Really stupid question: Where is the macro editor?

[spyro]

Hello,

I've to edit some XMetaL-Macros associated with my project. In the help file this could be done as follows:

XMetaL has a built-in macro editor that provides syntax coloring, context-sensitive editing, bookmarks, breakpoints, and other editing tools.

To start the macro editor:

– Choose Macros from the Tools menu, or click  in the Macros toolbar.
– To edit an existing macro:
– Select the macro.
– Click Edit.

The last step is my problem – there is simply not “Edit”-button!

[img]http://img412.imageshack.us/img412/2769/xmetal.png[/img]

I have to edit all the macros directly in their mcr-files, without syntax highlighting and debugging tools. What am I doing wrong?

spyro

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[ghkrause]

Hi,
Which release of XMetaL are you refering to? I use 5.1 and the help file does not read “macro editor” anywhere. Could you provide a screenshot of the help file and its name, timestamp and size?

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[dcramer]

There's a separate product called XMetaL Developer (it's a visual studio .net plugin) that gives you an IDE for xmetal customization. This technically isn't required to work on macros but provides some convenience features: http://na.justsystems.com/content-xmetal-developer

They used to have the api docs (which are also included in xmetal developer) available for download from the support page of the web site, but I can't find them now. You won't get very far without those.

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[Derek Read]

If you want to modify MCR files without XMetaL Developer and you need the documentation on the APIs and other customization features they are located here:

http://na.justsystems.com/content-support-user-guides

These are both in CHM format, so can be opened on most Windows machines (the Microsoft hh.exe “Help Viewer” is required).

Also note that Microsoft has released a Windows patch (or perhaps more than one) that disables content in a CHM file downloaded or moved from another machine. Information about “unblocking” these files is nicely described here [url=http://blogs.msdn.com/robcaron/archive/2005/06/23/431976.aspx]http://blogs.msdn.com/robcaron/archive/2005/06/23/431976.aspx[/url]

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[spyro]

Hi there,

thanks for your answers. I know that there's a developer edition but I just want to edit some macros with syntax highlighting, intellisense, line-by-line-debugging and so on like – say – the VBA-IDE in MS-Office. Visual Studio.Net is just the pure overkill for that.

So there is simply no “macro editor”?

spyro

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[Derek Read]

We used to include a simple editor with the 3.x and older releases when XMetaL was just called “XMetaL”. Since the version 4.0 release all the developer-centric tools were removed from “XMetaL” and the product was broken into two pieces: “XMetaL Author”, the XML editor itself, and “XMetaL Developer”, which is used to customize XMetaL Author and XMAX. XMetaL Developer includes the Macro editor, CTM editor, CSS editor, XFT editor, the Programmers Guide, Customization Guide and some other things).

XMetaL Developer is a plug-in for Visual Studio, so Visual Studio is required.

There are many 3rd party script editors that might give you some of what you are looking for, if you write your scripts in a language they are configured to understand (JScript, VBScript, PerlScript, or Python for example).

What these 3rd party tools will not give you that XMetaL Developer does is the ability to properly debug XMetaL Author and the scripts it is loading. This is the main advantage that I enjoy when building MCR files. You also get “edit and continue”, the ability to “step through”, “step over”, and “step out” as scripts are running, as well as the ability to visually check on variable values, including the full DOM node tree at any given time, object children, an easy way to set break points and bookmarks and the standard features that are built into a particular Visual Studio version (some support Intellisense, etc).

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