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- MacroAde, Version 4.1 - HISTORY.DOC -
M a c r o A d e
-----------------
Version 4.1
-------------
U P D A T E H I S T O R Y
------------------------------
Copyright (c) 1991 by Jeffrey S. Kane, Ph.D.
All Rights Reserved.
Last updated: August 15, 1991
This document describes the changes and corrections made to
MacroAde with each version. Versions are listed in reverse
chronological order (most current version first, original version
last).
**********************
August 15, 1991, Release of Version 4.1:
Several comments, particularly those from one of CompuServe's
Sysops, instigated some changes in how the MCompile program
handles space (ASCII 32) characters. The program now requires
all literal spaces (i.e., spaces to be represented as spaces
in the compiled macro) to be entered in the text file as
either ASCII 250 characters or by the [:0,250] character code
(if ASCII 250 is inaccessible to one's editor). With one
exception all other instances of ASCII 32 characters in
the text file are either converted to tabs (if they are in
a sequence of 3 or 4) or are ignored. The one exception are
occurrences of single spaces between two non-space characters.
Hard line-endings are represented in macros as ASCII 13 and
soft endings as ASCII 10. Previous versions of MacroLst only
recognized ASCII 10 as an end of line. This has been corrected.
August 8, 1991, Release of Version 4.01:
This release fixes several bugs and inconveniences in some of the
programs. The EditWP and EditM macros for editing macros
within WordPerfect didn't work as smoothly as they should have and
their operation has now been improved. A particular problem that
was fixed was EditWP's use of Doc 1 rather than Doc 2 to edit macros
as WordPerfect documents. This has been corrected. MCompile's
inability to detect the end-of-file when there was no end-of-line
sequence after the last element in a file has also been fixed.
August 2, 1991, Release of Version 4.0:
The MOST COMMON error made in developing WordPerfect macros, both
by experts and by novices, is the omission of tildes (~). Leaving out
tildes is an insidious error because even one missing tilde can make the
macro appear to have major logic problems and lead you astray in your
search for a bug. Moreover, the blind spot in your programming that
led you to leave out a tilde initially often prevents you from finding
it by a manual check. Unfortunately, up to now there has been no way to
check for missing tildes other than manually. TILDECHK fills this gap.
Running it on macro source files conforming to the format used by
this package's MacroLst program will produce a listing of the line numbers
and initial macro commands of the sequences in which tildes are missing
in your macro. TILDECHK will save you hours of time, even when it only
confirms that you have no missing tildes and that your bug must be in
logic or other syntax.
Speaking of missing tildes, I left one out in the entry for the
{FOR EACH} command in the COMMANDS.REF file. This has been corrected.
MacroAde Update History Page 1 of 5
- MacroAde, Version 4.1 - HISTORY.DOC -
July 28, 1991, Maintenance Update of Version 3.0:
MacroAde Version 3.0 archives of this date contain a version of the
AltL macro menuing system that has had a bug fixed in its ability to
restore a system's original cursor speed. If you want your cursor
speed in WordPerfect to be restored to any value other than "Normal",
you must specify this in the header of the AltL.wpm macro by editing it
either with your own editor or with the Ctrl-F10, Edit function in
WordPerfect. In previous releases, any value other than "Normal" was
ignored, despite its having been changed by the user. This has now been
fixed.
July 6, 1991, Release of Version 3.0:
1. AltL.wpm, the advanced macro menuing system:
* Several bugs reported by users were fixed, including:
** occasional wiping out of top line formatting
information in document from which AltL was
accessed.
** incorrect specification of ESC rather than CANCEL
as the key to use to exit from menu; it now
exits with either ESC or CANCEL.
** menu entries getting a bit scrambled when AltL was run
while Reveal Codes was activated; I couldn't
figure out why this was happening, so I simply
have the macro turn off Reveal Codes if it is
active when AltL is invoked.
* The editing functions for the entry of descriptions of macros
listed as menu items have been both improved and made much
more bullet-proof. Improvements include adding of insert,
delete, home, and end functions. Bullet-proofing entailed
ensuring that no editing function could move any portion of
the description outside of the 64-column range allowed for
it.
* At the suggestion of a Sysop from one of the major BBSs, a
small change was made to the SHELL command in this macro
which should enable AltL to run under WordPerfect Office's
Shell.
2. The same minor change to the SHELL command as above was also made to
the occurrences of this command in Bringbak.wpm, EditWP.wpm, and
EditM.wpm to enable those programs to run from within the Office
Shell environment.
3. Movecsr.wpm, macro to position cursor in advance of another macro:
* The status line prompt for this macro was changed from 2 lines
to one to prevent the top line from floating up into the
document in which the cursor is being moved.
MacroAde Update History Page 2 of 5
- MacroAde, Version 4.1 - HISTORY.DOC -
Version 2.0, Release Date: June 22, 1991:
1. Macrolst.exe, the macro-to-ASCII translator/decompiler:
* now accepts macro (.wpm) files of unlimited size as input;
formerly, the program choked on macros bigger than 15K
or so.
