like to use with HotWire and have them saved in a res dependent file. During the bootup process I get the message on the screen saying it's loading CODEKEY2.KEY (hi res), but the macros won't work until I either use LOADKEY to load them in again, or boot up CODEKEYS.ACC. Any ideas? Wayne ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 69 Sat Feb 02, 1991 NTACTONE [Ron Hunter] at 22:44 CST Charles, I have finally gotten around to spending some time working with CodeKeys, and I am pulling out what little remaining hair I have. I am trying to set up a CodeKeys macro to call the control panel (it is in MultiDesk), and click on the RS232 box, and then on OK, and then close the control panel, and go back to the desktop (or other function). I have been able, after some painful trial and error to get it to work, after a fashion, by calling MultiDesk, then clicking on the control panel, RS232 button, OK, and close box, then exiting MultiDesk. But WHY won't it work when I call the CP by using my PopIt hotkey? It just calls the CP and the CodeKeys macro seems to terminate. I am obviously missing something, or I need upgrades to some, or all of these programs... Help. ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 70 Sat Feb 02, 1991 C.F.JOHNSON [CodeHead] at 22:58 PST Wayne, If you open the CodeKeys accessory immediately after booting up, does it show your default set of macros, or is it blank? Ron, You need to turn on the 'LOCK' button for that macro to get it to work when you call the Control Panel with a PopIt! key. The reason your macro is aborting at that point is that PopIt! "fakes" a mouse interrupt when it opens an acc (to make sure the mouse cursor won't be hidden)...and since CodeKeys aborts a macro playback if the mouse is moved, your macro stops right there. If you turn on 'LOCK', CodeKeys will ignore PopIt!'s pseudo mouse movement and everything should work fine. - Charles ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 71 Sun Feb 03, 1991 WAYNED. [Wayne] at 21:41 EST Charles, No matter when I put up CodeKeys.acc it shows my default set of macros. The only time it's blank is if I rename, or delete CODEKEYx.KEY (x being for the res). The other sets of macros I have set for certain programs load in just fine when I execute those programs. When I come back my default set still doesn't work unless I have loaded in CODEKEYS.ACC at some point. Once I load that in my default set works fine and reloads after I exit a program with an alternate set of macros. Larry, I've found that my link file(s) work fine without loading CODEKEYS.ACC. My only problem when I don't load CODEKEYS.ACC is that my bootup default .KEY file doesn't seem to function as stated above. Wayne ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 72 Mon Feb 04, 1991 NTACTONE [Ron Hunter] at 05:44 CST Charles, thanks. I KNEW it was something simple. Now maybe I can proceed to use CodeKeys more. Who knows, might even order an upgrade or two.. Nawwww. ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 73 Wed Feb 06, 1991 J.EIDSVOOG1 [CodeHead] at 03:40 PST Gerry, If you're using a linked KEY file and you make changes to your macros, you will get the following message when exiting the linked program: Macros may have been changed! Restore? Yes, this message is confusing, but what it means is that you have not saved the changes you've made and normally your previous macros will be restored, losing the changes you've made. If you don't mind losing those changes, you can answer 'Y'es, I want to restore. This is explained quite clearly (more clearly) on pages 30-31. Sometimes we intentionally make things more difficult for those who don't have the manual...sometimes it's just an accident. Wayne, There is no message during the bootup of CodeKeys telling you what KEY file is loading. If you're getting a message saying it's loading CODEKEY2.KEY, then you must have it linked to a program. You wouldn't be auto-starting Neodesk by any chance, would you?? :^) Every time you run a link-listed program, the designated KEY file is loaded. When you exit from that program, your default (desktop) macros are restored. The restore process does not happen with nested execution of programs, however. (This is not in the manual, BTW :^). Example: You boot up and have CODEKEY2.KEY loaded (at desktop level). You run Neodesk with NEODESK.KEY linked...it loads. You run Aladdin with ALADDIN.KEY linked and it loads. When you exit from Aladdin back to Neodesk, CodeKeys will still contain your ALADDIN.KEY file. When you exit from Neodesk, your CODEKEY2.KEY macros will be restored, including any unsaved changes you may have made while originally on the desktop. Solutions: 1. If you want to use a desktop replacement that runs as a program, don't define a link file for it, just use your default KEY file. In other words, keep your Neodesk macros in your CODEKEY2.KEY file. That way you can run linked programs and have your macros restored when you exit from them. 2. Stick with HotWire. :^) Larry, You don't need the CodeKeys accessory to use link files. They'll work fine with just CODEKEYS.PRG in your AUTO folder. You won't have resolution dependent link files, however. You must use CODEKEYS.LNK for automatic loading, although you can use LOADKEYS to load a different LNK or KEY file. Don't forget that you can also run CODEKEYS.ACC as a program if you want to save memory and only occasionally edit your macros. John ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 74 Thu Feb 07, 1991 DILWORTH [John D] at 05:14 PST J. Eidsvoog: The others are right about the default Codekeys.key: unless you run the ACC as well as the AUTO Codekeys.prg, you get no default resolution dependent .key file. If I run the ACC from Hotwire, all is ok too; but anyway you do it the ACC has to be run for the CODEKEYS.KEY to default as intended. BTW: Your Xmas offer was the best present I got this year! John D ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 75 Thu Feb 07, 1991 C.F.JOHNSON [CodeHead] at 09:13 PST That's correct -- unless you install the CodeKeys desk accessory, the res- dependent .KEY file doesn't load. The reason for this is simple: at bootup (AUTO folder) time, when CODEKEYS.PRG runs, the system may be in a different resolution than the one it will end up in when the desktop comes up. So CODEKEYS.PRG has no way of knowing which res-dependent KEY file to load. - Charles ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 76 Thu Feb 07, 1991 WAYNED. [Wayne] at 21:18 EST John, *** My reply edited since it was answered later in the topic *** I don't autostart NeoDesk. I only load that for certain things. I've got too much stuff on my Hotwire menus' and like the ability to run darned near everything right there on my main menu. My main menu has my most used utils/games/telecomm/etc and then I have seperate .HOT's for the specifics. One of these days I'll probably get around to creating new desktops for NeoDesk3 and use it a bit more often, but then again you don't want to hear that. :-) Wayne ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 77 Thu Feb 07, 1991 J.T.GILMORE [J.T.G.] at 23:15 PST Wayne, I'm like you, I bought Neodesk 3 at the Glendale Atari show when it was introduced. I was assured by the Gribnif people in their booth that Neodesk was compatible with HotWire. Well after getting home I found out I had to exit Neodesk to use HotWire, I was a little pissed, but I guess they were correct... it does work with HotWire. Anyway, I'm not the type to get upset about little things like this so I continued to use Neodesk for a while (2 long and grueling days, at least they seemed long and grueling without HotWire). So after 2 days of careful deliberation I finally came up with a solution to this problem...Neodesk 3 now resides back in it's nicely done little box and there it will remain as a nice bookshelf ornament. Now don't get me wrong, Neodesk 3 is a terrific program and to someone who hasn't used HotWire and MaxiFile it would seem like a spiritual deliverance from the ST desktop. But I'm solidly hooked on HotWire and those 2 days were enough to make me realise that I really don't care to live without it or destroy it's usefulness by using Neodesk. I guess I don't need pretty pictures on the desktop, I don't need fancy bells and whistles (although the CodeHeads offer enough of those), all I want is sheer unadulterated POWER. That's what I get from HotWire and that's what keeps me from switching to some other excellent alternatives on my ST. Enough rambling, I just wanted to let the CodeHeads and the others on this topic know my views on this. John ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 78 Fri Feb 08, 1991 WAYNED. [Wayne] at 22:51 EST J.T.G., Gee I think Hotwire has even more bells and whistles than NeoDesk. They're just not as 'pretty'. (elegant yes, but rather plain to the eye) The only thing I've found that NeoDesk can do that I haven't been able to do in HotWire is to redirect output to another device. For instance many of the new ARC/Lharc utilities don't support IO redirection to printer or files, but by using the command line in NeoDesk (for a .ttp file) I can redirect their output to the printer, or a file. Real handy for getting hardcopy, or a file containing a list of the files in a large ARC/Lharc. Wayne P.S. Now that I've said that Charles or John will surely point out that it can be done with HotWire and make me look like a dolt. :-) ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 79 Fri Feb 08, 1991 NTACTONE [Ron Hunter] at 22:45 CST John Gilmore, I feel pretty much as you do about NeoDesk 3. It is a great program, but there is NO way I am going to give up PopIt, HowWire, CodeRam, and MultiDesk to use it. Besides, I HATE icons. In case you are wondering, the ONLY CodeHead packages I DON'T own are the MIDI package, and G+ Plus, since I have NO musical talent, and little interest, and I refuse to use any program that depends on GDOS. I guess you could call me a real CodeHead fan. Now if I could just afford to keep all those things UPGRADED. Grin. ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 80 Sun Feb 10, 1991 GSCOTT-MOORE at 10:46 CST \\\--- John: Regarding the "Restore" question. I did understand it all at one time. But when prompted I had to stop for a few seconds to recalculate which way was north. That's why I hacked it to "Abandon?" Thought it might be of use to you for future, less confusing versions of the program--though not necessarily the docs. If your intent, as you seem to imply, is to confuse illegal users, you've succeeded by confusing them as well as a few others. This was not really a great problem per se on my part, but a suggestion for modification. Everytime I see the siting of pages I always take it as an implication that I bootlegged the program. I didn't. And for those, not to include myself, who don't read the manuals or don't read them well enough, let's not forget that the scope of most of the CodeHead programs is so broad that it can be difficult figuring out how to do things with the most well-written of docs. And though not bad at all, they aren't exactly Steinbeck. For instance, despite all the periodic update scraps I have from 2 or three manuals and 3 or 4 READ.ME's I still don't understand anything about how to use the work files area of HotWire. And I swear I've read every scrap of text on programmable command lines and still I have to re-read them all over again when I want to change items. I must have done this 12 times. Your loyal regularly updating user... \\\--- Gerry ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 81 Sun Feb 10, 1991 C.WALTERS1 [Chet] at 13:52 EST HOTWIRE - the next best thing to a direct thought interface.... Someday those CodeHead boys will use that phrase in their ads and I can get a commission ;) ______Chet at \/\/iz\/\/orks :^{) ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 82 Tue Feb 12, 1991 R.FLASHMAN [Rick@Gribnif] at 15:25 EST Ron, Not wanting to change the topic at all, just thought I would make something clear less some unknowing user get confused. You don't have to give up PopIt, HotWire, CodeRam, or MultiDesk if you use NeoDesk. Many of our users use all those utilities too. Now back to your regularly scheduled channel. ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 83 Wed Feb 13, 1991 J.T.GILMORE [J.T.G.] at 23:19 PST Rick, You're right I don't have to give up Neodesk to use Hotwire, all I have to do is exit Neodesk to use Hotwire (I was told that when I called Gribnif after I was misled by you're guys at the Glendale show). If you have a way to use Hotwire (with all it's features) and other Codehead products then please enlighten me (and also enlighten you're customer support guys I talked to), and I'll give you're product another try. Barring that...how 'bout buying a hardly used version of Neodesk 3? John ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 84 Thu Feb 14, 1991 NTACTONE [Ron Hunter] at 03:29 CST Rick, Perhaps it is because I haven't upgraded my CodeHead programs, but NONE of them I tried worked with NeoDesk 3.0. My dealer kindly let me return it. NeoDesk is an amazing system, but I feel the overhead it introduces into the system isn't repaid by its utility, UNLESS one has 2 meg or more, and/or a HD. Since the CodeHead programs are rather 'modular' one can use what he needs, and/or can spare the ram for. If it is fancy icons I wanted, I would have bought a Mac. ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 85 Thu Feb 14, 1991 DOUG.W at 22:41 EST Hmmm... I use LookIt, PopIt, CodeKeys, LGS, MaxiFile, MultiDesk, Desk Manager G+Plus, and ShowMem from Codehead, Charles, and John with NeoDesk 3 with no problems. I personally prefer icons and as such prefer NeoDesk to Hotwire, although I haven't heard of any compatibility problems between them. JTG and Ron, what kind of problems did you experience?? --Doug ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 86 Fri Feb 15, 1991 W.LORING1 at 00:13 EST Charles or John, I'm running Overscan on my 2.5 meg 520, and I'm wondering about a little quirk that I've noticed with its' interaction with CodeKeys. When I boot in normal mode, my CODEKEY1.LNK & .KEY files are taken from C:\UTILITIES\CODEHEAD\CODEKEYS\. However, when I boot in Overscan (720*240 medium rez), Codekeys loads the CODEKEYS.LNK & .KEY files from C:\, and ignores the res dependent files. Any idea why this happens this way? Mind you, I'm not complaining, since this gives me a way to load a different LNK & KEY file for Overscan, I'm just curious. ...bill <-- I gotta start coming up with better macros that this one! ;^) ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 87 Thu Feb 14, 1991 C.F.JOHNSON [CodeHead] at 22:27 PST Sandy, If I'm reading you correctly, you've saved your default set of macros under the name CODEKEYS.CNF. If that's right, then we've found the cause of your troubles. When CodeKeys starts up, it looks for a default macro file called CODEKEYS.KEY .... NOT CODEKEYS.CNF. (Please notice the different extensions!) CODEKEYS.CNF is the file that CodeKeys writes when you save your configuration with the 'Save' button in the 'Options' box. If you rename that file from CODEKEYS.CNF to CODEKEYS.KEY, everything should start working right for you. