How do I launch a list of programs with a single hot key?

1. Click the <Add> button and a wizard will guide you through the steps. 

2. You will be asked by the wizard for the type of macro you want to create.  Choose "Launch a list of programs."

3. First choose how you will launch the macro. See the window below.

4a. If you choose "Press a hot key"  you will see the window below.

Make sure that the cursor is blinking in the field.  Then strike the key(s) that you will use to run your new macro.  We recommend that you choose key combinations like <Ctrl+B>, or <Shift+F8>, etc.   If you choose keys like <E> or <0>, this could interfere with the way you use your other software.  For example, if you are using a word processor and you type

"Every good boy does fine"

and you have a macro set up for the <E> key, then your 'E' macro would run instead of the 'E' appearing in your word processor's window.

4b. If you choose "Use Type-A-Macro" to launch a macro you will see the window below.

This is where you type the keysequence you want to use to launch your macro.   Be sure you use a key sequence that you won't use very much in another program.  For example, typing "ing" will appear in a lot of words you type.  It would not be a good candidate for a Type-A-Macro key sequence.  Something like "nP" would be very handy since you won't be mixing a lowercase n and capital P very often.  Mixing capitalization is a handy trick.

4c. If you choose "Wait for a certain window to appear..." you will see the window below.

You can type all or part of the title of a window you will be setting up this macro to watch for.  For example if you enter  'Notepad', this macro will launch  when the Notepad program starts.

5. You now see a blank list of programs to launch.  See the window below.

6. Click the <Add> button to add a program to launch.  The window below will appear.

In the 'Program field' type the path to the program  you wish to run.  You can click the <Browse> button to help you find your program.  In the 'Parameters' field, type the command line parameters to the program.  If you want the program to run minimized, click the 'Run Minimized' box.

For example, if you want to run Paintbrush minimized and have it automatically load a BMP file from the C:\WINDOWS directory you would enter

pbrush.exe

in the "Program" field and enter

c:\windows\argyle.bmp

in the "Parameters" field and check the "Run Minimized" box.

After you click <Ok> you will return to the program list window mentioned in item 4.  You will see your program listed in the list.  Now you can add more programs to the list if you wish.  If you have more than one program in the list you can rearrange them by pressing the <Move Up> and <Move Down> keys.

7. After you click the <Next> button, you can enter a description for this macro.  This will help you to remember what this macro does when you come back to it later.