General

•Hot keys:

Select the hot-key you want to set in the list and click "Set Hotkey..." button

•All macros list - hot key that brings up window with list of all macros.

•Enable/Disable Triggers - hot key to enable/disable macro triggers.

•Start / stop macro recording - hot key to start/stop macro recording.

•Show / hide main window - hot key to show or hide main window.

•Play sound when executing macro - if checked, defined sound (.wav file) is played when macro is started. A dialog box to define sound file is shown when the unchecked option is changed to checked. If no sound file is defined then a default sound is played.

•Control speed of macro keystrokes sending
This option allows to control speed of keystrokes sending to target application. User may need to modify this option if, for example, macros are mostly run in target applications running on a remote machine accessed using remote desktop connection (or Citrix). In such case if keystrokes are send too fast then some of them can get lost. This option allows to define the number of keystrokes and a delay in milliseconds to wait with sending other keystrokes. For example, if the number of keystrokes is 25 and the delay is 20 then if there is a macro that is sending bigger amount of keystrokes then after each 25 keystrokes executed there will be 20 milliseconds delay.

•Send macro text to target application...
This option allows to choose how simple macro text is inserted into the target application. If "As keystrokes" is selected then the simple macro text is sent to the target application (such as word editor) as a set of keystrokes the same as if the text is typed on keyboard.
If "Using clipboard" option is selected then the macro text is copied to the clipboard first and then it is pasted to the target application the same as if the user hits Ctrl+V key combination. The Macro Toolworks has no control on the target application. It can happen that the paste operation takes in the target application longer then expected and a subsequent macro that is eventually run precede the paste operation completion and cause unexpected result. To prevent this it is possible to set a delay in milliseconds that prevents other macros or commands to execute. This slows down the macro execution but increases the reliability.

•Do not show macro execution progress window - if checked, the macro execution progress window is not showing.

•Log macro execution - if enabled, macro execution information is added to the log.txt file. The file is available from the "View/Show Log File" main menu item. The log file collects macro execution start time, finish time, and errors that occur during the macro execution.

•Auto-save - if checked, the changes made to macro file are automatically saved every couple minutes. In addition, all changes are automatically saved on program shutdown (without showing "Do you want to save..." dialog box to user).

•Automatically detect new version available - if this option is enabled, the program connects to its home page and detects a new version availability.

Reload macro files:

•Reload when change is detected - if a change in a macro file is detected, the macro file is automatically reloaded so that users always have the most recent version of the macro file laoded.

•Confirm reloading - if checked, the user is asked to confirm macro file reload.

More options button:
More options are available on [More...] button:

•Use list box to select from macros with the same trigger - It is possible to define multiple macros with the same trigger. This option tells if list box or menu should be used to select what macro will run.

•Do not show "Macro execution stopped" message... - It is possible to stop macro execution using "Shift+Esc" hot-key. By default, if the macro is stopped this way, a message is shown to user. This option allows to disable the message.

•Do not show "Macro is paused" window... - if checked, a message that macro is paused is not showing.

•Always start minimized to tray - if checked, the program always starts minimized to the Task bar tray icon. Otherwise the program starts in the same position as it was before exiting.

•Start on Windows Startup - if checked the programs automatically loads on Windows startup.

•As Admin - if checked the program starts with admin privileges. This is a recommended option since some software (such as browsers) often blocks the keyboard triggers (such as text shortcuts) if the Macro Toolworks is not running with the admin privileges.

•Protect macro files by AES encryption - if checked, then all macro files content is encoded using AES algorithm for better security of the data saved in the macro file.

•Preserve clipboard content...
If "Using clipboard" option is selected in "Send macro text to target application..." above then clipboard is used to send simple macro text to target application which causes the clipboard content is modified. This option allows to preserve the clipboard content so that after a macro execution is finished the clipboard content is restored to be the same as it was before the macro execution was started. It is possible to set the delay in milliseconds how long the Macro Toolworks is waiting before the clipboard content is restored. If the delay is too short then it can happen that before the target application is able to react to Ctrl+V paste operation the clipboard is restored and the original clipboard content is inserted to target application instead of the macro text. If the delay is too long then if user wants to paste clipboard data immediately after executing a macro the macro text is again pasted instead of the original clipboard content. A value in range 1000 (1 second delay) to 3000 (3 seconds delay) should work fine in most cases.

•Auto-format macro: Command per line - if checked, the macro - when edited as "Macro Steps" - formats the macro text so that there is one macro command per line. The formatting is applied when switching from "Macro Steps" tab to "Macro Text" tab.