Helpful Hints

If you find yourself having trouble with EZ Macros you may find these hints helpful. 

1. If you are having difficulty playing back macros at the fastest speed try playing them at a slower speed.  Normally if you move the slider to the middle of the slider bar, that does the trick.  Sometimes other applications cannot accept keyboard and mouse movements as fast as EZ Macros can produce them. 

For example, if you create a macro to click the 'File..Open' menu command then type in a filename, you could notice a small time delay between the time you click 'Open' and the time the window actually appears.  Keystrokes could be lost between the time the macro clicks 'Open' and the time the window actually appears if the time delay is much greater than the time delay when you recorded the macro. 

If you encounter circumstances like this try playing your macro back at 'Recorded Speed'.

2. If you are having trouble getting your macros with mouse clicks to work read this section.   Sometimes windows appear at different positions on the screen when you display them.  This is a normal Windows behavior. 

With that in mind you should know that mouse events such as movements and clicks are "screen relative" not "window relative".  This means that when you play back a macro that produces mouse clicks, those clicks will occur at the same position on the screen, not the same position on the window.

Here are two solutions to this dilemma.

A. Only use keyboard events to navigate your program.  This will actually result in a faster executing macro and you will be assured that you will not have any problems with the mouse clicking in the wrong place.

B. At the very beginning of your macro, use the keyboard to maximize the main window of the application you are creating your macro for.  You maximize the window with the keyboard by pressing the following keys.

Press  the <Alt> key once

Press the left arrow once

Press the down arrow once

Then arrow down to 'Maximize'

Then press <Enter>

This will assure you that the application's window will always be in the same position and the same size every time you record your macro.  After you do these five simple steps continue recording your macro.

One note of Caution:  If you record a macro and later play it back in the "wrong place", you’ll get unpredictable and possible dangerous results.  For example, if you record a macro for your word processor and accidently play it back while you’re running your spreadsheet program, you could garble or even lose your data.  Pressing Ctrl-Alt-Delete during playback will halt the macro and minimize the damage.  After pressing Ctrl-Alt-Delete, Windows 95 will let you shut down the macro gracefully.  The bottom line:  Be careful when you play your macros!

Note:  If you have additional hints you would like to share with others please send them to our technical support department.  We would love to see what sort of trick you have come up with.

3. If you run an email macro and you get a window that states

Then you do not have a default email program set up.  This is easily fixed.  First you must have an email program installed such as Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft Exchange, Eudora or any others.  Then do the following.

A. Start your Windows Explorer

B. Click View..Options

C. Click the File Types tab

D. In the Registered file types list scroll down to the item "URL: MailTo Protocol".  Then single click on it.

E. Click the Edit button.  In the "Edit File Type" window the "Description of Type" should be "URL: MailTo Protocol".  If not, then back up and select "URL: MailTo Protocol".

F. Single click on the "open" Action, then click Edit.

G. You will need to fill in the "Application used to perform action" field with the path to your email program.  Click Browse if you need to locate this .EXE file.  An example of this would be

C:\<Eudora Folder>\Eudora.exe

H. Once you select this file, click <Ok>.  Then click <Ok> on the Edit File Type window.  Then click <Ok> on the "Options" window. 

Your email macro should now work.