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Bill, When CodeKeys detects that it's running on a screen larger than one of the ST's 'canned' sizes, it looks for a file called CODEBIG.KEY for its default macros. If you save your overscan macros as CODEBIG.KEY, you can put them in your \CODEKEYS\ folder and they'll be read at bootup. (This is in the README file on your disk.) When CodeKeys doesn't find a res-dependent .KEY file in the directory you've saved with your configuration, it then looks for CODEKEYS.KEY and CODEKEYS.LNK in the root of your boot drive. - Charles ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 88 Fri Feb 15, 1991 NTACTONE [Ron Hunter] at 05:04 CST Doug, What kind of problems? Inability to access HotWire. Loss of hotkeys (the main reason I use HotWire). No access to MultiDesk .ACCS. No access to PopIt. No access to CodeKeys. I COULD get LGS up, at least. It seems that NeoDesk takes over ALL the vectors that the CodeHead programs use, and does NOT give them back. Perhaps the difference is that since I have 4 meg I was keeping NeoDesk resident. Since I despise icons (can't get very many, or distinguish them well on color monitor), I have no use for many of the NeoDesk features pertaining to the fancy icons. There ARE some features of NeoDesk I really like, like the desktop notes, and their improved control panel. I have always wondered why Charles hasn't come out with an improved control panel a la Harlekin, which doens't seem to be available in the US. ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 89 Fri Feb 15, 1991 DILWORTH [John D] at 06:13 PST G. Scott-Moore: I have to agree! The whole description of work files is exceptionally confusing. Codehead, however, did say in their Version 2.0 Release Notes that this was a "highly technical" area, and had plans for a tutorial. Sure wish that tutorial was out. John D ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 90 Fri Feb 15, 1991 GRIBNIF [Dan] at 16:23 EST Ron, While NeoDesk may use many of the same vectors as the various CodeHead products, I must say that your statement that "NeoDesk takes over ALL the vectors that the CodeHead programs use, and does NOT give them back," is a bit puzzling. One of the main reasons for making NEOLOAD.PRG usuable in the AUTO folder was for this very effect: so that NeoDesk could quit and still leave all of its vectors in tact. John and Charles have said time and time again that a program should not attempt to "give back" a vector it has chained itself into. If by that statement, however, you are referring to the fact that HotWire's keystroke execution of programs is not available within NeoDesk, then you are correct. This is due to the implementation of the two programs, and is not a bug in either. HotWire can always be run as a program from within NeoDesk, and MaxiFile as a desk accessory. As far as I know, the one or two small incompatibilities between NeoDesk 3 and current versions of CodeHead products can be easily fixed by obtaining upcoming versions of NeoDesk or CodeKeys. MultiDesk works great. LookIt and PopIt are marvelous. We use CodeKeys daily. Perhaps, if you had asked here online or called our techinical support line, we would have been able to help you to get things running. Thousands of users can't all be wrong. My apologies to the topic police for such a long letter in a less-than- appropriate category. Dan ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 91 Sun Feb 17, 1991 F.OLIVAS [Fred O.] at 15:31 PST Here, here. I too do not understand the link function or the work files section of CodeKeys. I feel that there is tremendous power there however I don't yet know how to tap into that portion of the program....................................................Fred ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 92 Wed Feb 20, 1991 C.F.JOHNSON [CodeHead] at 11:36 PST Hi all, I just discovered that John's message contains a line that causes Aladdin to stop capturing it in mid-stream. Just for your information, this line is " --- ---------" (a space followed by 12 hyphens, followed by a carriage return). This is the line that GEnie puts after each message, and apparently Aladdin also looks for this line to signal the end of a message. The moral of this story is: don't use a line consisting of only those characters if you'd like your messages to be readable by Aladdin! (John: maybe you wanna delete your message now?) Anyway, here's John's message again, edited to avoid the offending line: =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Since I wrote the CodeKeys manual and there seems to be a lot of confusion about how CodeKeys handles its files, I thought I'd try to explain it in a different way to see if it is more easily understandable. File Definitions: CODEKEYS.PRG - The required guts of CodeKeys, usually run from the AUTO folder but may be run from the desktop. CODEKEYS.ACC - The optional CodeKeys editor, usually installed as an accessory (MultiDesk compatible), but may be run as a program (change it to CKEYSACC.PRG) to save memory. CODEKEYS.CNF - Optional configuration file, created by "Save" in the Options dialog box. Contains the default path, and settings for macros on/off, use link file, bells (global), restore, scheduling, lock, and start/stop key combinations. CODEKEY?.KEY - A default file of macro definitions containing from 1 to 32 macros. The question mark may be 'S' or 0-9 (Also CODEBIG.KEY). ????????.KEY - File of 1-32 macro definitions to be loaded manually, through the link process, or by LoadKeys. Question marks may be any valid file character. CODEKEY?.LNK - A text file containing a list of program names and the full pathnames of the KEY files to be loaded when those programs run. The question mark may be 'S' or 0-9. The Installation process ------------------------ Auto folder of boot drive: \AUTO\CODEKEYS.PRG looks for: \CODEKEYS.CNF (root directory) \CODEKEYS.KEY (root directory) From desktop or shell (any directory): CODEKEYS.PRG looks for: CODEKEYS.CNF (same directory) CODEKEYS.KEY (same directory) CODEKEYS.LNK (same directory) Accessory installation (bootup, MultiDesk, res-change, or run as a program): CODEKEYS.ACC (or CKEYSACC.PRG) looks for: Low Res: CODEKEY0.KEY CODEKEY0.LNK Med Res: CODEKEY1.KEY CODEKEY1.LNK Hi Res: CODEKEY2.KEY CODEKEY2.LNK TT Low: CODEKEY7.KEY CODEKEY7.LNK TT Med: CODEKEY4.KEY CODEKEY4.LNK TT High: CODEKEY6.KEY CODEKEY6.LNK Unknown: CODEKEYx.KEY CODEKEYx.LNK, CODEBIG.KEY CODEBIG.LNK If none of these are found, CodeKeys will use the files found by CODEKEYS.PRG: CODEKEYS.CNF CODEKEYS.KEY CODEKEYS.LNK The accessory (as an ACC or a program) will search the default path defined in CODEKEYS.CNF if it exists, otherwise it will search the same directory as it resides. The default path that is contained in CODEKEYS.CNF is whatever was on the directory line of the file selector (including the extension) the last time a KEY file was loaded or saved before you did a "Save" from the Options box. The Link Process ---------------- A .LNK file looks like this: CODEKEYS: ; WWRITER.PRG C:\CODEHEAD\CODEKEYS\WWRITER.KEY FLASH.PRG C:\CODEHEAD\CODEKEYS\CNFRENCE.KEY PUBLISH.APP C:\CODEHEAD\CODEKEYS\PUBLISH.KEY ALADDIN.PRG C:\CODEHEAD\CODEKEYS\ALADDIN.KEY Link files are described fully on page 30 of you manual. Read it. The easiest way to create a link file is to use MakeLink. It will allow you to create a link file, or load, save, add to, or delete from an existing one. If you use HotWire it's handy to chain from MakeLink into LoadKeys with a command line to load your default link file. This will automatically update the changes you've made to your link file into CodeKeys. My command line looks like this: C:\CODEHEAD\CODEKEYS\CODEKEY2.LNK~ See page 32 for details on installing LoadKeys into HotWire, and see your HotWire manual for details on chaining. Whenever a program is run from the desktop or a shell, CodeKeys searches its link file for that program name (it can be run from any directory). If it finds a match it will save your current 32 macros (in an allocated memory block), load the KEY file assigned to that program, and display the message: "Loading: XXXXXXXX.KEY" at the top of the screen (usually very quickly). Finer points of link files: 1. Before the link file is loaded, your current macros are saved, even if they have been changed and not saved to disk. They will be restored exactly as you left them with changes intact. 2. The linked KEY file will load only as many macros as it contains, starting with macro 1. This allows you to keep global macros that you use system-wide in higher-numbered slots and load program-specific macros into lower-numbered slots. 3. Your current macros will not be restored until you exit from the first program for which a linked KEY file was loaded. In other words, macros will not be restored after running nested programs. a. You run the Neodesk program, linking NEODESK.KEY. b. From Neodesk you run Aladdin, linking ALADDIN.KEY. c. When you exit from Aladdin to Neodesk, CodeKeys will still contain your ALADDIN.KEY macros. d. When you exit Neodesk your original macros will be restored. It's best not to link KEY files to shell programs, but rather use your default macros. If Neodesk were not assigned a linked KEY file, the above process would work correctly with Aladdin. 4. If you make changes to your macros while a linked KEY file is loaded, remember to save them before exiting. If you haven't saved, you'll get the message: "Macros may have been changed! Restore?". You then have the option of saying, "Y"es, restore and lose the changes, or "N"o, don't restore, so that you may save the changes you've made. This second choice means that you will have lost any changes made to your original macros before running the linked program. If no changes were made to them, you'll be able to manually load them again. 5. The link process does not require the CodeKeys accessory, only CODEKEYS.PRG. Almost all of this information is contained in the CodeKeys documentation. I'm "giving it away" here because it may make it more clear to have it all described in one place in a new way. This information is intended for our legitimate users and we thank you very much for your support. There are, however, thousands of GEnie users who read these messages (we've barely sold 500 CodeKeys). Those that will use this information with copies of CodeKeys for which they did not pay should feel extremely guilty, although it would be wishful thinking on my part to hope they'd feel guilty enough to _buy_ CodeKeys. Just be aware that besides the lack of any real marketing ability on the part of Atari, it is piracy that has contributed the most to the current near-demise of CodeHead Software. My heart goes out to our loyal users who will suffer the most (next to us) if we do not produce any more new Atari products. John Eidsvoog CodeHead Software ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 93 Thu Feb 28, 1991 A.CASSINO at 22:30 PST Hi, I purchased one of the 500 copies of CodeKeys, and I need some help of a different kind. I spend all day at work running a 68030 UNIX workstation developing firmware for an embedded 68000 system, but I'll be danged if I have found something I need a macro for on my ST... I've had fun playing with CodeKeys but come up blank for a _use_! I gather that's not a problem with most of the folks here, so maybe some of you could post a quick example or two to get me off top dead center! Thanks! Andy Cassino ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 94 Fri Mar 01, 1991 STARFALL [Alan] at 01:07 MST Easy! I use Aladdin for my GEnie sessions, and have a couple of CodeKeys macros for use with it. My signature is an obvious one. I have another macro programed to IGN PERM the current topic by going into the Mark- Repy OldTopics dialog. That one I use all the time. / / * / Alan <--CodeKeys macro * * ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 95 Fri Mar 01, 1991 NTACTONE [Ron Hunter] at 05:02 CST Andy, I know the feeling. I had CodeKeys for about 4 months before I actually USED it. In the first place, I seem to have trouble getting timed macros adjusted so that they work reliably, and fast enough that I can't do the same thing faster manually, but once they are 'tweeked', they are great. I use one to call the control panel to reset the colors after programs that change the screen colors. Also, I have found that Flash leaves the RS232 interface configured differently from what STalker expects, and I have a macro that resets that. I also have one the enters the '*.*' into the selection box in LGS. So far, that's about it, but the uses are limited only by your needs, and imagination. If it is several keystrokes, and you type it often, like a name, or address, why not let CodeKeys type it for you? ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 96 Fri Mar 01, 1991 L.NOVAK [Larry] at 18:54 CST Andy, A handy one that I kind of like is the ability to get a quick disk directory while using Flash. I have set up ALT D to give me a directory listing of D partition, Instead of having to type 'insert' and then dir d:\*.