Pulover's Macro Creator v5.4.1 - The Complete Automation Tool

[Pulover]

Newbie here.

Summing numerical string input was working before but now I cannot add both number, it keeps concatenating.

Post a sample pmc code or script here and I'll try to help you.

[Pulover]

Personally I wouldn't publish software before I resolved its critical bugs at least, unless I wanted to torture thousands of people... for free.

Is this how you expect to get help 'round here?

[SOTE]

1. Image search doesn't work, no matter what I tried.

2. Control-based click cannot even recognize the control I clicked - it doesn't get its name/class/id, whatever.

3. The mouse recorder doesn't relate its clicks

4. I have to exit PMC then restart and reload the script, otherwise it doesn't work at all.

Bottom line, the above mentioned #1 and #2 serious unresolved bugs and the #3 & #4 semi-implemented one, make it completely useless for me.
I spent the whole day and it couldn't make a single successful click.
Personally I wouldn't publish software before I resolved its critical bugs at least, unless I wanted to torture thousands of people... for free.

For your first post on the forum, that looks pretty vicious and a bit self-centered, aka "make it completely useless for me". A key point here, which is something I've noticed over the years, is when people use new software they tend to blame any initial failures on it versus themselves. To include not bothering to read instructions, do tutorials, or examine examples.

In the case of #1 or #2, this looks to be your failure to understand how to use the software and AutoHotkey. In the case of #3 and #4, still more likely user error than anything else, and if not then it would be better to provide screenshots. In the case of all, when asking for help, being considerate and respectful to the creator of the software is the least one can do. Nobody is forcing you to use it and a person could just use plain AutoHotkey or other solutions. A number of which, aren't free nor bug free.

Might want to have a look at some YouTube tutorials on how to use Pulover's Macro Creator, https://www.youtube.com/c/PuloversMacroCreator. Additionally, based on what it seems you might be trying to do, maybe you can also try FeiYue's Mouse And Keyboard Macro Recorder (viewtopic.php?t=34184) if Pulover's Macro Creator is beyond one's present capabilities or inclinations.

[boiler]

Well said, SOTE.

Kudos to Pulover for creating a tool that is clearly very popular and has helped many people.

[dpalix]

Hi,
Discovered PMC a few weeks ago, and I must say I'm amazed at all it can do (in my place ).
Just wondering about 2 additional debug functionalities that I feel were missing and could have helped a lot.

I could not find anything about breakpoint (sry if I missed the info). And i guess it's not that easy to implement. BUT... Would it be possible to switch from PLAY to MANUAL through PAUSE (meaning if the macro is paused, and we press the "MANUAL" button, could it switch to step by step at this moment)? Or when you select "play until the selected line", instead of ending the macro, could it switch to "step by step" automatically when reaching the line?

ALSO... when my macro doesn't work, I tend to add some code to display a msg box to the user with debug info (that I remove after I've fixed the issue).
But this stops the execution until the user exits the msg box. I was thinking an additional debug functionality could be of having a short 1-line "Log panel" in the control panel and some commands to push debug info there. It would be quite cool I feel

Anyway, I managed to do most of what I needed, so thank you for this fantastic tool.

[Pulover]

I'd love to implement breakpoints and debug info, but working alone on this project and with so little time on my hands, this is hardly gonna happen...

[NodeX]

For your first post on the forum, that looks pretty vicious

First post after a first really bad experience. If I praised the application I would be a liar, and if I felt happy and grateful after struggling all day long to no avail, then I'd be a robot.

and a bit self-centered, aka "make it completely useless for me".

Should I have talked about you then, or about everyone, when I was describing my own experience and the way I perceived it?

something I've noticed over the years, when people use new software they tend to blame any initial failures on it versus themselves.

