Anasoft Autowork User's Guide

5.4.2 Editing Keyboard and Text Instructions  Contents  5.4.4 Editing Windows Operation Instructions

5.4.3 Editing Mouse Instructions

back to 5.4 Editing the Instructions of a Macro

Basics

The basic mouse actions are:

     Mouse Move (not related to any mouse buttons)

     Mouse Button Down/Up/Double Click for the left/right/middle/X1/X2 mouse button

     Mouse Wheel Rotation

It you have no middle/X1/X2 button, you may not use the operations for middle/X1/X2 buttons. A mouse wheel can produce the actions for a middle button, as well as unique mouse wheel actions.

Click and Drag/Drop are common mouse actions, but they are not basic actions, they are in fact combination of some basic actions.

Autowork supports for all the important basic mouse actions (except for X1/X2 buttons, which are seldom used) as well as mouse clicks. Other advanced mouse actions can be realized by combinations of some basic actions, as well as combination of mouse and key actions.

Pic UG-5.4-3-1 List of Mouse Instructions supported by Autowork

Pic UG-5.4-3-2 Editing a Mouse Wheel instruction. The information for mouse wheel in this dialog box will only appear when you selected Mouse Wheel Rotate instruction. All other mouse instructions have only two parameters - x and y for mouse position.

Mouse Move

Mouse Move describes the track when your mouse moves. A macro with mouse move recorded or inserted properly can elegantly show the track of your actions. Mouse move is part of the actions that combine to create drag and drop, and used when you are drawing a picture in Windows.

However, except for drag and drop and Windows drawing, in most time you set your inserting point or focus of Windows operation by clicking some position on your screen, most Windows mouse move are not actually "useful" except for the purpose of track show. If you don't actually need it, you may choose not to record or insert mouse moves, or record or insert it at a lower density. You can make the decision based on your own judgment.

Mouse Click

Mouse click is a common mouse action. However, it is not a basic action; it's just combination of mouse down + mouse up for the same mouse button one after another in Windows.

Autowork provides you the choice to use Mouse Click directly for your convenience, this is just a pack of mouse down and mouse up.

Drag and Drop

Drag and Drop are common mouse actions. However, they are also not basic actions. Drag is press (mouse down) and move (mouse move), drop is mouse up.

Mouse Operations Involving Multiple Buttons

You may press multiple mouse buttons together. This action is not a basic action; it's just same as pressing (mouse down) different mouse buttons one after another, you may release (mouse up) these buttons one after one later.

For example, if you hope to perform a group of left mouse button actions when your middle mouse button pressed, you may first press the middle button (Mouse Down for Middle Button), and perform your list of left button mouse actions, then release the middle button (Mouse Up for Middle Button) at last.

Combination of Key and Mouse Operations

Same as above, if you hope to realized the effect where both one or more keyboard keys and one or more of your mouse buttons pressed, you can just press them one after another for the same effect. If there is no important actions between you press and release these keys or buttons, the sequence when you press some key(s) or button(s), and the sequence when you release them are usually not important.

Unnamed Mouse Action

When Autowork records a macro involving mouse actions, it records all mouse actions involved in the Windows, including the Mouse Move, Mouse Down/Up/Double Click and Mouse Wheel and some other minor mouse actions. Those minor actions not described in this page are usually not important. Generally when you meet a mouse action not named by Autowork, you can just omit it. However, if you believe it's useful, you can also leave it there if you want.