Sample Macro Fn+F1: First class of the day

[Note: Sample files from this article are found in PROFILE.ZIP .]

Music is Heathers first class in the day, and the macro is a little different than the others. The Macro looks like this:

{More}{Menu}al{NoteTaker}{Menu}foa:\homework.ndb {Enter}{Enter}{F2}{Date}{Alt+G}HOMEWORK{F3}{Time} MUSIC

The easiest way to create a System Macro is to record it as you press the keystrokes. For example, if you wanted to enter the first line of the above macro as the Fn+F1 macro, follow these steps:

  1. 1. Press (Shift)-(Fn) together and then whichever F-key you want to assign to the macro, (F1) for this example.

  2. 2. Begin entering the commands and keystrokes you want the macro to playback. For the first line of the above macro you would press these keys: (&...) (MENU) (A) (L) (CTRL)-(MEMO) (MENU).

  3. 3. End and save the macro by pressing (Shift)-(Fn) (F1) again.

Whenever you want to run the macro, press (Fn)-(F1). You can also run the System Macro application from AppManager and key in the macro commands directly. For more on this, see System macros in the index of your HP 100/200LX Users Guide.

The first line of the macro above, up through {Enter}{Enter}, closes any other open applications, opens NoteTaker, and loads HOMEWORK.NDB, the NoteTaker file in which Heather keeps assignments. I chose to close all other applications to make sure there was enough memory available to load NoteTaker.

Since this is the first class of the day, {F2} adds a new NoteTaker item to contain the days assignments. The {Date} command places the current date in the Title field of the new entry. {Alt+G} HOMEWORK moves the cursor to the Category field and enters HOMEWORK as the category. (Please note that I've set the date format on Heathers 100LX to YY-MM-DD -- go to Setup and press (MENU) Options Date/Time -- so the Note-Taker list sorts the items properly and displays the most current date at the top of the list.)

{F3} {Time} MUSIC: moves the cursor to the Notes field, enters the current time and MUSIC, the name of the class. Note that the macro contains empty spaces between {Time} and MUSIC, and after MUSIC, so the time and the word MUSIC don't run together with the assignments Heather enters. The macro ends with the cursor positioned next to the word MUSIC in the Notes field, waiting for Heather to type in the assignment and press (F10) to save the note.

Additional Assignment Macros

The first macro is different because it creates a new NoteTaker entry for the day. Since all the assignments for that day are stored in the same NoteTaker item, subsequent macros for Heathers other classes don't need to add another entry with the macro commands {F2}{Date} {Alt+G} HOMEWORK. This part of the macro is replaced in other macros by {F4} {Date}{Enter}, which searches for the NoteTaker item with the current date. Subsequent macros also differ from the first in that they end with commands {F3}{Ctrl+End}, which open the Note field and move to the end of it.