* <ret>. I also have a nifty one for Aladdin that will toggle the file listing within the ST Roundtable. I only want to check for new files about twice a week and instead of going thru all of the dropdowns, I just hit ALT keypad -. Hope this helps a tad. ...Larry ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 97 Sat Mar 02, 1991 W.LORING1 [BL.A.ST] at 00:15 EST Aladdin is a prime example of a good place to use CodeKeys... Actually, any form of modem communication is a nice place for it. I've got signature macros: ...bill William Loring (okay, these two are pretty boring.) ...and message spacers: -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- ...I've got a dozen macros for Aladdin menu items, and I haven't even scratched the surface! I still need to convert the ones that the CodeHeads made... they were designed for High rez, and I'm in medium. Now there would be a neat utility... calculate new screen coordinates for macros, based on starting and ending resolutions... is it possible? I've also made macros for PageStream, which will move the window around by clicking in the scroll bars. This idea can be used in any GEM window that doesn't have keyboard equivalents for moving. I can also move to different pages of a document. There are other things as well, and I don't even really consider myself an 'expert' at this at all... why, I haven't even _tried_ a scheduled macro yet! I guess I'm just not organized enough to do things at the same time every day! (grin) ...bill ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 98 Fri Mar 01, 1991 M.MOTOGAWA [MEL] at 21:37 PST When I have a filename that I always call up, like in my database, I have Codekeys call the file selector and type the name in and hit Return. Saves me the trouble of finding it in the file selector. I formerly used Codekeys to click on the filename, but sometimes the location of the filename would change as files are added/deleted. It's fast, next best thing to accepting a commandline. - Mel ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 99 Sat Mar 02, 1991 LARRY.D [ST*LIBRARY] at 01:07 EST No uses for CODEKEYS? How about some of this.... 1> Make keyboard equivilents for pull down menus in programs that don't have any. 2> Automate redundant operations. I use this feature in Calamus a bunch. I just made a 50+ page calendar-like document for work, and found that I needed to place one frame in each page in the background. I made a macro using CodeKeys, then had it repeated 50 times. Made it much easier, and less frustrating than just sitting doing a mindless point and click. 3> One keystroke for signing letters, sending mail, sending marked blocks in GEnie (As a sysop here, I use this feature DAILY). Cuts down on mistakes, and much faster than I could do it normally. 4> Things I haven't even thought of yet. Personally, I think CodeKeys is one of the biggest productivity increasing programs I could possibly purchase for the computer. I wouldn't be without it now. Larry Duke ST Library ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 100 Fri Mar 01, 1991 OUTRIDER [US Troops #1] at 22:47 PST Ron, You should get CFJ's Desk Switch shareware program. It will reset your desktop colors (and all other Control Panel settings) and then vanish from memory. It will read any (DESKTOP).INF file. I have HotWire autorun it so I don't have to keep the Control Panel or anything else in memory to give me my desired settings. If I exit Interlink, or some other program that doesn't ()&#*&$ restore my default colors upon exiting, Desk Switch is a hot key away. - Terry - ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 101 Sat Mar 02, 1991 F.OLIVAS [Fred O.] at 01:06 PST When I'm on the HotWire screen and I want to load a GDOS dependent program that requires a different ASSIGN.SYS file, I use CodeKeys to automate the process. Of course G+Plus is installed at bootup. By hitting a particular keystroke I call up: 1) a new ACC section using MultiDesk (not all ACC's are compatible with all programs - right? 2) read new ASSIGN.SYS file 3) run program. One keystroke does this all. Switching between TimeWorks Publisher and Touch-Up and Degas Elite (all require a different ACC section and ASSIGN.SYS files) is just one keystroke away. I used to reboot then point and click away from the desktop. Tedious. And it wears out your mouse too! Fred ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 102 Sat Mar 02, 1991 NTACTONE [Ron Hunter] at 08:57 CST Bill, Converting macros from hi to med res should be simple. Just divide the Y coordinates by 2. ------ Terry, I have tried some desktop switchers, but find they interfer with STalker, which I keep in ram all the time. Seems only the control panel leaves it unmolested, but I don't think I have tried Charles' Desk Switch. ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 103 Sat Mar 02, 1991 D.CHARTER at 14:11 CST Andy, I am also one of the 500 purchasers. I have not had the time to read the manual, so am only partially using CodeKeys. I don't want to ask stupid questions until I have at least read the book. The greatest use I have right now is to have macros set up for Laser C. It sure makes all the more common things easy. I have Alt P for printf(" and alt S for scanf(", etc. It sure saves a lot of typing. Keep looking, I see a lot of possiblities if I ever find time to do the work. Duane ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 104 Sat Mar 02, 1991 OUTRIDER [US Troops #1] at 12:34 PST Ron, I keep STalker/STeno in memory 99% of the time and Desk Switch does nothing funny to it or any other program. C'mon, we're not talking about "some" desktop switchers. We're talking about CFJ's desktop switcher! ;^) - Terry - ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 105 Sat Mar 02, 1991 R.GRUBEL at 16:40 EST When I would hear the term "macros" I would usually run in the other direction. It just seemed like something that would be difficult to learn and make no sense whatsoever just by looking at them (not plain English). I use PageStream probably more than any other program I have and just did not want to take the time to learn its macro system. I usually avoid keyboard shortcuts prefering to use the mouse instead. That is until I read about CODEKEYS here on GEnie. This is the perfect program for someone like me. All I had to do was learn to use CODEKEYS and the program would take care of the macros for me. What could be easier? AND I can use the same macro program for all the other programs I use through the linked files. I just wonder how many others could use a program like this but avoid it because it has to do with macros. I wonder how many dealers don't carry it. I asked my local dealer to order it which he did. As far as I could tell that is the only copy he's ever had in his store even though I told him that it would be a popular program. My guess is that many of the potential customers of CODEKEYS are uninformed either of the existance of it or what it will easily do for them. I think that there are many of ST users who don't belong to user groups or even subscribe to GEnie or another Info Serv. I don't know what percentage regularly read ST periodicals. How to reach the majority of honest ST users that are left, that is part of the problem. No one would know I existed if I didn't leave this message. (for what it's worth) :}) - Bob ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 106 Sat Mar 02, 1991 CYCLONE [BillSheppard] at 18:03 CST I've discovered that when using CodeKeys with Uniterm at 19200 baud (a hard- wired connection) and I'm doing screen editing or some other task which requires a fair degree of screen management via escape codes that having CodeKeys in my auto folder slows down the ST enough to cause the screen to get mis-drawn quite frequently. Removing CodeKeys from the auto folder will solve the problem; disabling macros doesn't solve the problem, though there may be a slight bit less of a problem. Using Quick Index confirms that CodeKeys is slowing down the system (93%, versus 98% with my usual configuration minus CodeKeys). My question is, since it appears that the additional 5% is enough of a slowdown to prevent Uniterm from being able to properly handle 19200 baud input with escape codes, is there anything I can do with regards to CodeKeys to minimize its system slowdown? (Where it is in the auto folder, options I can change, # of macros, etc.) Of course, I can slow down my connection to 9600 baud, but that isn't a satisfactory solution. I've not yet tried playing with Uniterm's buffer management, but I believe I have several K for the RS-232 buffer, and the mis- drawing occurs with relatively small chunks of data (when using a word processor, for example, and backspacing causes reformatting of the line I am on, some garbage characters may not be properly erased at the end of the line). As a last resort, I might be willing to consider changing terminal programs if someone can recommend a (free) program that does VT-100 nearly as well as Uniterm. Bill ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 107 Sun Mar 03, 1991 M.SQUIRE [Mike] at 17:27 EST To all ST Aladdin & STeno users, I have just uploaded a file to the ST Aladdin Roundtable's library entitled "ALADSTNO.KEY" which can be used in conjunction with CodeKeys to add a macro to ST Aladdin which, when used with Strata Software's STeno desk accessory, will cut all text from the STeno text buffer, close the STeno window, open the Aladdin reply editor, paste the STeno-created text into the reply editor, and save the reply. I find that I am using this macro all the time to facilitate using STeno to compose my replies in lieu of the Aladdin reply editor. Enjoy! ... Mike ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 108 Mon Mar 04, 1991 R.TARJAN [Drona] at 07:13 EST Andy, One thing I use codekeys for is to make keyboard command equivalents for dropdown menue selections. Especially for a program that has keyboard equivalents, but for some reason doesn't have them for those few things I do the most. In Interlink I have them for all the block commands (start, end, delete, save, to clipboard, etc.). I name the key files with the name of the program (e.g. INTERLNK.KEY) and load them automatically when the program runs, using Makelink Program. It's great! My favorite is a macro for my ICD tape backup. One press of "T" from a Hotwire menu runs the tape backup program and the tape key file loads. Then I Press "B" and the whole backup process is automated, from start to finish, including selecting all partitions, backing up (timed for the maximum time it can take for my HD), rewinding the tape, taking the tape out of the machine and putting it back in the box. Well, almost. That last part was not quite true. Maybe in a future update. Another one I use all the time is a macro I have in my default key file as well as most program specific key files, that uses rightshift-return to select the "cancel" button in lots of programs... you know, the one to the right of the highlighted default button that uses the return key. This is really handy, and with a little tweaking I've got it positioned to work in an amazing number of programs. On the same note, but in a different key (sorry for the musician-codeaholic pun... the lowest form of humor, right?) I have another default macro that works in different programs, after careful, but fun, tweaking. This one is another favorite. Alternate-Numeric Keypad Asterik sends the mouse pointer up to the full-size-box in the upper right corner of a window. When I first did this one I got a little silly, just sitting back going Alt-NKAsterik, screen full... Alt-NKAsterik, screen small... over and over again, grinning at the marvel of it! Didn't stop for days :-). Here's how I have this one set up: Trigger key: Alt-NK* Title: Click Full Box L X=0629 Y=0032 Delay: 10 UP X=0629 Y=0032 Delay: 10 I also use this macro when I need a quick mouseless way to move the mouse pointer away from things, by holding Alternate and quickly tapping NK-Asterik _twice_. The second tap interupts the macro and stops it after the mouse pointer reaches the close box but before it clicks on it. If you're working with text, however, this does type in an asterik that then has to be deleted. I think I heard that an update to Codekeys will give the option in macros for the mouse pointer to stay where it ends up after running a macro. Codekeys makes the obtrusive unnoticable, the complex simple, and the simple elegant. Basically, if I'm working on something, and I find myself wishing I could do something with less bother, something I do often, I stop and think "could I use Codekeys to do this?". Drona ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 109 Mon Mar 04, 1991 R.FLASHMAN [Rick@Gribnif] at 22:48 EST The ability to standardize several different programs to make them all quit with the same [Control][Q] is also kind good... ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 110 Tue Mar 05, 1991 REISOK [Kerry] at 20:20 MST Ron, I bought Codekeys for use with games. It comes in handy for many of the teadious operations that some games make ya go thru. Kerry ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 111 Tue Mar 05, 1991 L.OBRIEN2 [Lyn] at 22:38 PST Charles.... Do you use Codekeys for the following entry? "- Charles F. Johnson Sunday, February 24, 1991 6:29:10 pm" Would be neat if this could be done in a single stroke..... Thanks, -Lyn- ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 112 Wed Mar 06, 1991 NTACTONE [Ron Hunter] at 05:22 CST Interesting. I would have thought that loading most games would kill CodeKeys. I know that many, if not most of the commercial games boot to the program, and you have to reboot to get rid of them, but then you can probably tell, I don't play games. ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 113 Wed Mar 06, 1991 J.EIDSVOOG1 [CodeHead] at 08:04 PST Lyn, Yes, Charles uses CodeKeys for his dated sign-off. The new CodeKeys 1.3 has the ability to output time and date events (in thousands of different formats). We've already released CodeKeys 1.3 (silently) but will be announcing it very soon with a press release. The update will be $10 (as are all updates now) and offers several things mentioned here recently such as leaving the mouse pointer at the location of the last mouse event (optionally), time/date events, extended ASCII characters, and auto-start macros whenever a macro file is loaded, such as automatically throught the link process. Fred Olivas, I hope you realize that you can install MultiDesk setup files (MLT) and G+Plus assign files (SYS) directly in the HotWire menu. This would allow you to just hit one hot key which would load your desired accessories, chain to loading your desired ASSIGN.SYS file, and chain into the program you want to run. Upon exiting that program you could even chain back into loading your default MultiDesk setup. John ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 114 Wed Mar 06, 1991 C.F.JOHNSON [CodeHead] at 08:14 PST Lyn, Yes, I've been using CodeKeys 1.3 to generate my signature along with a date stamp, with a single keypress. (Control-N, to be precise.) :) - Charles F. Johnson Wednesday, March 6, 1991 12:09:02 am ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 115 Sun Mar 10, 1991 R.GOFF at 01:00 PST I'm still having lots of problems with Codekeys vs. Stalker/Steno. I've changed all the codekeys macros to keystrokes that aren't found in Stalker or Steno and the problem persists. What else can I do? Bob ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 116 Sun Mar 10, 1991 NTACTONE [Ron Hunter] at 09:03 CST Bob, I use STalker, but not STeno, and CodeKeys seems to work fine with it, as long as I avoid conflicting key codes. The there is Popit, and HotWire to avoid too. Going nuts here. But it's a fun trip. ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 117 Sun Mar 10, 1991 C.F.JOHNSON [CodeHead] at 10:30 PST Bob, I'm afraid it's impossible for us to help you without more information. Saying "the problem persists" without telling us what problem you're talking about gives us absolutely nothing to go on. - Charles F. Johnson Sunday, March 10, 1991 9:57:36 am ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 118 Sat Mar 09, 1991 M.SQUIRE [Mike] (Forwarded) Warren, You -are- missing something. CodeKeys is indespensable in my use of both ST Aladdin and LDW Power. I have large macro files for both of those programs. I also have smaller CodeKeys files in augment Flash, Risk, Michtron Utilities, and the "Search and Distroy" Minesweeper game. ... Mike ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 119 Sun Mar 10, 1991 W.TRYK [Warren Tryk] (Forwarded) Mike... I must REALLY be DUMB..., but why would you NEED any macros with Aladdin??? All it takes to run the damn thing from start to finish are a couple of mouse clicks! ---Warren %-) ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 120 Sun Mar 10, 1991 CRAIG.S.THOM (Forwarded) Well, suppose you have two or five different kinds of auto pass procedures you want to do. *s ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 121 Sun Mar 10, 1991 CHAZ (Forwarded) Warren - it's not during an autopass when the CodeKey macros come in handy, but after - when you go over what the autopass obtained. There are very few keyboard equivalents in Aladdin for the pull-down menu selections - CodeKeys corrects this. Download the demo and load in the Aladdin key file, you'll see! The one that I use the most is the key combination which will bring up the topic listing, permanently ignore the topic listing, and return you to the start of the next topic, all by pressing CONTROL-P; takes a few more steps without CodeKeys... ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 122 Sun Mar 10, 1991 C.F.JOHNSON [CodeHead] (Forwarded) Warren, Please, take a look back through the many messages in this topic and you'll discover that people have found LOTS of ways that CodeKeys can make their day- to-day computing life much easier. Programs like CodeKeys are considered important enough to include with the system software on many computer platforms, including the Macintosh and Windows 3.0. In fact, a recent issue of MacUser had a _cover story_ about macro utilities, comparing the features of several competing programs. And as John E. has pointed out, these Macintosh programs all sell for two or three times the price of CodeKeys -- and are not as full-featured. As for it "being worth the time it takes to learn"...I'm not sure where you got the impression that CodeKeys is hard to learn or use -- it most definitely is NOT. It's extremely simple to get started recording and playing back macros. The manual even has a very easy-to-follow "walk through" section. As with any powerful program, if you want to use its more advanced features you have to spend a _little_ time learning about them. - Charles F. Johnson Sunday, March 10, 1991 11:38:54 am ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 123 Sun Mar 10, 1991 SANDY.W [RT SysOp] at 15:20 EST I have to agree with the usefulness of CodeKeys and Aladdin. My monocrome monitor recently died, and I was forced to go back to my color monitor. I'm a heavy Flash and Aladdin user, and I REALLY MISSED MY MACROS!!! I found that they increased my productivity more than I had realized. I finally broke down and redid my most used macros for the color monitor, but it is really great to have my mono monitor and my CodeKey macros back and fully functional! ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 124 Sun Mar 10, 1991 NTACTONE [Ron Hunter] at 22:48 CST Charles, Perhaps some people got the idea CodeKeys was hard to use/learn from me. But my problems have been getting the time to get familiar with it, and getting the timings right on the time-sensitive actions. I am up to 4 macros now, and still going. No where NEAR using the power of this program, but I progress somewhat slowly on such things. Seems from some of the recent comments you need a 'resolution adjuster' for macros set up for color to run on mono, or vice versa. Should be as simple as multiplying/dividing the y value by 2. Maybe this could be automatic? ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 125 Mon Mar 11, 1991 W.LORING1 [BL.A.ST] at 00:52 EST Sandy, I know what you mean. I recently went over to our BBS sysops' house, to test out a null-modem setup we are planning on using for a UG meeting demo. Since he has two 1040's, I just packed up my hard drive and went over. Of course, since I usually run in a 2.5 meg system, I had to pare down the auto folder a bit. <grin> Two of the things that I took out were PopIt, and CodeKeys. I couldn't believe how much I missed those two programs in the space of about two hours! Then, when we wanted to do some file maintenance on his BBS hd, I started doing the work on the GEM desktop. After about two minutes of this, I went back to my machine, copied MaxiFile to floppy, and ran it in his machine. I finished in five minutes what might have taken me fifteen. (needless to say, the copy of MaxiFile was erased upon completion of the task) Anyway, perhaps with such a graphic real-world demonstration of the power of CodeHead software, I might actually convince our friendly sysop that he _needs_ this stuff! ...bill ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 126 Mon Mar 11, 1991 J.MEEHAN3 [>> Joe M << ] at 06:23 EST I like the idea of a resolution adjuster for CodeKeys, but I don't think it would work for me. I cut my timing down to the minimum. Different screen resolution run screen redraws at just a little different speed, enough to cause problems. >> Joe M << ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 127 Tue Mar 12, 1991 NTACTONE [Ron Hunter] at 03:32 CST Joe, Be careful of cutting the timings too thin, or the next time you add a new .ACC you might find all your macros are broke. Most of the .ACCS take some time from the system, enough in my case that the Qindex shows my cpu at 93%. ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 128 Sat Mar 16, 1991 H.WOLFE1 at 13:34 EST Charles, I've just thought of another idea for your next update to Codekeys. Would it be possible to add some way of displaying the mouse pointer co- ordinates, e.g. in the upper right corner (I realize that if that location is used, then when this feature was being used the Hotwire clock would have to be disabled). This new feature could be turned on or off from within the Codekeys accessory. I think this could be useful because when I've been fine tuning some of my Codekeys macros that don't seem to always work, I've had the impression in some cases that the reason is because when I originally clicked on something, I may have clicked on the edge of the hot spot (or whatever the right term is). Then when I run the macro, sometimes the program recognizes the mouse click and other times, it decides that it is outside the hot spot. Therefore, I would like to change the location where the mouse clicks and this is very cumbersome without having the exact co-ordinatess available. I have to make a new macro, click on the exact spot I am interested in and then check the new macro, etc. I hope you'll consider this idea. Harvey P.S. I love Codekeys, but my impression is that most people are just too lazy to use it to create their own macros. I think someone mentioned this, but probably the most effective way to encourage its sales may be if you can persuade more companies to do what Tracker has done and include Codekey macros with their programs; preferably combined with a little README file telling them how much easier to use the program will be if they have the Codekeys program so that they can use all these nice macros. If they purchase two or three programs that include these macros, then sooner or later, assuming that they aren't pirates, they will give in and buy Codekeys. ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 129 Sat Mar 16, 1991 M.MOTOGAWA [MEL] at 18:57 PST Composed 06:34 PM (CA) Harvey, I've thought that something like that would be good too. Sometimes I find that I need to place a mouseclick right in the middle of my already created macro. What you can do right now is record the single mouseclick as a separate temporary macro and then use the paste buffer to insert it into your existing macro. Then delete the temporary macro. But it would be nice to be able to select a point in the macro, specify Insert, and then be able to have Codekeys exit itself and start recording. - Mel ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 130 Sun Mar 17, 1991 M.SQUIRE [Mike] at 09:22 EST John, I was looking for a way to increase my free RAM by cutting down on my desk accessories and decided to try changing my CODEKEYS.ACC file to CKEYSACC.PRG, as you said could be done back in Message 161, and place it in the AUTO Folder only to have my boot constantly go into a holding pattern at the point that I tried to run the new PRG. Undaunted, I decided that rather than loading it through the AUTO Folder, I would autoload CKEYSACC.PRG by using HotWire (v3.0) and setting up a command line with a tilde (~) just like I do for HotSaver and chain the two. This time, the PRG ran, but ignored the tilde and waited for a button press. Was the potential CODEKEYS.ACC may be changed to CKEYSACC.PRG suggestion that you made for some version of CodeKeys greater than the v1.1 that I presently have and that's why I couldn't get it to work properly? ... Mike ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 131 Sun Mar 17, 1991 C.F.JOHNSON [CodeHead] at 09:40 PST Mike, You misunderstood...the CodeKeys accessory can be run as an ordinary program, to allow editing/loading/saving of macros without having to install it as a desk accessory. It definitely won't work when run from the AUTO folder, however, since it's a GEM program! If you install CKEYSACC.PRG as an autorun program in HotWire, you won't achieve anything by using a command line -- the CodeKeys editor doesn't even look at its command line. What were you trying to pass on the command line? As for your Word Perfect problem -- I've been trying to test it, but I confess I don't know what you're referring to when you talk about your ALT-V "Print Preview" macro. I can't find any mention of a Print Preview function in my WP manual; is this a feature that was added in a recent upgrade? (It's been a while since I upgraded Word Perfect.) I ran through many of WP's other functions (including executing some macros), and had no trouble at all. - Charles F. Johnson Sunday, March 17, 1991 9:34:58 am ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 132 Sun Mar 17, 1991 NEVIN-S at 12:44 EST Ron, with CodeKeys and my Tracker/ST macros, you really wouldn't need to spend more than 15 minutes in Tracker/ST in one session..! <grin> I'll tell you, it took a long time to make all those macro sets: six sets in all (all ST/TT resolutions, and floppy and hard drive versions). I did it for a bunch of reasons. First, I love CodeKeys and think my users will love it as well. Second, I figure I can use the Key files as publicity (and I do: my ads say, "Free Tracker/ST CodeKey files included!"). And third, the Atari market is so small that I like the idea of developers helping each other. Anyway, I hope it works. I just shipped out upgrades and a distributor order with the Key files in them. We'll see if it helps me, CodeHead, and our users....or nobody at all..! --Nevin ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 133 Sun Mar 17, 1991 R.GOFF at 14:23 PST Sorry, Charles, I realized it wasn't Codehead's I'd reported the problem to before. When using STalker/STeno the computer 'loses' the directory of all the disks. I don't know how to explain it better. After using STalker or STeno for any disk operation, subsequent file selectors don't show anything but a hidden file with a blank name. Running a program from the desktop (using icons installed on the desktop) usually fails the first couple of times, but then something seems to get reset and it all works again. I reported this before, and someone (can't remember if it was Codeheads or DC) said it was because of conflicts in the key assignments between STalker/STeno and DCDesktop. I removed all the key commands from the installed icons and it still happens. I changed all the macros in Codekeys to avoid conflict with STalker/STeno. It still happens. This is driving me nuts, and I hope you can help. Bob ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 134 Sun Mar 17, 1991 J.EIDSVOOG1 [CodeHead] at 14:35 PST Mike, Regarding having HotWire auto-run programs, the command line, and the tilda: The presence of the tilda is a feature of HotWire and merely tells HotWire not to bring up the command line box when running that program, it has nothing to do with whether that program will require any input or not. HotSaver looks at its command line for the sole purpose of deciding whether to bring up its dialog box for input or automatically install. If there are any characters at all on the command line (it doesn't matter _what_ they are), HotSaver will simply install and exit. This feature was implemented solely to allow auto-installing of HotSaver after the accessories were loaded. It's kind of academic now since HotSaver will run as an accessory as well. I hope this helps clarify your confusion rather than adding to it. John P.S. BTW, the uploaded HotSaver 1.5 has a small change that just might fix your problem in Word Perfect. Have you tried it? ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 135 Sun Mar 17, 1991 NTACTONE [Ron Hunter] at 17:42 CST Charles, Print preview is supported (sort of) in the latest WP version (12/06/90). It uses a macro to save the text to disk, using a special printer driver, and then automatically does a 'look' at that file. There are bugs in it, and the 12/06/90 version fixes them, but one needs to follow the instructions exactly. I am a WP beta-tester, and I haven't yet gotten it to work right, but then I am not greatly motivated to do so, since I do my output from PageStream. I DO use CodeKeys with WP, though without problems, but of course you have to avoid conflicts with assigned key combos, which gets complex in my case, with HotWire, CodeKeys, PopIt, etc. Grin. ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 136 Sun Mar 17, 1991 C.F.JOHNSON [CodeHead] at 15:45 PST Bob, How can I say this diplomatically? OK, I know. Have you tried running without DC Desktop? I think that might quickly show you where the problem lies. - Charles F. Johnson Sunday, March 17, 1991 3:39:18 pm ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 137 Sun Mar 17, 1991 NTACTONE [Ron Hunter] at 22:48 CST Bob, Try taking DC Desktop out, and using the HotWire and other CodeHead stuff. Bet your problem disappears. If so, you will know where the problem lies. ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 138 Mon Mar 18, 1991 J.SAFFER [JASON SAFFER] at 00:32 PST Charles, the WordPerfect feature you're looking for (ALT-V for Print Preview) is, I believe, in one of the updates from WP, maybe the most recent one. I don't have it either but I remember some talk of it being included in a WP update. - Jason Saffer Hercules, California Monday, March 18, 1991 12:11:14 am ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 139 Mon Mar 18, 1991 M.SQUIRE [Mike] at 23:58 EST Charles, Thanks for straightening me out about how CKEYSACC.PRG was intended to be used. What I was trying to accomplish was to set, for CodeKeys, the path in which to look for my KEY and LNK files without keeping the DA constantly in RAM. Apparantly, the only solution -is- to keep the DA constantly in RAM. It appears that if I don't have CODEKEYS.ACC loaded, my Link files won't operate as intended. Now on to this matter of Word Perfect. The purpose of the Alt-V, Print Preview, macro is to 1) change the printer setting to that of Atari Screen Printer, 2) print the entire document to a file called PREVIEW, 3) reset the printer setting to its original printer (e.g., Epson LX-810, in my case), 4) refresh the screen, 5) open the List Files menu, and 6) search for the PREVIEW file and execute the Look option (#6). After viewing the file in the Look window, the user then left clicks on the close box where he reenters the List Files menu where he then selects Exit (#0) to return to the editor. If you would like to download a copy of this macro, it is file #721 over in the Word Perfect RT and is called PREVWMAC.ARC. In addition to the macro itself, the ARC file contains a text file called PREVWMAC.FIL that explains the steps that this macro executes step-by-step. This macro also is shipped now on the Word Perfect disk so its considered an official part of the package. This is the only macro which has had problems with mouse accelerators and the problem was introduced, for the first time, in the 11/01/90 release of Word Perfect when the Look window became a GEM window with slide bars instead of the simple text viewer, such as Maxifile 2.0 has, used in previous releases. Incidentally, in case you missed my earlier post (Message 33 over in the HotSaver topic), HotSaver (both 1.4 -and- 1.5) and Word Perfect (12/6/90 release) get along fine provided that you load HotSaver as a regular desk accessory, outside of MultiDesk; otherwise (i.e., AUTO program, HotWire AutoStart program, and MultiDesk desk accessory), the two conflict. ... Mike ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 140 Mon Mar 18, 1991 R.GOFF at 21:21 PST Charles, I did and you're right (take out DCDesktop and it went away). Bob ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 141 Sat Mar 23, 1991 R.FLASHMAN [Rick@Gribnif] at 23:41 EST With Codekeys you can standarize operations. On my machine CONTROL-Q now quits every single program. No need to learn lots of different quitting keys. ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 142 Sun Mar 24, 1991 NTACTONE [Ron Hunter] at 00:20 EST Abe, I believe the first CodeKeys macro I actually wrote, saved, and use every day is one to reset the RS232 parameters to what STalker needs, after running Flash for HomeBanking (which uses some off-the-wall setup). Then there is a macro for fixing the colors back after some programs that mess with them, and don't restore them to what they started. Then there is one that types the '*.*' for various uses in the item selector. I have one that exits WP without saving the text (I always do a specific save before exiting), and one that Clears WP of the current edit text. There are dozens of other ideas that I just haven't gotten around to implementing (laziness), but you should get the idea. ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 143 Sun Mar 24, 1991 GSCOTT-MOORE at 15:20 EST \\\--- What to do with CodeKeys: I use CKeys instead of WordPerfect macros myself. I am now allowed macros on my number pad. When I issue F5 to look/manipulate files, I simply type in a minus on the number pad to affix the "WP" extension and a plus to add "ASC". Extensions are not stored with directory locations by WordPerfect. I also use Alt-Q to exit EVERYTHING. I use Alt-P to past EVERYTHING. I use ALT-S to save EVERYTHING. I use Alt-O to open EVERYTHING. Just think of the Ram savings in my brain! I have a vast series of macros for data entry into DBMan. I don't have to type most of the major city/states that are in my telephone database. Most of my friends only live in a few locations. I don't have to type any of the names of production companies in my screenwriter database. When I run Tune-Up Hard disk optimizer in automatically goes in and checks every single drive for potential problems while I get another beer. I guess the point is, that CodeKeys will alleviate any of the following: 1) Anything you have to type repeatedly (data entry). 2) Any string of commands that are something less than a single stroke or two (a mouse-driven command 3 levels down, etc.) and my all-time favorite: 3) Any command that every programmer has decided needs a different command, but that you would like to have only one for. How many more wordprocessors and editors would you like to have to MEMORIZE before your final demise, fifteen? Twenty? I think I already had about 15 to grapple with between the ST, the PC and Mac. At least on the ST I really only have a couple anymore --- I'm still amazed that this question has even come up, let alone a number of times. Also the statement that it is difficult to understand how to operate. Seems anybody that has a problem with this interface couldn't learn to do a simple calculation in Lotus, right? Comparatively Lotus or WP is a bottomless pit with no reason or rationale. Talk about arcane interfaces... \\\--- Gerry ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 144 Sun Mar 24, 1991 M.ABREU [Abe] at 19:33 EST What about WordPerfect? The only things I ever heard hear on GEnie about WordPerfect were: o They update it for IBM and MAC, but not for the ST o It's all keyboard driven, no mousing Now before the topic police shoot me I'll also add that I'm going to find the ST WordPerfect topic and catch up on what it has to offer. I'll ask the same questions to see how far off my view of WP is. That should kill the word processing part of the discussion in this topic. >I'm still amazed that this question has even come up, let alone a >number of times. Also the statement that it is difficult to understand >how to operate. Seems anybody that has a problem with this interface >couldn't learn to do a simple calculation in Lotus, right? >Comparatively Lotus or WP is a bottomless pit with no reason or >rationale. Talk about arcane interfaces... Thanks for the editorial comment. Maybe, *just maybe* it's not selling because it *is* difficult to use right away? Maybe people are having a hard time figuring out what to do with it? That's my point. I'm sure the CodeHeads don't want to reveal sales figures, but I'm sure HOTWIRE is selling much better than CodeKeys. Same machine, same pirates, different program. Yeh there's a time-on-the-market factor to consider, but I still don't think CodeKeys is for everyone. ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 145 Sun Mar 24, 1991 J.SHEAR [John Shear] at 23:15 EST Lets see what do I use CodeKeys for. Well Just about everything I do more then once in an evening. Working Full time and taking three classes a night every minute I can save on the computer is one more minute I have to do something creative like playing Battle Chess. If you only have the weekends and a week night or two just think of the time that can be saved by automating redundant tasks. The ZERO Disk utility in CodeHeads Utilities has All these dialog boxes. Well when I press CTRL-ALT-Z CodeKeys Zeros my disk and answers all the prompts for me. While in UniTerm I Run other Programs (Most of the time Tempus Editor) and it gets real boring pulling up the item selector changing to the path I need then selecting the program to run so CodeKeys to the rescue. I hit HELP to get to the GEM part of Uniterm Then CTRL-ALT-E and I am editing with Tempus. These are the two I have done just today. Like I say any time I do things more then once I start reaching for the keys that start CodeKey recording. Then when I am done doing whatever it was I was doing I go back and edit what I had saved to make it run as fast as I can. John Bey ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 146 Mon Mar 25, 1991 SANDY.W [RT SysOp] at 09:49 EST I didn't have a problem creating a macro. That part is fairly straight forward. It was the fine tuning of the macros for my system, and learning how to link files and take advantage of all the extra options that took patience and experimentation. Quite truthfully there are still some things I plan on sitting down and figuring out once I come up with some spare time. There are a lot of options and different ways of doing things. The extra power hidden in this program is great, but I've found the macros alone justify the cost of the program. It is true I am a heavy computer user, but I have found many uses for temporary macros as I use the computer for different things. By this I mean that I will creat a macro for a specific situation (usually for editing something) that I have no intention of saving to the actual file. I am sure there are some who would not find a use for a program like this. On the other hand, I would not want to be without it. ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 147 Mon Mar 25, 1991 GSCOTT-MOORE at 22:46 EST \\\--- M.Abreu: You're very welcome for the editorial comment but I thought it was just an opinion. You got me, you're right. Maybe CodeKeys ISN'T for everybody. In fact I know a number of secrataries who don't know/won't use/have problems understanding macros in WordPerfect. Macros aren't for them. I think we could fairly say that MACROS aren't for everybody. It does indeed take some start-up time to learn how to run any macro facility. It doesn't just pop into a person's brain wholesale. Many people just prefer repetitive typing to the learning curve of a program--and program. So be it. My point was that Lotus and many other useful programs have an even steeper learning curve. Some are very difficult to logic out. Incidentally, I'm a WordPerfect ST user and WordPerfect ST is not strictly keyboard driven. Almost all of it's functions (maybe all) are accesible through drop down menus via mouse. I'm not sure if that's another editorial comment or just my experience. \\\--- Gerry ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 148 Tue Mar 26, 1991 NEVIN-S at 10:00 EST One program which REALLY makes good use of CodeKeys is Calamus Outline. Outline has no keyboard equivalents at ALL. I have made macros to load an object, save, save as..., delete, bring up the calculator, bring up the "dialogue box", quit, select all, copy, etc. This makes Outline about 100x faster to use. --Nevin ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 149 Tue Mar 26, 1991 J.EIDSVOOG1 [CodeHead] at 15:39 EST Enough already! I realize that I made a big mistake and I humbly ask for everyone's forgiveness. It is very clear to me now that I should have never brought up the subject of CodeKeys' poor sales. It's no one's business but ours and its discussion is non-productive. Way-back-when, I posted a long message in an attempt to help those who were confused by CodeKeys' methods of loading its default files. At the end of the message I wrote that it was intended for legitimate owners of CodeKeys and I mentioned CodeKeys' poor sales. Please note that at that time and in _every_ other mention of poor sales by either Charles or me, we've ALWAYS mentioned that the primary reason for the poor state of the Atari market is Atari itself. Piracy has not caused the problem and merely exists, as it always has, to further deteriorate an already bad market. Apparently when thieves read comments like this, they feel guilty and that they must somehow justify their actions because we have received anonymous letters from pirates accusing us of being on another "pirate-tirade". They also have tried to "make us feel better" by listing all kinds of reasons why CodeKeys is not selling well. We don't want to argue with those who steal our software. We don't need reasons for our poor sales...we already know the reasons (and we're not blaming the pirates...OK?...you guys are great, all right?). And further, we don't want to argue with those who don't see any use for our software. I admit that it was not a good business practice to mention it in the first place. Let's all forget that I said that, please. Let's get back on track with CodeKeys support in this topic. I'd appreciate it very much if those who can't see a reason to use CodeKeys would just ignore this topic (use the manual, non-CodeKeys method to IGN PER :^). If you really feel compelled to convince others of CodeKeys' worthlessness, please start a topic in Cat 18 (which _I_ have IGNed). That way, those who LIKE CodeKeys can spend their time discussing ways to make better use of it rather than defending it here, and _we_ can spend our time helping those who are having problems. This topic is for CodeKeys support. Let's keep it that way, please. Thank you. John ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 150 Tue Mar 26, 1991 SFRT-ASST [Ken] at 21:05 EST Do you have any "neat" CodeKeys macros for CodeHead Software? I struggled through my own attempt to make a couple. The results were... interesting. I'm trying to make a macro that will exit me out of Flash's terminal mode, and run Stalker, and a version of Steno that I have set up as a type ahead buffer. I'm on a mono system. It seems to work if I'm not online and there's nothing in Flash's capture buffer. Any help will be uh... helpfull. <G> I'll try it using Popit later on tonight. ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 151 Wed Mar 27, 1991 NTACTONE [Ron Hunter] at 06:49 EST Ken, Any attempt to use STalker from Flash MUST call the control panel and reset the RS232 BEFORE STalker will function. I have NO idea why, but the settings Flash uses and those STalker uses just don't match up. ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 152 Thu Mar 28, 1991 SFRT-ASST [Ken] at 14:19 EST Are you sure? I just want to exit Flash. Alt-x CR Load Stalker Enter MultiDesk Click on Stalker (with mouse in ACC Panel.) Load Steno2 (Renamed TypAhead.ACC) Click on TypAhead.ACC. ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 153 Thu Mar 28, 1991 M.ABREU [Abe] at 20:58 EST Sorry John. Guess I don't need to squelch Code Keys sales. Just so I'm clear on this though, if I find a demo of a CodeHead product hard to use (and therefore don't buy), should I just keep my mouth shut the next time? ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 154 Fri Mar 29, 1991 NTACTONE [Ron Hunter] at 00:13 EST Ken, Yes, after you exit Flash, you should call the control panel and go into the RS232 setup, and then just click OK, and exit the control panel. If you don't, STalker won't talk to the RS232. Wish I knew just why.... ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 155 Fri Mar 29, 1991 SFRT-ASST [Ken] at 01:21 EST I haven't loaded my Control Panel in months. Hmmmm. I may cghalk this one up as not worth it. I knowthis is the worng topic but why does Popit list the Steno that I renamed TypAhead.ACC as Steno.ACC? ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 156 Fri Mar 29, 1991 GSCOTT-MOORE at 21:22 EST \\\--- Abe: Just my unrequested two-bits, but I wouldn't keep my mouth shut. I'd bitch and mule and such but in highly specific ways. Like "how come in order to get it to do X I gotta use both hands and and one foot?" Or "could you make option Y a little more inscrutable, please." That type of thing. But "this program stinks" (not that you said this) may be a little too ambiguous. Incidentally, you're not from Sao Paulo, are you? \\\--- Gerry ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 157 Sat Mar 30, 1991 J.EIDSVOOG1 [CodeHead] at 16:45 EST Abe, If you find one of our demos hard to use, of course you can feel free to mention it. And if you don't see a use for a program, yes you should mention that, too. But when dozens of people mention how they like it and how much it helps their daily use of their Atari, perhaps there's no need to argue with them further. Let them live in their own little CodeKeys fantasy world and don't try to destroy it for them...they just don't know any better. You should realize that it may be difficult to get the most out of a demo of a complex program. I don't think I've even read the CodeKeys demo docs and I probably should so that I know what people have to go on, but our philosophy on demos is this. We want people to be able to easily get a taste of the program, but we're NOT going to give away a complete course on how to operate it. For that you'll need the manual. There are too many people who would use a thorough demo documentation with a stolen copy of the actual program (oh, here goes a CodeHead, blaming the pirates again...well, I'm sorry, but this DOES happen). There's got to be a certain amount of faith on the part of the user that the software will work as advertised. I know that this may be hard in the computer world because there is so much garbage that is passed off to the public as supposedly usable software. But perhaps since we have a very good reputation for sturdy, bullet-proof software, you might believe that CodeKeys could really be usable. Perhaps you might believe the other purchasers of CodeKeys who have raved about how useful they find CodeKeys. Just maybe we're not all lying about CodeKeys. Or perhaps, you just choose to remain skeptical about everything and decide to blow off the whole thing. CodeKeys is certainly not for everyone just as any other software package is not for everyone. We'd rather have happy customers than disappointed ones. If you don't like the demo, don't buy the software. If you like the demo, you won't be disappointed with the software because I guarantee you that none of our demos are more powerful than the packages themselves. The choice is yours. John ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 158 Sun Mar 31, 1991 K.CORDES at 14:34 EST re: faith that a product will work as advertised: Since so far, every other CodeHead products has worked quite well, why would anyone doubt that CodeKeys would work as advertised? -Kyle ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 159 Sun Mar 31, 1991 J.SAFFER [JASON SAFFER] at 18:52 EST Ok, here's my situation. I boot up off of the M ram disk created by Coderam.prg. One of the programs in my auto folder is Codekeys. There's also a CODEKEYS.KEY (ie: default) file as well as linked Codekey files (ALADDIN.KEY and WORDPERF.KEY) that load when I run those programs. I notice that I HAVE to keep the CODEKEYS.KEY file in my M directory or else it would register when bootup is done. If I just have a CODEKEYS.KEY file in my C (root) directory, Codekeys (loading up as part of my auto folder on M at bootup) doesn't seem to know it's there. However, it seems that I CAN keep the other two linked files (for Aladdin and Wordperfect) in the C directory and those ARE recognized when I run the respective programs. Am I getting this straight? Am I missing something? Why am I trying to figure this all out? Well, I'd like to avoid having to save my ram disk to a new .ccp file each and every time I change either the CODEKEYS.KEY file or the program-linked files. I've succeeded in doing that with the program-linked files but I seem to not be able to do that with CODEKEYS.KEY -- any ideas, perchance? - Jason Saffer Hercules, California Sunday, March 31, 1991 3:48:24 pm ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 160 Mon Apr 01, 1991 NTACTONE [Ron Hunter] at 00:23 EST Kyle, One 'problem' with CodeKeys is that it is 'user driven'. That is, it doens't DO anything unless the user puts in a macro. In its defense, it will sit there, patiently, waiting for you to put in a macro for months (it did in MY system), and never bother anything. Without a user to 'light it's fire', it just sits like a wallflower at the school dance. But is can really 'rock and roll', if you ask it to dance! ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 161 Tue Apr 16, 1991 MOIETY at 19:29 EDT ...Another "problem" with Codekeys: after that first tango, you'll be dancing all night! ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 162 Fri Apr 19, 1991 SFRT-ASST [Ken] at 20:06 EDT Before I try this, I'd like to know if a Flash .DO file sends "LS NK-*" to Codekeys? Flash will wait for a prompt and send text. I need to know if Codekeys will reocognize it. ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 163 Fri Apr 19, 1991 C.F.JOHNSON [CodeHead] at 22:37 EDT Ken, I don't think CodeKeys will see text being "sent" by Flash as a trigger key. Remember, Flash is just sending text out the serial port; CodeKeys is watching for actual physical keypresses. - Charles ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 164 Fri Apr 19, 1991 SFRT-ASST [Ken] at 23:12 EDT That's what I thought. (I knew the idea was too good to be true.) ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 165 Sat Apr 20, 1991 NTACTONE [Ron Hunter] at 00:26 EDT Ken, Not sure how Flash would 'send' anything to CodeKeys. Flash outputs to the screen, and/or the RS232. CodeKeys would only look at the input stream from the keyboard. Programs that 'send' data to other applications through a 'GEM pipeline' might work that way, but I don't know of Flash being able to do that. ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 166 Tue May 21, 1991 S.PIERSON1 [S.C.P.] at 19:51 EDT Charles, Is there an 'easy' way to convert some of my hi-res CodeKeys macros to med-res, and vice-versa? I went back thru the messages here and thru the manual and read-me files. The only reference I could find was something about dividing the y-coordinates by 2 for going from Hi to Med. Is that true? I'm using version 1.3 I appreciate your help. Stephen C. Pierson ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 167 Tue May 21, 1991 M.CHANDLER [Matt] at 21:34 EDT Just got CodeKeys (ver 1.3). Jeez, talk about POWER marcros!!! Am really enjoying the program. Have a question (you've probably heard this one before); It seems very easy to link the correct macros to the correct program. For instance, going to Aladdin, that works fine. But, when I go back to the Neodesk desktop, and since I have Neodesk stay in memeory while using Aladdin, there is no program to activate (link) the Neodesk desktop macro .key file (when I exit Aladdin, Neo- desk is just there, and does not re-load the .exe file). Is there a tidy way to activate the key file for Neodesk when no actual program is run? I'd like this to happen automatically after exiting programs and still keep Neodesk in memory. Also, after creating some VERY large macros, and having them work, I tried to do a timed macro to call the CodeKey accesory screen (move mouse to "Desk" window, higlight "CodeKeys", and hit the mouse button. And I can't get this seemingly simple macro to work. All it does is the mouse pointer jumps to that area (doesn't open the "File" window at all). What am I doing wrong? It should be a timed macro, shouldn't it? Matt p.s. Pretty soon I'm going to need a macro to display a list of all my macros, just so I can remember them! ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 168 Wed May 22, 1991 M.MOTOGAWA [MEL] at 03:14 EDT Matt, While recording your macro for calling Codekeys, are you _clicking_ on the word "Desk" in the menu bar and then moving down and clicking on "Codekeys"? I'm assuming that if, when your macro plays back, the mouse pointer does fly up to the word "Desk", then you are clicking there. Assuming your aim was fine and the "Desk" menu bar dropped, then the pause between the "L" and "UP" events needs to be increased. If the pause is too fast, GEM won't be able to keep up and won't recognize the click. On my system, I find that a pause of 29 between most mouse event down-and-up actions is adequate. For example: L X=0085 Y=0013 Pause: 29 UP X=0085 Y=0013 When creating menu bar macros, I've found that to drop the menu bar, you can eliminate the "Pause" and the "UP" portion of the mouse event. Just leave the "L" portion. This will cause the pointer to fly up to the menu bar and drop it. But when selecting a menu bar item, you need all 3 parts of the mouse event. If everything in your macro plays back fine except that the menu bar item isn't selected, the pause between the "L" and "UP" parts is too small even though it worked fine when you recorded it. Hope this helps. - Mel ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 169 Wed May 22, 1991 J.EIDSVOOG1 [CodeHead] at 06:37 EDT Matt, As you discovered, when you use link files for nested programs (programs that run other programs), your macros are not restored until you exit the parent program. The solution is simple. Don't use a link file for your Neodesk macros. Just keep them in your default setup (CODEKEYx.KEY). They'll be loaded when you boot up and restored when you exit linked programs. Mel already described why your macro is not properly selecting a menu item. You need to first click on the menu title. See "Tricks & Tips" number 2 on page 34. BTW, the playback of macros cannot be started (triggered) while the CodeKeys accessory is active (being displayed). John ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 170 Wed May 22, 1991 M.CHANDLER [Matt] at 22:34 EDT Mel and John, Thanks much for the help. Regarding the macro for calling the Codekeys acc screen, I figured it out (pressing the button on the word "Desk". About nested programs, I will have to test out what you are saying. This program is new to me, and it will probably take some trial and error to do what you are saying (John). I'll be back here if I run into problems. Thanks again, Matt ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 171 Wed May 22, 1991 M.CHANDLER [Matt] at 23:59 EDT Mel, Thanks for the additional information on timing. I did a macro to save the desktop, and the first event (^X to bring up the save desktop window) is at the fastest timed speed, but found out that I need at least 0015 before the "Return" key is pressed. It worked at 0014, but not all the time. Maybe I should boost it up a bit, and be sure it works -all- the time :*) I haven't tried (yet) to speed up mouse events, and will keep your 0029 figure in mind. Thanks, Matt -------------- John, I gave what you said a try, and still had trouble, -until- I read the on- screen instructions carefully. Found out that (contrary to instructions) I was saving the CodeKey.lnk file in the CodeKeys folder instead of the root directory. No wonder it wouldn't work :*) And thanks for the kind suggestion to see "Tricks and Tips" (number 2 on page 34). You guys must get so sick of people asking questions when it's all right there in the manual. Of coarse, when one writes the manual....:*) ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 172 Thu May 23, 1991 M.MOTOGAWA [MEL] at 10:11 EDT Matt, Yes, there are many variables that will affect the size of pauses in mouse events. Screen/hardware accelerators, # of TSR's and ACC's, different versions of TOS, etc. can affect the timing. Really, every system would be unique. I used to employ a pause of 21 for my mouse events, but now that I use more auto folder programs and acc's that drag on my system, I had to increase it to 29. - Mel ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 173 Thu May 23, 1991 J.EIDSVOOG1 [CodeHead] at 10:15 EDT Matt, We've gotten kind of used to it, just like we've gotten used to telling them to read the README file. That's where you'll find the information about storing your default files in a folder. :^) Regarding timings, my general rule of thumb is that if you want a button press to work reliably, 20 is a good pause length between the down and up events. Timings between other different events may vary. John ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 174 Thu May 23, 1991 NTACTONE [Ron Hunter] at 23:45 EDT Matt, You should also remember that when setting up timed macros, you should give a little extra time over and above the minimum, or the next time you load a new .ACC file you might find that it slows things just enough to make all your finely tuned macros turn brown and start to stink. "voice of experience" Ron ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 175 Fri May 24, 1991 M.CHANDLER [Matt] at 01:26 EDT To Mel, John and Ron, 5/23 Thanks for the additinal information regarding timing. You've probably saved me a few hours re-doing marcros :*) First thing I'm going to do is re-read the .txt file and the manaul. Then before making new macros (right now I want to make a full set for Aladdin) I'm going to load about 15 Auto programs and 6 good sized Accesory programs. That should be enough to bog down the speed. I usually use only 2 .accs (UIS III and CodeKeys). I made a set of macros for Aladdin and 3O of 32 are not timed. They are very fast, but unreliable. But surprisingly they almost always work. To make it more reliable (this is just a theory, and I'm not sure if it really does help) when menu bars are highlighted, I did one mouse click, then moved the pointer a bit, then did another mouse click while the bar was still highlighted. Actually just a double click. I can't see any slowdown, and it - seems- to be more reliable. Not positive though. Thanks again, Matt ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 176 Fri May 24, 1991 J.EIDSVOOG1 [CodeHead] at 02:54 EDT Eee-yoow...who cut that brown macro? ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 177 Tue May 28, 1991 M.CHANDLER [Matt] at 21:52 EDT Hi John, Getting used to working with Codekeys. Do have a problem. I finished up a new set of macros, and since I don't want to waste memory, removed the CodeKey Accesory. But, whenever I try to run my Aladdin program, I can see no .key file loading, and the macros don't work (I can make new macros though). Does the .acc file have to be loaded to enable a linked macro for Aladdin, or did I forget to do something? "Use Link File" is "on" and saved in the .cnf file. Matt p.s. I checked both manual and readme file, and didn't see anything about this type of problem :*) ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 178 Tue May 28, 1991 C.F.JOHNSON [CodeHead] at 23:10 EDT Matt, You should put your CODEKEYS.LNK file in the root directory of your boot disk. For example, if you're running CODEKEYS.PRG from an AUTO folder on drive C:, the CODEKEYS.LNK file should be in the root of drive C:. - Charles ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 179 Wed May 29, 1991 J.EIDSVOOG1 [CodeHead] at 05:09 EDT Matt, Thanks for looking thoroughly through the docs before asking us here. I hope, though, that we haven't made people afraid to ask questions here for fear that we'll bite their heads off if it's answered in the documentation. :^) We may chew on disks from time to time but we try to draw the line when it comes to our users' heads. John ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 180 Wed May 29, 1991 NTACTONE [Ron Hunter] at 06:35 EDT John, Yeah, but you aren't above an occasional rap across the knuckles. Grin. ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 181 Thu May 30, 1991 M.CHANDLER [Matt] at 01:27 EDT To the "Codes", (Alias, C.hop O.ff D.er E.gg Heads :*))) Well, the Codekeys.lnk file was in the root directory of C:, but somehow I must have gotten it confused with a .key file and long ago saved it as Codekey1.lnk. Funny though, when the accesory is "plugged in", I had no problem with that wrongly named file (it seemingly loads the .key file for Aladdin). In fact, when I use the Makelink.prg, and am ready to save a link file, the name "Codekey1.lnk" is displayed on the selection line automatically (I probably configured it to call that name, didn't I?) How would I go about "un- configuring" it? Just save the correct name once? Thanks again, Matt p.s. No, I don't feel intimidated asking questions on-line. It's just that I read all this stuff, and -think- I now -know- this program, only to be remined that, I don't quite yet :*) The manual is good though. RAP those knuckles!!! ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 182 Thu May 30, 1991 SFRT-ASST [Ken] at 13:57 EDT Is there a way to Link Stalker and Steno as Desk Accessories? Or is a Default Key for the DeskTop (actually Hotwire) the only way? ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 183 Thu May 30, 1991 C.F.JOHNSON [CodeHead] at 17:37 EDT Matt, There's a _very_ comprehensive description of how CodeKeys finds its various default files, a little earlier in this topic. I'm not sure of the exact message number, but if you look back through this topic you should be able to find it pretty quickly. - Charles ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 184 Thu May 30, 1991 MIKE.KELLER [mike] at 23:31 EDT The very comprehensive description is message 92. I printed it out and it is a part of my Codekeys addenda. %%%%%%%%mike%%%%%%%% ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 185 Fri May 31, 1991 J.EIDSVOOG1 [CodeHead] at 04:57 EDT Matt, The resolution-dependent files (KEY and LNK) will only be found by the CodeKeys accessory. That's because at the time AUTO\CODEKEYS.PRG runs, the resolution has not yet been determined. The CodeKeys AUTO program only looks for CODEKEYS.CNF, CODEKEYS.KEY, and CODEKEYS.LNK. (see page 28) John ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 187 Fri May 31, 1991 M.CHANDLER [Matt] at 23:21 EDT Mike, there ya go again,...Thanks for the number :*) Matt ------------ John, Regarding resolution-dependent files, I'll take your word for it :*) Thanks, Matt ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 195 Sat Jun 01, 1991 SANDY.W [RT SysOp] at 16:42 EDT The preceding Pinhead messages were moved to the existing Pinhead topic, Topic #17 in this category. Thanks. ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 196 Wed Jun 12, 1991 M.SILVERSTE3 [SYNCHRON] at 03:14 EDT I ham having some minor problems with some Codehead products and I believe Codekeys is the culprit so I will address it here: First, (as John already knows) I am a pure memory miser - standard 1040 1 Meg/50 Meg hard drive. I have several programs that eat up RAM like crazy so I've accepted the process of warmbooting and using predefined Function keys to select auto programs/Da's, etc. via Superboot(Sorry Charles, does DeskManager do Random Pic files and Sound files??). One of these F keys (called Codehead) selects Codekeys 1.3(Auto),LGF 1.8,Multidesk 2.2, and Hotwire 3.0. Until reading message 92 in this topic (recently) I never knew about where to put Codekey defaults - consequently, p.28 of the manual needs a little more clarity, and I finally was able to get my CODEKEYS.KEY file to be "auto- recognized." The main thing I don't grasp is what is the purpose of having multiple .LNK files? Seems to me that so long as you use Hotwire or the desktop as the main "shell", you can just keep using MAKELINK to add .KEY files to your default CODEKEY.LNK file. I am also noticing (perhaps, a bug) in Aladdin where, If I'm in the message editor (like right now), I may have to temporarily disable Codekeys via CNTL- LSHIFT-RSHIFT-Undo because a macro defined from my default Hotwire CODEKEYS.KEY in slot 28 (high-numbered) uses 1 "lettered" trigger key which will trigger when typing words. When disabling, in this manner, Aladdin exits and my message is lost! (Seems hard to believe since 'Quit' in the File drop- down is disabled in the message editor). I was also wondering if you guys may know of a way to periodically save a file using scheduling in Codekeys. The only programs that have some kind of periodic Auto-save function that I have is Tempus 2 text editor and WordPerfect. All other programs that save WORK do not have Auto-save (i.e. MIDI sequencing, Cyber graphics, etc.). Some of these have a Save in a drop- down (with key-equivalent) but usually the GEM file selector comes up with a default extension the program uses and it is treated more like a SAVE AS... What I'm getting at - is there some way CODEKEYS can universally do this since it's a "universal" macro tool???? That darned dreaded PC clone Stoned B Virus (I don't mean to scare anybody) is back in Southern Calif. and somehow get's on my Atari boot partitions from time to time (don't ask me why!). This is a nasty little sucker that does nothing more than randomly warm reboot your computer - whenever! It would seem appropriate to be able to programably auto- save all programs via Codekeys! (Hows about that one to add to your list - Codekeys kills viruses too!) Since I'm here, here's some other Codehead questions: 1) Multidesk: if Turbo St(1.84) is installed with other DA's and I try to Clear some other DA's, Turbo ST is also removed and the memory is still there. This really screws up some Codekey timed macros which were written with the assumption that Turbo was installed. 2) Hotsaver - Multidesk will report 20 K needed to load but after loading, I noticed it takes 50 K or so (at least that's what Hotwire reports). Which is it? (Incidentally, I have seen a glitch when using Hotwire when Multidesk is installed - the free memory block indicator initially is wrong because when I load, say, a 20K ACC, the free memory block shows something more than what was before I loaded it.) 3) Codekeys - the dox say that a typical delay time of '20' is realistic for mouse left - up functions. I find (when Turbo is there!!!) that I don't need any pause at all! I just need to pause in between moving mouse positions and when waiting for a disk access or something. Finally, John, thanx for ignoring active sensing in Midi with Hotsaver 1.6 but Midi output does NOT override Hotsaver, that is, if I'm in any sequencer in Juke Box mode, and I select a bunch of tunes where the total time is > what I set Hotsaver for, Hotsaver will kick in and the music is stuck. Then when I hit a key or move the mouse, all MIDI data catches up to where it should be(kinda sounds like a tape recorder fastforwarding at ultra high speed - preety eery thru the stereo speakers at full blast!). I figured you were gonna add a MIDI button to the other buttons like Modem, printer, etc. so that you can have MIDI output override Hotsaver so it will never kick in for any MIDI OUT processing. Now, I gotta click on the 'NO ANIMATION' for every sequencer I use to avoid 'note sticking.' Sorry this turned into a novel but I've been pretty busy lately and haven't found time to chat with you guys. Thanx Codeheads, you're the best! (God, when was the last time I used Neodesk 3?? Last year?) Be in Synch with the Synchron from Camarillo, CA!! <-- New Macro! ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 197 Wed Jun 12, 1991 J.MEEHAN3 [>> Joe M << ] at 05:58 EDT I would just change the trigger that is causing a problem in Aladdin's editor. With all the combinations CodeKeys offers you should be able to find one that will work. If you want to save a file periodically, no matter what program you are in, why not have CodeKeys ring a bell at the selected time, you can then do your own save, or if you are using a link file Auto save. Mmmm if you just want to have an alert how about Siren, the little accessory that runs an emergency squad with siren across the bottom of your screen. <smile> Hotsaver if I remember correct is not only loading itself, but if you select to buffer the screen about 32k of screen. Multidesk does not know what other memory an accessory might grab as it loads (Is that right John - Charles?). >> Joe Meehan << ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 198 Wed Jun 12, 1991 J.EIDSVOOG1 [CodeHead] at 19:26 EDT Mike Silverstein, You are correct that page 28 of the CodeKeys manual needs a little more clarity. That clarity is found in the README!!.13 file. The purpose of README files is to provide additional information about the software which has been updated after the manual was printed. There's really no practical way around this. One reason for multiple LNK files would be to allow different KEY files to be loaded for the same program in different resolutions. One might also want to use different KEY files for the same program in the same resolution. Since a LNK file only allows one KEY file for each program, we allow you to use different LNK files if you desire...you don't have to use them if you don't want to. I have no trouble using CodeKeys hot keys for enable/disable while in Aladdin's message editor or elsewhere. I'm not sure what could be causing your problem, but I'd suggest that if you have some single-key triggers that you don't use within Aladdin, you should have your Aladdin set of macros large enough to overwrite your default macros, or at least redefine the same macro to a different trigger combination that you won't be typing in the message editor. I can't imagine having to deal with remembering to manually disable CodeKeys every time I write a message in Aladdin when it can easily be done automatically. Regarding auto-saving files with CodeKeys, you'll just have to put on your thinking cap because each program will respond differently. You'll want to use a repeating macro, but it will have to be able to take you to a save-capable position in the program so that it will work from any location in the program. Even then it may not always work because you might be in a dialog box or alert box from which you cannot generically exit. Alternatively, you could just have CodeKeys do something that would remind you that it's time to save your file, such as click the mouse a bunch of times back and forth at the top of the screen. As far as CodeKeys killing viruses, I'm afraid you're dreaming with that one. We may come up with some clever tricks and programs but we're not magicians. In answer to your other questions: 1. When MultiDesk removes Turbo ST it also clears the memory which Turbo used, whether you choose to believe it or not. As far as CodeKeys timings with and without Turbo ST, that's beyond our control. Here's another reason for multiple LNK files that you asked about earlier. 2. When MultiDesk reports that it needs to expand the buffer by 20K to load HotSaver, it means just that; an additional 20K is needed to load the accessory, based on the file header's report of the memory used by the ACC. If you are using "RESERVE" in HotSaver, it will allocate an additional 32K (on a standard ST) of memory. This memory is obtained from the operating system, if available, and does not come from MultiDesk. But MultiDesk does take note of the memory block so that it can free it when the user does a "Clear All". Regarding memory usage in general, things are not always what they seem. Your reported problem with the HotWire memory block indicator is based on your lack of understanding of the way GEMDOS handles memory. Most free RAM displays show only the size of the largest available block. There may or may not be other smaller blocks of memory depending on your fragmentation at the time. MultiDesk uses techniques that tend to clean up memory fragmentation so it's entirely possible that performing an automatic expansion of the buffer will re- use memory in such a way that the "big" block will be even larger. If you really want to see what is happening with your memory, use ShowMem (provided with MultiDesk) and read its documentation. 