* translates any literal braces ("{}") found in macros to
their character set representation ([:0,123] or [:0,125])
in the ASCII file in order to permit them to be recompiled
successfully. This is the only lower ASCII character so
treated.
* now recognizes several commands ignored in previous version:
{Key Macro },Shift F11 & F12, ALT F11 & F12,
Ctrl F11 & F12, {Compose}.
* COMMANDS.ref has been updated.
2. MCompile.exe, the ASCII-to-macro compiler:
* now accepts source files of unlimited size as input; as with
Macrolst, it formerly choked on macros bigger than 15K.
* case insensitive command syntax: macro and keystroke commands
may now be entered without regard to the upper or lower
case of the characters in the commands.
* handles either spaces or tabs as formatting characters (i.e.,
to produce indents) at the beginning of lines in the
source file.
* allows the use of lit22eral braces in the source file, but only
when represented in character code form
(i.e., "{" = [:0,123] & "}" = [:0,125]), not directly as
ASCII characters.
* now recognizes several commands ignored in previous version:
{Key Macro },Shift F11 & F12, ALT F11 & F12,
Ctrl F11 & F12, {Compose}
3. EditWP.wpm -- use WordPerfect as a macro editor:
* a macro that works in conjunction with a batch file
(EditWPM.bat), Macrolst, and MCompile to bring macros of
any size into WordPerfect for editing as WordPerfect
documents and, upon pressing EXIT (F7), recompiles the
document back into a macro ready for use.
* includes error checking during compilation and return to the
editing process (at user's option) if any syntax errors
occur during compilation.
* includes a utility macro, BOLDCMDS.wpm, that bolds all macro
and keystroke commands after conversion to a WordPerfect
document, matching the screen image of the internal macro
editor exactly.
MacroAde Update History Page 3 of 5
- MacroAde, Version 4.1 - HISTORY.DOC -
Version 2.0, Release Date: June 22, 1991 (continued):
4. BringBak.wpm, the system for importing external data into WordPerfect:
* the external .exe program that was used to bring data back into
WordPerfect, BringBak.exe, is replaced by two alternative
programs which give this process much more flexibility.
Both of these programs now allow the name of a file
containing the data to be imported to be specified on the
command line, preceded by an @ sign. This avoids having
to manually enter the data on the command line and allows
external processes to write their data to a file for
importation.
** AutoBak.exe: issues an EXIT command upon termination
for automatic return to WordPerfect. This is not
needed, however, if only a single DOS command
(even a batch file name) is issued rather than
a full SHELL to DOS. Moreover, it may not be
desired if something else needs to be done
externally after the data is sent back. Thus,
a second version...
** USendBak.exe: does NOT issue an EXIT command upon
termination. The user must issue an EXIT or place
one in the batch file to return to WordPerfect,
thus giving the user much more control over
external event processing. See example in
EditWPM.bat.
* Two small macros excerpted from BringBak.wpm have been added
(SetNV.wpm and ParseNV.wpm) which allow the user to set up
an importation variable in another macro ({NEST}SetNV~),
SHELL to DOS and bring back up to the usual 120 bytes of
data, and parse out the data and put it in NewVar
({NEST}ParseNV~) for use within the macro. This technique
is exemplified by the EditWP.wpm macro.
* The message displayed on the status line informing the user
that the imported data is now in the NewVar variable
disappears after any key is pressed.
5. AltZ.wpm - "On beyond Z" in the use of ALT + letter keys to
invoke macros:
* Have you run out of keys for ALT-invoked macros? Here's a
simple macro solution that many others have undoubtedly
come up with but which is offered here to those who may
have missed anything like it up to now.
* ALTZ allows you to use ALT Z plus any of 54 other ASCII
characters to invoke a macro you've named ALTZ?,
where ? = its identifying ASCII character of your choice.
* Changing the Z in ALTZ.wpm and in all occurrences within the
ALTZ.wpm macro file itself to any other character will
allow you to have additional easy-to-invoke macros in
case you run out of keys to use with ALTZ.
MacroAde Update History Page 4 of 5
- MacroAde, Version 4.1 - HISTORY.DOC -
Version 1.0, Release Date: June 14, 1991:
1. The most obvious change in this first update is to the new name of
the product from MacroAid to MacroAde. This was done to eliminate
redundancy with the use of the former name for a product published by
Software by Seidman.
2. A bug was fixed that prevented both the Macrolst and MCompile programs
from properly handling the "{Macro Commands}" macro command. These
programs now translate and compile this command correctly.
3. An explicit note was added to the MCompile documentation which points
out the reserved status of the French braces characters ({}). These
characters may only be used to enclose macro or keystroke commands in
order for the compilation of a source file to proceed. They may not
be used as literals.
MacroAde Update History Page 5 of 5