I wish that was true, but it’s not, the vast majority of people tend to blame themselves instead, subconsciously, and feel bad about themselves, like they are incapable to make a simple piece of software or hardware work.
Those who do blame it, and don’t fall to that self-deception trap, are only the few who have a lot of experience with software and understand usability principles. And they rightfully do so. Software must be human-friendly, first and foremost.
It's the software that has to adapt more to humans, not the other way around. I'd say 99% software to humans adaptation and 1% humans to software at most, because it's a matter of efficiency: 1 or 10 developers’ adaptation to human nature, vs thousands to tens of millions of people adaptation to bad software. It’s impact to the increased cost of life is enormous and highly underestimated.

So something I've noticed over the years, is that developers (software or hardware ones) are the only ones to blame, always.***
This view is also aligned with the marketing perspective i.e that "the customer is always right even when you are most definitely sure that they are not". I develop hardware and software, so I see things from the developer’s point of view too.

not bothering to read instructions, do tutorials, or examine examples.

You can't blame them, life is too short, and spare time is limited to non-existent. They follow their instinct, and they are right: contrary to the common devs' belief, all of an app’s functionality can be made self-explanatory and intuitive, with no need to read any manuals at all.
Reading should be optional, and if some user-training is necessary, it should be embedded seamlessly on the interface. That’s what we should aim for, because it’s perfectly feasible, and it’s the future.
The fact that it is considered very hard, or even impossible today, is because the vast majority of developers place usability as their last priority. Usability is a science and technology that needs to be evolved like everything else, as it is affecting our lives more than we think, and even affects tech and science evolution itself, significantly.

In other words, when it is obvious to the user that something simple should work, it should work, period.

***In my case, I watched two tutorials, and found out the next day that there was a workaround mentioned on the forum (but not on the tutorial) that eventually made it work (the Variations value). That simply means bugs, under-development, and bad usability, not user-fault. I know because I make such bugs myself, but I always struggle to resolve them and improve the functionality and overall quality of the software before I publish it, even when I make something (eg a tool) exclusively for myself -just to keep the good habit.

when asking for help, being considerate and respectful to the creator of the software is the least one can do.

When did I ask for help? I didn’t, because I had decided to look elsewhere, so I just provided my honest critical feedback as a user who tried the software, but while searching for other software, I stumbled upon an image search discussion in the search results, and found the workaround.

Second, respect is earned, not granted. That allows the developer who invests in providing a smoother experience to earn more respect than the one who's causing a lot of suffering, and promote quality vs sloppiness.

Nobody is forcing you to use it.

Nobody is forcing you to accept my critical feedback either, yet you decided to counter it .

It all comes down to the “Free” fallacy. The users must adapt and be grateful too, just because the software is given to them "for free".
Nothing is “free” on this world, especially the users' precious time that they invest on adapting to poorly made software -not to mention the effort, the psychological impact, etc. All software should be treated with the same high standards, both by the developers and the users, whether it is free of charge, or paid. Period.

I'm not claiming that this app is trash, quite the opposite, but it has some poorly made functions. Just one of them costed me a whole day of struggle, that's how damn important bug-resolving and usability is, and that's my point.

[Pulover]

This has become so philosophical. I love it. Period.

[ranjit]

Hello friends,

Need some help in the Pulover program. I want to make a collage of 3 screenshots ie

a) take a screenshot of one-third of the right side of the page and paste it in Microsoft Paint (or Image Magik as suggested),
b) scroll down the page take another screenshot (1/3 of the right side of the page), paste that on the same Paint page side by side, and not over it.
c) and once more scroll down the page take another screenshot (1/3 of the right side of the page), paste that on the same Paint page
d) Save the collage of three screenshots.