3. The 20/100ths pause mentioned in the CodeKeys documentation is only a guideline. You are free to use whatever value you wish. We thought it might be nice to give some kind of a recommendation based on our experience. Yes, you can sometimes get by with zero pause if you're using Turbo ST, but not always. If you make your timings too tight you're going to run into the exact problems that you reported earlier; removing Turbo ST and not having your macros work properly. Regarding MIDI ins/outs, my decision was rather than having a MIDI "watch" option which would require some complicated configuring for which MIDI bytes to ignore, I decided to ignore MIDI entirely. The assumption is that if you are working with a sequencer, the keyboard and mouse activity will keep HotSaver from kicking in; there's no need to watch MIDI to keep from kicking in. I have not tested HotSaver with all sequencers. If MIDI output is stopping completely when the saver kicks in, the sequencer must be unable to cope with the amount of processor time that HotSaver uses for its animation. Which sequencer(s) is giving you problems? John P.S. I now see that some of this has already been answered correctly but I'm going to leave my message intact anyway. ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 199 Wed Jun 12, 1991 SFRT-ASST [Ken] at 21:23 EDT Stupid question: Is it possible to link a .KEY to a desk accessory? Or to different desk accessories? My fragile common sense tells me that it's impossible. ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 200 Thu Jun 13, 1991 J.EIDSVOOG1 [CodeHead] at 22:51 EDT Ken, It's not a stupid question, but unfortunately you are correct that it's impossible. There's no way to detect that an accessory has been activated or deactivated since accessories can be concurrent processes with other ACCs or applications. John ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 201 Thu Jun 13, 1991 SFRT-ASST [Ken] at 23:43 EDT That's what I thought. Stupid Question #2. Is it possible to have codekeys (I guess this would really be another program if it could be done) trigger off mouse events in user defined zones. For example adding labeled menus to other programs, to be even more specific adding something like the Uniterm left mouse click menu to a program like Flash? Are you confused? Good! I know I am. :^) Do you have any neat .KEY files for Lookit or Maxifile? ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 202 Sat Jun 15, 1991 GSCOTT-MOORE [Gerry] at 02:58 EDT \\\--- A few other hopeful additions/modifications for CodeKeys: 1) Would it be possible to have a pause mode, where CodeKeys waits for a <RETURN> before continuing with the rest of the macro. Or, secondarily, perhaps CodeKeys could wait for a stated number of real-time key entrys? 2) When in modify mode, I click with my mouse on an item, replace or delete it, and then ALWAYS expect to be able to cursor down to following items to modify/delete them. But no, I have to click again with my mouse. Seems like a logical addition. \\\--- Gerry ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 203 Sun Jun 16, 1991 M.SILVERSTE3 [SYNCHRON] at 11:58 EDT Thanx John for answering so fast! (And Joe M) checked Aladdin without Codekeys and CNTL-UNDO exits the program no matter where you are- I figure Codekeys enable/disable trigger keys do not override key equivalents in a program like an "edited" macro that you define??? I take it the LSHIFT/RSHIFT Keys have no meaning here?? Guess I was expecting miracles with Codekeys/autosave - nah, I'd rather have Hotwire remind me via alarms about saving files because you can add messages too. I was really hoping for some tailored method of scheduling a universal macro that "magically" can read the current opened file in memory and automatically close it and save it to the current path an reopen it again. I guess that would be a miracle! I can see having multiple LNK files for applications that work in both resolutions, sorry about that. Now, as for other reasons, I'd be interested in hearing from people how many programs people have that use more than 32 macros which would be another purpose for a multiple LNK. (this isn't sarcasm, I'm just curious??????). Once again, I compliment you guys on programming something that everybody won't do but is there anyway! (Applause, Applause) Multidesk/ Turbo ST - What I was getting at there was when I load a .MLT into Hotwire, say one that loads Turbo, Hotsaver, Fontdesk, then for some reason I need more memory so I click on CLEAR SOME and remove, say Hotsaver, when I then choose CONFIGURE and adjust (shrink) the buffer size, Turbo is removed also. Whether or not the memory goes to is not my concern. My concern is that Multidesk is (I think) not working properly and the only way to avoid this is to Have a hotwire menu filled with predefined MLT's that have all my DA configurations with Turbo in them which guarantees that I have enough memory for my application. (I've never really relied on any show free RAM anyway) Hotsaver - OK John, let's clear this up. In HOTSAVER.TXT you state that you can control your modem activity by clicking on MODEM so that during u'ling/d'ling for long periods of time, Hotsaver will not kick in. Great! This implementation has worked flawlessly! Now, I take it you're using either GEMDOS or BIOS functions on device 1 (AUX) to do this. MIDI is the same thing only it is device 3. I use Modem as an example because, even at a lower level, I believe there's 2 ACIA chips; one for Modem (RS-232) and one for MIDI which is just RS-232 with a different baud rate set up. I'm sure that this can be done with watching MIDI output and kicking in with no graphics. NO ANIMATION is nice, but I gotta set this up for every MIDI program I got that plays music ( It doesn't make a difference which sequencer I use). BTW, staying on topic here, I have several Dr. T's programs including Tiger, TigerCub and KCS 2, and Copyist. I'm trying to write Codekeys macros to load files supported by these programs, but, when calling LGF and typing in the file, things do not work right, the macro never ends and I'm forced to reboot. I know there are conflicts with Dr. T's and UIS - they even say so. So far, LGF manually works great with Dr. T's but not with Codekeys. It would also be nice to either have longer delay times (more than 10 secs) or a delay looping feature within editing a macro. This way, I can write my own 'Jukebox' for several MIDI applications that don't support it. Most decent sequencers (i.e. KCS) will show length of a song to the second. It would be nice to load a song, play it, load another song, play it, etc.. with one Codekey! Is this another "miracle"???? Thanx Codeheads! Be in Synch with the Synchron from Camarillo, CA!! ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 204 Mon Jun 17, 1991 GSCOTT-MOORE [Gerry] at 21:04 EDT \\\--- Synchron: I too use Dr. T with Codekeys and have never really been able to make the thing work that effectively. I sure with the "T" people would give us a type ahead buffer and some keyboard commands for all the mouse and drop-down juggling. I have found double-clicking on each and every menu and menu-item to be of some limitied help. \\\--- Gerry ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 205 Wed Jun 19, 1991 J.EIDSVOOG1 [CodeHead] at 12:08 EDT Ken, You want to pop up your own little menu in Flash with a mouse click? Dream on <grin>. Maybe you should ask Double Click to do a a freebie that would do that. That ought to keep them busy for a couple of hours. :^) Regarding .KEY files for LookIt and MaxiFile, they both have so much keyboard control already that I don't find much need for CodeKeys with them. However, I do have one macro for MaxiFile which backs up my cartridge RAM disk to a folder on my hard drive. (I'd use a command line for CodeCopy but it's a 4 meg RAM disk so it doesn't fit in memory). Mike Silverstein, Yes, Control-Undo exits from Aladdin, but if you are holding down Control plus both shift keys while you hit Undo, CodeKeys will use the key combination and Aladdin will never see it (at least on every ST I've tested it on). The point about using multiple sets of macros for the same program is not that someone would use more than 32 macros, it's that you might want different sets of macros for different purposes. For instance, you might want one set of macros when you use Flash to call one BBS and another set of macros when you use Flash for another purpose (although you could then use a DO command to tell LOADKEYS to load a different set of macros). MultiDesk: You're confusing "Clear Some" with resizing the buffer. The "Clear Some" option will remove one or more ACCs (by doing a "Clear All" and reloading the others) from your buffer without changing the size of the buffer. If you need more memory than you've freed by "Clear Some" you'll need to resize the buffer (no need to do any clearing at all because resizing must clear it anyway) or reload another MLT which uses a different buffer size. You are correct that the best way around this is to have a HotWire menu with MLTs installed for all your desired configurations. Is this a bad thing? I think not. I think you should be very happy that HotWire allows you to easily access an entire set of 54 accessory configurations with a single click. MultiDesk IS working properly. It can do what it does because it goes "against the grain" of the operating system. In order to do this it must operate the way it does. It may perform some magic but it's not God. HotSaver is watching the RS-232 port directly. This allows it to see modem activity even if the program does not use BIOS input/output. Virtually all MIDI sequencers access the MIDI ports directly without using BIOS. I am "ignoring" MIDI bytes at the keyboard interrupt level. If I were to watch MIDI (have a button in HotSaver), I would also need to add another dialog box to allow the user to configure which MIDI mytes to ignore. This is not impossible, but I don't feel it is practical and worth the time, effort and memory. Yours is the only complaint I've heard from someone who wants to keep HotSaver from kicking in. All other complaints were regarding HotSaver not kicking in at all (before HotSaver started ignoring MIDI) if a MIDI keyboard with active sensing were connected. Since you say you can't use animation successfully with your sequencers anyway, what's so hard about configuring each of them for "NO ANIMATION" (how many do you have, anyway)? Aren't you glad you have such a feature? I don't see why there should be any problem creating CodeKeys macros to do a "Jukebox" kind of thing. Delay times are _not_ limited to 10 seconds. A pause may be up to 99.99 seconds. Three consecutive pauses may be up to 299.97 seconds and so on. If you want a "delay looping feature", simply create a macro that calls itself. You can then call it from other macros. This is all explained in "Tricks & Tips", number 6 on page 35 (please RTFM!). One recursive macro with 128 99.99 second delays will give you 32 hours (it'll loop 9 times). A second recursive macro which called the first 128 times would give you 52416 hours, or close to six years. I don't even want to bother trying to calculate how much time a third one would give you because I don't think you need to play your jukebox quite that long (and you could go all the way up to 32!!!). <grin> Let's just say that CodeKeys lets you wait a long time if you want it to. In creating such a macro you'll probably want to "Lock" it so that it won't abort if you move the mouse. This could be what happened when you said it didn't work. John ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 206 Tue Jun 25, 1991 J.KUDRON [JIM] at 19:40 EDT John or Charles, I purchased CodeKeys from you at the Windsor show and have enjoyed it immensely-keep up the good work! However--I recently purchased a monochrome monitor, and loaded the macros for Aladdin and merrily went on my way, using CodeKeys without a problem. I changed the macro for the signature to enter my name, date, and time using either shift key and ~ as my trigger. Since it worked flawlessly in med res, I simply copied the macro verbatim to the hi res macro. Now, whenever I try to use the signature macro, my computer locks-up after my first name. I have tried different trigger combos and it still locks- up. Why would the identical macro work in med res and not hi res? Below is the macro in question (written in med res) Thanx Jim Kudron 25Jun91 7:33:32 pm ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 207 Tue Jun 25, 1991 J.EIDSVOOG1 [CodeHead] at 21:55 EDT Jim, Coincidentally, I just spent a bunch of time today trying to track down a similar problem with another user. His problem was that a macro with only one event, "Insert Date", was locking up. But he could use the date function in any of his other longer macros. I never could recreate his problem but he called back later and said that he had "locked" the macro and when he unlocked it the problem disappeared. I still couldn't repeat his problem, but perhaps your problem is related to the same thing. Do you have this macro locked? John ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 208 Wed Jun 26, 1991 SFRT-ASST [Ken] at 03:46 EDT You know, I think >I< had that problem. I can't remember what I did (or didn't do) to fix it. It was for a Name-Date macro. This one: Ken Estes [SFRT-ASST] 12:39:34 am--PT Wednesday, June 26, 1991 (And I wish the leading space on the time would send, too!) I vaguely remembering it locking up when it got to the time. Consistently. ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 209 Wed Jun 26, 1991 J.KUDRON [JIM] at 19:52 EDT John, After spending the last hour trying your suggestion about locking the macro and other ideas, I stumbled on a solution-- I moved the macro from slot two to slot thirty-two and TA-DA!! No lock up!! Now for the obvious question-- Why will slot two lock up the computer and not slot thirty-two? Now my wife is worried why I'm walking around with a swollen head and mumbling to myself "I fixed something the CodeHeads couldn't" She's now on the phone with some doctor saying something about aspirin, ice, and straight- jackets??!!<G> Jim Kudron 26Jun91 19:50:30 ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 210 Thu Jun 27, 1991 J.EIDSVOOG1 [CodeHead] at 04:09 EDT Jim, It's not that you fixed something the CodeHeads couldn't fix, it's that you broke something the CodeHeads couldn't break. I still can't reproduce the problem no matter how hard I try. The hardest thing to fix is something that can't be broken! John ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 211 Thu Jun 27, 1991 D.FLORY [ALERTsys*Cop] at 10:40 EDT John, you missed it again! The easiest way to break something is to fix it when it isn't broken yet..... :-) ------------ Category 32, Topic 22 Message 212 Thu Jun 27, 1991 NTACTONE [Ron Hunter] at 23:48 EDT John, You should know by now that users can break ANYTHING. Grin. ------------