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USER MACROS

Description

Have I got a surprise for you. Now, I gotta admit, this is not for the casual user. No, way. This takes some desire to go into a specfile, do a tiny little bit of mucking around and accepting the mistakes you're sure to make (hey, I did, why won't you?!).

What I am talking about is the way to write a specfile for these User Macros that has a bunch of menus in it just like the VSWR User Menus, so that you can press a button on the top row to bring up 6 different directories of macros (John's, Bill's, Mary's, etc...) and press a button on the bottom row and have a macro fire off. And you can STILL use the regular 10 macros. It is really slick!
 
 

Instructions

1. Download the macro specfile (right- or control-click and choose "save link as" or "save target as" something like that).

There are some comments in this file that you may want to read, but the steps below will go over some of the same stuff.
2. Place the new macro specfile on the hard drive of the Axial under the "/sys/specfile" directory. If you are not sure how to do this, please consult the Axial Quick Reference Guides or the Online Help Menu.
3. Learn a macro, any macro. Keep it simple to start, maybe just pressing the master and trimming the in-point by 1:00.
4. Save the macro to a macro directory. If you are not sure how to do this, please consult the Axial Quick Reference Guides or the Online Help Menu.
5. Press the FILE MANAGER button to bring up the File Manager window.
6. Press the MACRO button to take you immediately to the "/sys/macro" directory.
7. Highlight the macro directory where you just saved your macro.
8. Highlight the specific macro you just saved. It will be named something like: "macro1.macro".
9. Press COPY in the User Menu (the blue window on the Axial keyboard).
10. Backspace over the name of the macro and re-type the new name. You can actually name these User Macros relevant names, like "trim30.macro" (for trimming the master in-point by 30 frames).

CAUTION:

• You must make sure that you type ".macro" at the end of the name.
• You must NOT use any spaces or "funny" characters in the name.
• Use only letters for the names and keep them short, it's easier.
 
11. Press the ASSIGN MANAGER button to take you immediately to the "/sys/specfile" directory.
12. Highlight the new macro.spec file that you copied onto the Axial hard drive earlier in this exercise.
13. Press ENTER to open up this file into a text window on the Axial screen.

Now the fun part begins.

Still with me? Oh, you thought that the steps BEFORE were fun?! Just wait . . .

14. Trackball down to the part where you see this:

MENU USR1
{
ITEM 0 { "FIRST" COMMANDS { ( SUB_MENU "FIRST" ) } }
ITEM 1 { "SECND" COMMANDS { ( SUB_MENU "SECND" ) } }
ITEM 2 { "THIRD" COMMANDS { ( SUB_MENU "THIRD" ) } }
ITEM 3 { "FORTH" COMMANDS { ( SUB_MENU "FORTH" ) } }
ITEM 4 { "FIFTH" COMMANDS { ( SUB_MENU "FIFTH" ) } }
ITEM 5 { "SIXTH" COMMANDS { ( SUB_MENU "SIXTH" ) } }
}

This is the part of the file that tells the Axial what to put in the User Menus on the keyboard and what to do when you press a button. So, the first part:

MENU USR1

shows us that when you press the USR1 button on the Axial keyboard (one of the buttons that lights up when you push it), you see what is between the quote marks come up on the top part of that window like this:

FIRST SECND THIRD FORTH FIFTH SIXTH

15. If you so desire, change the parts between the quote marks just after ITEM 1 { to be what you would like and then follow the steps below. You only have 6 characters to use, so think about what you want to have appear carefully. (Funny how so many 4-letter words come to mind, huh? Theywould fit.)
16. Trackball down farther to the part where you see this:

MENU FIRST
{
ITEM 0 { "Trim10" COMMANDS { ( MACRO "Trim10" ) }}

This is the part where you get to put in the name of your macro. The part between the quotes after ITEM 0 { is what will be visible to you on the bottom row of the User Menu.