Can any expert help

thanks to the venerable PULOVER MacroCreator Rudolfo Batista, and all you helpful souls
regards

[ranjit]

I received some help but its AHK which is greek to me

Code: Select all

;- https://www.autohotkey.com/boards/viewtopic.php?f=56&t=19807
;- montrer une bande dessinée
;- creates a folder 'blondie' in a_scriptdir with 8-pictures
;--------------------------------------------------------------
#Warn
#NoEnv
setworkingdir, %a_scriptdir%
Gui,2:  -DPIScale
Gui,2:Color,black
Gui,2:Font,  S10 CDefault , Lucida Console
P1:="blondie\P1.jpg",P2:="blondie\P2.jpg",P3:="blondie\P3.jpg",P4:="blondie\P4.jpg",P5:="blondie\P5.jpg",P6:="blondie\P6.jpg",P7:="blondie\P7.jpg",P8:="blondie\P8.jpg"
fd1:=a_scriptdir . "\blondie"
ifnotexist,%fd1%
  filecreatedir,%fd1%
ifnotexist,%p1%
  {
  urldownloadtofile,http://i.imgur.com/o33K7tL.jpg,%p1%
  urldownloadtofile,http://i.imgur.com/XXHnz8j.jpg,%p2%
  urldownloadtofile,http://i.imgur.com/9F7Iqv7.jpg,%p3%
  urldownloadtofile,http://i.imgur.com/LVqgrOl.jpg,%p4%
  urldownloadtofile,http://i.imgur.com/KoYFTj5.jpg,%p5%
  urldownloadtofile,http://i.imgur.com/blJIQjT.jpg,%p6%
  urldownloadtofile,http://i.imgur.com/I4CqPLT.jpg,%p7%
  urldownloadtofile,http://i.imgur.com/4ZF2FMc.jpg,%p8%
  }
WA:=A_screenwidth,HA:=A_screenheight
PW:=(WA*25)/100,PH :=(HA*30)/100
X1:=(WA*1)/100 ,X2:=(WA*27)/100,X3:=(WA*53)/100
Y1:=(HA*1)/100 ,Y2:=(HA*32)/100,Y3:=(HA*63)/100
GH:=(PH*3)+80  ,GW:=(X3+PW)+60
gui,2:add,picture, x%X1%  y%Y1% h%PH% w%PW%   ,%P1%
gui,2:add,picture, x%X2%  y%Y1% h%PH% w%PW%   ,%P2%
gui,2:add,picture, x%X3%  y%Y1% h%PH% w%PW%   ,%P3%
gui,2:add,picture, x%X1%  y%Y2% h%PH% w%PW%   ,%P4%
gui,2:add,picture, x%X2%  y%Y2% h%PH% w%PW%   ,%P5%
gui,2:add,picture, x%X3%  y%Y2% h%PH% w%PW%   ,%P6%
gui,2:add,picture, x%X1%  y%Y3% h%PH% w%PW%   ,%P7%
gui,2:add,picture, x%X2%  y%Y3% h%PH% w%PW%   ,%P8%
gui,2:show,x1 y1 h%GH%  w%GW%, Blondie
return
;---------
2Guiclose:
exitapp
;=====================================================

[Mod edit: [code][/code] tags added.]

[ranjit]

Waiting

[ranjit]

Any expert here? Waiting for some input

[boiler]

You’ll have more luck getting help with AHK in the "Ask For Help" forum. Most AHK experts don’t visit the PMC forum often, if at all.

[ranjit]

Thanks, buddy. Any PMC expert here? I need a few lines to capture a snapshot and stitch three of them into acollage.

[farinazo]

Hello,

I wonder if I'm able to do a search for 2 images, and once one of them appears, then the script goes on.

Thank you!

[Lenta]

Thanks for adding web companion bloatware

[higrm]

Hello friends,

Need some help in the Pulover program. I want to make a collage of 3 screenshots ie

a) take a screenshot of one-third of the right side of the page and paste it in Microsoft Paint (or Image Magik as suggested),
b) scroll down the page take another screenshot (1/3 of the right side of the page), paste that on the same Paint page side by side, and not over it.
c) and once more scroll down the page take another screenshot (1/3 of the right side of the page), paste that on the same Paint page
d) Save the collage of three screenshots.

