[AP] recordable Macro step list?

[R C-R]

I know macros are still a work in progress & not everything can be recorded, but it would take some of the guesswork out of creating them if there was a list somewhere of what can and/or cannot be recorded, ideally with brief notes about any limitations on what can be recorded (like only the results of applying a formula rather than applying the formula itself).

 

Is there such a list?

[v_kyr]

Good question, according to the help system ...

Quote

... Through the Macro panel, you can record any operation in Photo; from applying a Gaussian Blur to adding a gradient fill. ...

... though I'm not sure if this holds as is, maybe any operation here is still meant to be inside some context boundaries (?).

[R C-R]

I think anyone who has experimented even a little with recording macros quickly realizes that the context of that "any operation" phrase must be "in the land of make believe" or something similar! 

 

The most obvious 'operation' that can't be recorded is opening a file, which does not even generate a 'can't do that' warning during recording, I suppose because until it is saved, recording a macro is specific to the currently opened file. I did not notice this specificity until I started experimenting to see which ops were not supported, so that is yet another thing that could be explained in the help files.

 

Some operations also seem to be dependent on the file with which they were recorded, & crash the app if saved & used with others. An example is select, refine, & delete.afmacro, which I made by using the Selection Brush Tool to select part of a jpeg file, refining the selection a bit, & deleting the selected area. Saving it & applying it to another file immediately crashes AP on my system. So it would be nice if a list of supported macro steps could include info about this sort of stuff as well -- it is particularly frustrating for the app to quit while trying to determine which operations don't work on every file.

[v_kyr]

Hmm that sounds like common file operations (opening/placing other files etc.) then are not supported and most ops are more tied to the actual opened file than in a general manner. Since AD don't support macros just AP (which I don't have/use) can't tell or try here. But from what you report I agree, it would be pretty useful to know concretely before here what will work or not, so people don't waste their time with trying out to automate things which are as default not supported at all.

BTW I recall that I saw on the batch jobs help page, that these seem to work in conjunction with macros for previously selected files, though it's not the same as being able to apply more flexible on the fly file ops here. All in all it looks like that there is still room for improvements, also in terms of the tools usage documentation, FAQs and HowTos...!

[R C-R]

9 minutes ago, v_kyr said:

Hmm that sounds like common file operations (opening/placing other files etc.) then are not supported ...

Placing a file is supported, but it places the file chosen when the macro was recorded, so it is not very useful. Also, I can't seem to work out how to place it at any specific location in the currently AP document, like the top left corner.

 

Also, some simple operations seem to do unexpected/unexplained things. For example, drawing with the Paint Brush Tool creates two seemingly identical "Paint Brush" macro steps, one when I click on the canvas & start dragging the brush, & a second one when I release the mouse button to stop drawing. After experimenting with this a bit, it appears that I can set the brush color separately for the start & end of the brush stroke, but not in a useful way. For a simple brush stroke made with the mouse, I get something like this:

[v_kyr]

This souds/looks a little bit odd, but since we don't know how the macro recording and play back intentionally works internally for certain commands and operations, it's hard to tell here. Someone from the dev team can probably tell, also what is actually possible and what not.

[R C-R]

8 hours ago, v_kyr said:

This souds/looks a little bit odd, but since we don't know how the macro recording and play back intentionally works internally for certain commands and operations, it's hard to tell here.

I can at least sort of understand that there might be some usefulness for a macro recording separate 'mouse down' & 'mouse up' steps for drawing with a paint brush, but I would not expect the second, 'mouse up' step to affect anything done during the 'mouse down' event.

[stokerg]

21 hours ago, R C-R said:

if there was a list somewhere of what can and/or cannot be recorded

 

We don't  have a list here in Tech. 

 

I'll see if i can get one created and posted here, it may take a few days to get the list together.

[R C-R]

20 minutes ago, stokerg said:

I'll see if i can get one created and posted here, it may take a few days to get the list together.

Thanks! I imagine a comprehensive list could take quite a while to assemble, but even a partial one would be welcome.

[v_kyr]

32 minutes ago, R C-R said:

I can at least sort of understand that there might be some usefulness for a macro recording separate 'mouse down' & 'mouse up' steps for drawing with a paint brush, but I would not expect the second, 'mouse up' step to affect anything done during the 'mouse down' event.

Hmm since it needs to track positioning (coordinates), used tool drawing states and settings etc. in some manner during recording, it might be there is a logical or technical implementation related reason for splitting these mouse steps here (?).

However, to have some more info about the overall available operations and handling would be welcome. - Generally it would be useful to have some FAQ reference here which deals with all those themes/aspects which aren't always obvious how to do or to how to solve something. Meaning which then hopefully also contains all those things (Q/A) which are thousend times repeatedly (again and again) asked here. Think about it, how many times did you and other people here overall answered and explained the same AD and AP specific and related things...?