The part between the quotes after {( MACRO is the name of the macro you saved and renamed earlier except without the .macro extension.

Is this still making sense? If not, click here and you can escape for a moment or 10.

Seriously, if this is a little fuzzy, don't worry. This is kinda crazy stuff, but once you do this the first time and play with it a little bit, you will be lovin' this, trust me.

Now, where was I . . .

17. Change the letters between the FIRST set of quote marks to be what you want to see as the name of the macro as it will appear on the Axial keyboard in the User Menu. Remember you only have 6 characters to use.
18. Change the letters between the SECOND set of quote marks to be the name of the macro that you want to run when you push the button. Remember you only need to type the first part of the macro name NOT the .macro part.
19. Press CONTROL + ENTER to save all your changes and exit the text editing window of the Axial File Manager.

Almost done.

20. Press CANCEL to exit the File Manager window.
21. Press ASSIGN MANAGER to open the Assign Manager.
22. Trackball down past all the machines and past all the AUX sources to the PERIPH device section.
23. Highlight the first column, labeled DEVICE.
24. Type the letters m a c r o .
25. Press ENTER to save that change but keep the Assign manager window open.
26. Trackball over to the MODEL column.
27. Type the letters m a c r o .
28. Press CONTROL + ENTER to save changes and close the Assign manager window.

Note: If there was a problem in what you typed in the actual macro.spec file, you would have been prompted with an error message as you tried to close the Assign Manager window. If that's the case, you need to open up the File Manager and go back to step 11.

If you are a genius and didn't make any mistakes the first time, then proceed . . .

29. Load the macro directory that contains the new, named macro. If you are not sure how to do this, please consult the Axial Quick Reference Guides or the Online Help Menu.
30. Press the lighted button by the User Menus labeled USR1.
31. Press the button on the top row for which new, customized User Macro directory you want to use.
32. Press the button on the bottom row for which macro you which to excute.

When you look at these menus, you will see your new macro plus some dummy names for macros that aren't there and even a couple odd ones. There are useable macros for stuff like saving TBC settings right from this menu and one whacky one for rewinding the machine you have highlighted. Hopefully you folks will write your own and upload them right here at Editsuite.com. There are many things you can do with macros on the Axial. Any command in a specfile, any command you record in a macro, and on and on.

If you have any questions, please drop me a line.

Choose a Secret User Macros Editing a Macro

EDITNG A MACRO

Instructions

1. Learn a macro, any macro. For this example, go ahead and learn one that goes to the EDL, opens up the NOTES window types something, and press CONTROL + ENTER to save what you typed and close the window. If you are not sure how to do this, please consult the Axial Quick Reference Guides or the Online Help Menu.
2. Save the macro to the hard drive. Sorry to be repetitive, but if you are not sure how to do this, please consult the Axial Quick Reference Guides or the Online Help Menu.
3. Press the FILE MANAGER button to bring up the File Manager window.
4. Press the MACRO button to take you immediately to the "/sys/macro" directory.
5. Highlight the macro directory where you just saved your macro.
6. Highlight the specific macro you just saved. It will be named something like: "macro1.macro".
7. Press ENTER to open up this file into a text window on the Axial screen. What you see are the actual commands that the Axial recorded when you learned the macro. It may look kinda funny, but with a little time, you can make out some of the stuff.
8. Highlight the last line in the macro. It should be something like this:
   
   COMMENT_COMMIT
   
   
9. Press DELETE in the User Menu to delete that entire line.
10. Press CONTROL + ENTER to save your changes and exit the text editing window of the Axial File Manager.
11. Press CANCEL to exit the File Manager window.

Now, the changes you made to that macro have been saved to the hard drive, but have not been read into the current Axial memory.

12. Load the macro directory where you saved this macro earlier. If you are not sure how to do this, please consult the Axial Quick Reference Guides or the Online Help Menu.

You're welcome

Choose a Secret User Macros Editing a Macro