Can any expert help

thanks to the venerable PULOVER MacroCreator Rudolfo Batista, and all you helpful souls
regards

What happened when you pressed the record button and did exactly what you wanted to do? I did that and was able to reproducibly make 3 screen grabs of 1/3 of an image and put them together in MS Paint. The raw recording isn't pretty, but it does all the needed steps. You can then automate what you want with user inputs or arrays and loops. If you have trouble after you got that started, ask a more specific question and perhaps you'll get more responses.
Cheers,
Higrm

[nmlep]

Hello, I'm new and I need some help.

I want to create an input box and then copy what the user wrote inside the input box and paste it in a search space on a website, and then lauch the search.

First, I used "Run" to lauch the website.
Then I created a variable and gave it a random content.
Then I created the input box in which I put my variable in the OutputVar section.
Then a left move and click on the "search field" of the website.
And finally a control set text command, and I put the name of my variable between % in the value field for that command.

I thought that what would have been pasted in the search field of the website was the new value of the variable, ie, what the user will write in the input box.
But nothing happens, nothing is pasted in the search field of the website.

I'm not very familiar with the use of variables on Pulover Macro Creator, could you help me please ?

Thank you.

[tank]

As I read the thread, as I attempt to remember that in my response I represent personally and professionally AutoHotkey. Like everyone in the staff of this forum I am a volunteer. We do our best to maintain a standard that made this community grow so absurdly over the broken community(AutoIt) that @Chris Split from now 2 decades ago. Chris many times early in voiced his frustration with not focusing on the needs of a specific subset of visitors. Non-Coders. The goal however successful was to create not only an intuitive script interpreter to wrap Windows API's thus enabling desktop automation for the masses, but to build what I still think is a gold standard of easy to use language support documentation. Finally, he embarked to have an open user based, newb friendly support system. But he had some really interesting criteria that when I took over in 2013 I solemnly swore I would stick to.

Our Mission

We want a free and open, unaffiliated community that is transparent and respectful to all fellow users and developers. Here is our mission statement:

• Provide highly useful Open Source Software (OSS) free of charge at the foundation owned domain.
• Support the Software
• Keep it Open Source
• Not monetize the software or support site.
• Have more than one person that can make changes to the site
• Offer a web site to support the scripting software for windows
  • A support forum suitable to the sharing of knowledge for a scripting community.
  • Administration without monopoly
  • Solicits content improvements from the community
  • Hosts documentation that is freely available
  • Protects the community from SPAM, violent, derogatory, or any other abusive content.
  • Transparently identifies Moderators and Site Administrators
  • Supports users of multiple preferred languages when the user base is large enough to support it and adequate moderators are available.

The thing is, by highlighting this software, we are in the grey area of

Not monetize the software

. I have in the past prevented even close personal friends from coming and doing similar.

So as I look at this thread, I am troubled. It is within my power to unilaterally take any action I darn well please. I WON'T. Instead I am going to comment on a few things and end it with a final public plea to @Pulover I recognize, that you have no obligation under my promise to @Chris. You need to understand that the reason I do this is to protect the legacy of protecting and supporting non-coders in this community, that in promoting your software with its bloat/crapware, you are indirectly placing AutoHotkey in conflict with its mission. You have repeatedly ignored the user remarks, the same users that I act as a steward of.

that looks pretty vicious and a bit self-centered, aka

Same can be said of this comment

For your first post on the forum

How is first or 8000000th relevant, Saying this is just showmanship like more posts = more status . That is not a thing, Not even a little . In fact as someone who has made a career writing professional grade Automated solutions in large corporations, consulting and scoping multi million dollar projects, I found @NodeX post concise and insightful as to the issues he found. What would have been appropriate is if @Pulover or literally anyone dug in and attempted to troubleshoot/make recommendations/ or submit a bug report on GitHub. At least you offered a suggestion So as an expert troll myself I can accurately call both comments 'trolling'

if Pulover's Macro Creator is beyond one's present capabilities or inclinations.

