Macros need a lot of improvement

[Howard Worf]

I've just decided to ditch the Adobe tax and get properly to grips with Affinity. There are so many things about it I really really like, but the macro function seems to be a hangover from the old Photoplus days - in that everything I try to record ends up with a 'can't do that' message, for example, right mouse click on layer (nothing happens), selecting multiple layers, or the killer, trying to move a layer in the stack or in to a group.  It's OK for really simple stuff that only takes a few moments to do manually anyway, but that's it. Until it can actually record most of what I am doing I can't really use it.

Are there any plans to make this tool more usable?

[carl123]

17 minutes ago, Howard Worf said:

or the killer, trying to move a layer in the stack or in to a group.

Select the layer you want in the stack/group
Edit > Cut

Select the stack or group
Edit > Paste Inside

Note: A lot of the "can't do that" messages can be done by using the menus, so always look to see if a menu command/sequence will do it, before assuming that because it can't be done the "normal" way" you can't do it in a macro - there are many workarounds when macro recording to get the same result, so always post here (the forum) if you get stuck doing something in a macro
 

20 minutes ago, Howard Worf said:

Are there any plans to make this tool more usable?

No.

[lepr]

4 minutes ago, carl123 said:

Select the layer you want in the stack/group
Edit > Cut

Select the stack or group
Edit > Paste Inside

A paste step in an Affinity macro will paste the object that was on the clipboard at the time of recording the macro, not an object on the clipboard at the time of playback.

[carl123]

11 minutes ago, anon2 said:

A paste step in an Affinity macro will paste the object that was on the clipboard at the time of recording the macro, not an object on the clipboard at the time of playback.

Your right, it's been a while since I needed to add something to a group

Move the layer you want in the group to just above the group then Arrange > Move Inside

[R C-R]

19 hours ago, Howard Worf said:

It's OK for really simple stuff that only takes a few moments to do manually anyway, but that's it.

Not true. Even with its many limitations some users have created some fairly complex macros that would be tedious (& error prone) if done manually. You can find some of them by searching the Resources forum.

22 hours ago, Howard Worf said:

Are there any plans to make this tool more usable?

The developers have said they will be looking at this at some point but I think it is safe to say that for the immediate future other things have a much higher priority.

[Howard Worf]

Thanks for the replies. Just after I'd posted my original comment I decided to create a simple macro to export a full sized jpg to the source folder. First step failure - export file menu cannot record 'export item'. I've given up even trying for now. Maybe a list of the things macro recording can do would be useful?

I'm going to take the suggestion to look at the resources forum.

Thanks again for the input.

[John Rostron]

Are you aware that you can write batch procedures that will open files from a specified source, apply one or more macros, then export them to another specified folder. 

John

[timlt]

22 minutes ago, John Rostron said:

Are you aware that you can write batch procedures that will open files from a specified source, apply one or more macros, then export them to another specified folder. 

John

+1.  Batch tool in AP + macros, pretty powerful.  It's certainly true you can't do as much as Adobe "actions" plus scripting options, so if you're expecting that, need to reset your expectations a bit.  But you can definitely do a lot more than you may realize at first glance.