Screens tab

This section shows some of the ways in which the Screens tab of the AME is related to the XML <screen> element described in the previous section. Figure 1 shows the AME with the Screens tab selected:

Figure 1. Screens tab

The Screens tab of the Advanced Macro Editor

Notice that the Screens tab in Figure 1 contains:

A Screen Name list box at the top of the tab
Three subordinate tabs, labeled General, Description, and Actions

Currently, the General tab is selected.

Notice that there are two Screen Name fields on the Screens tab:

The Screen Name field at the top of the Screens tab is a list box that contains the names of all the macro screens in the macro.
The Screen Name field at the top of the General subtab is an input field in which you can type the name that you want to assign to the currently selected screen.

In the Screen Name list box at the top of the Screens tab, you click the name of the macro screen that you want to work on (such as Screen1), and the AME displays in the subtabs the information belonging to that macro screen. For example, in Figure 1 the list box displays the macro screen name Screen1 and the subtabs display the information belonging to Screen1. If the user selected another macro screen name in the list box, perhaps Screen10, then the AME would display in the subtabs the information belonging to macro screen Screen10.

In the Screen Name input field under the General tab, you type the name that you want to assign to the currently selected macro screen. A screen name such as Screenx, where x stands for some integer (for example, Screen1), is a default name that the Macro object gives to the macro screen when it creates the macro screen. You can retain this name, or you can replace it with a more descriptive name that is easier to remember. (When all your macro screens have names such as Screen3, Screen10, Screen24, and so on, it is difficult to remember which macro screen does what.)

Notice that the subtabs General, Description, and Actions on the Screens tab correspond to the main parts of the XML <screen> element described in the previous section. Specifically:

The General subtab presents the information stored in the attributes of a <screen> element.
The Description subtab presents the information stored in the <description> subelement of a <screen> element.
The Actions subtab presents the information stored in the <actions> subelement of a <screen> element.

But what about the <nextscreens> subelement? For usability reasons, the information belonging to the <nextscreens> element is presented in a higher-level tab, the Links tab. You can see the Links tab immediately to the right of the Screens tab in Figure 1.

Figure 2 shows the XML begin tag and end tag of a sample <screen> element named Screen1:

Figure 2. Begin tag and end tag of a <screen> element

   <screen name="Screen1" entryscreen="true" exitscreen="false" transient="false">
   ...
   </screen>

In Figure 2, the ellipsis (...) is not part of the XML text, but indicates that the required elements contained inside the <screen> element have been omitted for simplicity. Notice that the attributes in the begin tag correspond to fields on the General tab in Figure 1. For example, the name attribute (name="Screen1" ) corresponds to the Screen Name input field on the General tab, and the entryscreen attribute (entryscreen="true") corresponds to the Entry Screen list box on the General tab.

Figure 3 shows the XML text for the entire <screen> element including the enclosed elements:

Figure 3. Sample XML <screen> element

   <screen name="Screen1" entryscreen="true" exitscreen="false" transient="false">
      <description>
         <oia status="NOTINHIBITED" optional="false" invertmatch="false" />
      </description>
      <actions>
         <mouseclick row="4" col="15" />
         <input value="3[enter]" row="0" col="0" movecursor="true"
                   xlatehostkeys="true" encrypted="false" />
      </actions>
      <nextscreens timeout="0" >
         <nextscreen name="Screen2" />
      </nextscreens>
   </screen>

In Figure 3, notice that the <screen> element contains the required <description>, <actions>, and <nextscreens> elements.

By default the Set Recognition limit check box is cleared and the input field is disabled. If you select the check box, then the macro editor sets the default value of the Screens Before Error input field to 100. You can set the value to a larger or smaller quantity. For more information, see Recognition limit.