Anasoft Autowork User's Guide

5. Editing a Macro Contents 5.2 Editing the Properties of a Macro

5.1 VME - The Integrated Visual Macro Editor

VME (Visual Macro Editor) is main UI to edit an Autowork macro. It's both the general purpose macro information editor and the macro instructions editor. As shown in Pic UG-5.4-1, the parts above the long horizontal line are the place to edit macro instructions and to debug the macro. The commands below this line are for general maintenance purpose.

We will describe the second part of commands in this page. The part to edit instruction of a macro will be discussed in 5.4.1 Editing Macro Instructions in the VME.

Pic UG-5.1-1 VME (Visual Macro Editor) is the integrated environment to maintain your macro

Edit Properties, Variables and Instructions

Some of the properties are self-explanatory. Here we discuss some other that you may hope to know more:

Edit Properties, Variables and Instructions

Information for an Autowork macro can be divided into 3 parts - properties, variables and instructions. You can click the Edit Properties button to edit the macro properties, click the Edit Variables button to edit the variables of a macro. You can edit the instructions of the macro, the major part of the macro, directly in the VME body.

Edit Script

All information of an Autowork macro is saved in a script file (filename.awm). This is a plain text file if the macro is not encrypted. If it is encrypted by a password (you can set or clear the password in macro properties page), you cannot read the awm file directly.

You can click the Source button in the VME to edit the script of the macro in VME at the current status. The file opened is not the original awm macro file, but a temporarily created plain text script file. The script is easy to understand if you have some programming experience. After you modify this script file and save changes before closing it, VME will prompt you to reload changes from this script file to VME.

This provide you with a convenient plain-text way to edit macro.

Notes:

1) If you choose to accept changes from this script file, all changes you have made in the VME since the time you open this script file by clicking the Source button will be abandoned.

2) The script file can be saved and its changes can be accepted for only once. After you accept changes from this script file for once, Autowork will no longer monitor changes to this file, and even if you continue to change this file and save changes, you will no longer get prompt from Autowork to accept changes. This is to protect unwanted loss of further changes within the VME after changes of the script file has been accepted. If you want to continue modifying the macro with a script file, click the Source button to open another script file and do what you want with the new file.

Temporary Macro

When you create a new macro, Autowork will assign a default macro title for it. But it's your responsibility to assign a path for the macro to be saved to. If you create the macro just for temporary use, you can check on the "Temporary Macro" check box, then you are no longer required to decide the path by yourself, Autowork will automatically decide a valid path under the temporary macro path folder under Helena User Data Directory based on current macro title. The temporary path will be in the form:

<Helena User Data Directory>\pack\temp\<Macro Title>.awm

An example is "D:\Anasoft User Data\Helena\Pack\temp\New Macro.awm".

Validation Check

Autowork will perform validation check each time before it runs, debugs or saves a macro. You can also perform the validation check independently by clicking the Check Validation button in the VME. Autowork will check for possible problems in your properties, variables and instructions. Autowork report problems in terms of Warnings (minor problems, Autowork may get it through in some way or omit it, but it may against your original purpose in writing the code) and Errors (major problems, you cannot run a macro if errors were found in a macro).

Run the Macro

This is the same command as the one in the control panel. You can only run a macro if it has passed validation check to be an error-free macro.

Save Changes

Autowork will automatically save changes if you press "OK" button to exit editing. However, you may also choose to save changes at any time manually.