Macro & Text Tools

[Sharkey]

Trying to record Macro to bulk markup images.

 

MacroAssistant says Macro cannot record Art or Frame Text?

 

What am I doing wrong?

 

Screen shot of starting point.

 

Regards.   Sharkey

 

ps:- only a test image.

[Callum]

Hi Sharkey,

 

Unfortunately the Macro recorder doesn't currently support recording the Text Tools.

 

Thanks

C

[Sharkey]

Er?   Why??

 

It seems to me one of the first uses for the 'macro' process?

 

Not pleased.

 

Thank you.      Sharkey

[Sharkey]

OK.

 

If I cannot record a Macro of creating a water mark or signature - How do I use a Macro to put a watermark and/or a signature in bulk??

[Sharkey]

I think I have the idea.

 

Create the watermark and the signature on transparent backgrounds and us Macro to add them to any number of images as and when.

 

So - where do I store these creations so that my Macro knows where to find them. Do I need a separate folder somewhere permanent?

 

Regards.   Sharkey

[carl123]

15 hours ago, Sharkey said:

...........

 

So - where do I store these creations so that my Macro knows where to find them. Do I need a separate folder somewhere permanent?

 

Regards.   Sharkey

I would have thought that doing a File > Place within a macro would simply store the full path name to the file within the macro, so it would not matter what folder the file was in.

But this does not seems to be the case as if I record a macro containing a File > Place command, I can rename the file and the macro still works as expected, even after restarting AP

Interesting...

Maybe the macro stores a copy of the original file within the AP folders somewhere.

Can't be bothered to look for it but maybe someone else will know if this is the case.

[stewartvp]

That works for me you can see some results on my facebook @VandenBergPittSportsPhotography also when processing images of different sizes use the align functions to put things wher you want. 

[firstdefence]

On 8/1/2017 at 6:02 AM, carl123 said:

I can rename the file and the macro still works as expected, even after restarting AP

Interesting...

You can delete it and it will still work.  

[R C-R]

30 minutes ago, firstdefence said:

You can delete it and it will still work.  

Which means the macro stores a copy of the placed file, not a file path link to it. To confirm that, I created a simple 1 step "Place file" macro that placed a 1.1 MB jpg file into a document & saved the macro to a macro category I had already created. My macros.propcol file immediately jumped from about 10.1 MB to a bit less than 15 MB, which I suppose means not only is the image stored in the macro itself, it is stored in some form that is not as compressed as the original jpg file.

I think it works like this because storing a file path name (or a Mac alias or the Windows equivalent) would mean that the macro would not be cross-platform compatible (because Macs & Windows don't use the same path name conventions), & of course that the macro would not be sharable even among Mac or Windows users (because there is no guarantee that all of them would have the placed file or have it at the same file path).

That's fine, but what is not is that after I deleted the "Place file" macro, the file size of my macros.propcol file increased to nearly 18 MB! I tried quitting & restarting Affinity Photo to see if that would change anything but it did not. Maybe there is a threshold of some kind that checks for 'orphan' macro stuff & purges that from the macros.propcol file, but if there is not, that means the macros.propcol file could get very large over time, with no way to recover the lost file space other than maybe exporting each category that has had a macro deleted from it, resetting macros, & reimporting the categories.

Before I report this as a bug, I would appreciate it if someone else would test this to make sure I'm not missing something. Ideally, use an image large enough that it would add a noticeable amount to the file size of your macros.propcol file, save it to a macros category that has at least one other macro in it, & then delete that macro.

TIA

[R C-R]

On 3/25/2019 at 3:13 AM, R C-R said:

That's fine, but what is not is that after I deleted the "Place file" macro, the file size of my macros.propcol file increased to nearly 18 MB!

Anybody else tested this & if so do you see this behavior?

If you don't want to be stuck with an oversized macros.propcol file, you can copy the original & store it somewhere else. After testing, you can quit Affinity Photo & drag the copy back into its original location & replace the oversized version.

EDIT: reported as a bug here.

[v_kyr]

16 hours ago, stewartvp said:

...also when processing images of different sizes use the align functions to put things wher you want. 

That usually doesn't work correctly, since it's highly image dimension and orientation depend and APh doesn't replay recorded transformations in a dynamic doc size independent manner. - I recall that I once (long time ago after buying APh) tested the overall macro capabilities stuff and realized that in it's current state it isn't usable and pretty worthless for such general automation tasks.