Victim blaming

Bottom line, the above mentioned #1 and #2 serious unresolved bugs and the #3 & #4 semi-implemented one, make it completely useless for me.
I spent the whole day and it couldn't make a single successful click.
Personally I wouldn't publish software before I resolved its critical bugs at least, unless I wanted to torture thousands of people... for free.

Obviously, I wanted to torture thousands of people... for free. was a jab but perhaps given how often @Pulover refuses to address/respond to user concerns ...

that's how damn important bug-resolving and usability is, and that's my point.

And pretty much the most important part of any SDLC

Should I have talked about you then, or about everyone, when I was describing my own experience and the way I perceived it?

Yea, I don't get it either

something I've noticed over the years, when people use new software they tend to blame any initial failures on it versus themselves.
I wish that was true, but it’s not, the vast majority of people tend to blame themselves instead, subconsciously, and feel bad about themselves, like they are incapable to make a simple piece of software or hardware work.

A very different perspective than many dev's and absurdly accurate actually. Steve Jobs, a megalomaniac, was famous for throwing out entire code bases and requiring the team start entirely over with Only the UI features he felt were intuitive. Googles home page is remarkably plan for the reason of focusing on an obvious task 'let me search for something', All to often bad devs think good code is about building to a spec and not considering UX. it matters, perhaps more than almost anything else. It is upon GOOD devs to flag a bad design, Focusing on a Narrow MVP, and adequate debugging methods, and user friendly (not developer friendly) error messages. The one differentiator here is that this is a programing tool which does raise the bar on what might be expected of the user.

app’s functionality can be made self-explanatory and intuitive, with no need to read any manuals at all.

Reading should be optional, and if some user-training is necessary, it should be embedded seamlessly on the interface.

A noble but sadly under rated goal, much like self documented code

when asking for help, being considerate and respectful

Virtue signaling? pot .... kettle, well actually no, there really wasn't anything disrespectful, frustrated perhaps but not disrespectful. Nothing at all like victim blaiming

Second, respect is earned, not granted. That allows the developer who invests in providing a smoother experience to earn more respect than the one who's causing a lot of suffering, and promote quality vs sloppiness.

well Maybe a bit direct but, I couldn't agree more

...

@Pulover why does the install contain bloatware? Seems pretty shady. Especially since you closed an issue without replying where the user was asking if the inclusion of bloatware was intentional.

@Pulover This has got to stop. !! You can package your code any way you like. but if you are going to just flat ignore these, and not respond to each and everyone with at minimum a link to an alternate method and a way to safely clean up the bloat ware then maybe it is time to reconsider featuring this app. Multiple nicer and private approaches have been taken. So now here I am being the asshole putting you on public notice. No matter the disclaimer on the OP your choice to utilize bloatware and a shady installer does affect the reputation of AutoHotkey. It is not too much to ask that you respond to these kinds of posts with alternate option and bloatware removal options. If you don't want to be responsible for how it affects users, remove it

[Pulover]

I respect your opinion, @tank but the point is that I don't have time to work on this project anymore. It was my first coding project and I spent years trying to improve it, without being paid for it, all because I wanted everyone to have a free alternative to an automation tool with an interface. I'd love to fix every bug and make it more intuitive but as my career advances that's not likely to happen any time soon. So pointing out bad practices or unintuitive UX is not fair if you consider that this was a program I built before I even called myself a developer.

As for the complaints, first off I repeat what I said to @joedf that there's NO BLOATWARE, since there's a user concent screen and it's easy to remove it without any harm. That's common practice and you should know it, that's why there's a license agreement and the Decline button, it's completely optional. Second, the reason I'm not responding to these messages is because I'm not going to make this a public discussion, as if anyone on the internet was entitled to give their opinion on whether or not I should be making money out of my work. This decision is only mine. Now if you want to stop endorsing PMC, remove the subforum or remove it completely from autohotkey.com I will understand and respect your decision. If it goes against the guidelines or something like that, it's completely understandable.