Dialogs
Edit Macros Dialog (Macros Menu)
Edit Tape Box Entry Dialog
Use this command to access the MAM macro editing facility. This brings up a simple dialog box for editing macros. The dialog is comprised of four (4) list box controls: 1) a macro list box showing the buttons making up the active macro definition (if any), 2) a button list box containing all of the available macro key/buttons available for use in a macro, 3) an active macro list box with which you may select the active macro to be displayed in the macro list box, and 4) a target macro box to which keys from the active macro list box may be copied. There are also eight (8) buttons: 1) a replace button which causes the selected item in the macro list box to be replaced with the selected item the button list box, 2) a delete button which causes the selected item in the macro list box to be deleted, 3) an insert button which inserts the selected button list item into the macro list box just before its currently selected item, 4) an append button which appends the button list box’s currently selected item at the end of the macro list box, 5) a clear button which clears the currently selected active macro, 6) an OK button which closes the dialog and saves the macros, 7) a cancel button which closes the dialog and does not save any changes that you might have made to any of the macros, and 8) a copy button which copies the selected macro in the active macro list box to the selected macro in the target macro list box, effectively replacing the latter with the former. Finally, there is also an edit control across the bottom of the dialog. This is a prompt that will be displayed when an empty macro button is invoked by playing macro. Each macro button has a prompt string associated with it, but the prompt is only displayed when the macro definition is empty and it is being called from within another macro.
To simplify matters, you can also double-click any item in the button list box to automatically append it to the macro list box. Double-clicking on any item in the macro list box will delete that item from the macro list box. Additionally, the macro list box supports dragging and dropping items within it, so that if you accidentally insert an item into the wrong location it can be easily dragged and dropped to its correct location.
Using MAM features an in-depth discussion on using macros and some of the potential pitfalls associate with their use.
Shortcuts: Space bar, double-click on line in tape box, right click context menu
Brings up a dialog box, allowing users to edit tape box line entries. After clicking the OK button, the tape box will be automatically re-calculated.
Note: Depending on what function operations were used in the currently selected tape box line, some function buttons are not available for replacement within this dialog. For example, if the X key was originally used to create the currently selected tape box line, only the X and / functions will be made available for use on this particular line. This is because certain functions create more tape box lines than other functions. If you want to convert a multiplication function (X) into an addition function (+), you’ll need to delete the tape line, insert a blank <comment> line, and then edit the <comment line>.
The ability to edit tape box entries and have MAM automatically re-calculate your tape box can be a powerful tool, but it is not without its potential pitfalls, especially where macro keys have been used in creating the tape box. This is because macros, once expanded, are forever after treated as though they had been manually entered. See Using MAM for an in-depth discussion on this issue.