Background

There are many step types to choose from, and they can be broadly divided into two groups: action steps and assertion steps. Action steps perform some kind of simulated action or system operation. Assertion steps perform some kind of test on a user interface or the desktop itself.

Generic Parameters

The Enter Step window contains some generic parameters that apply to all steps or an entire group of steps. They are described here.

Step Type

The type of step to be performed. It can be one of the following values.

Value	Meaning
Mouse Action	Performs some simulated mouse action.
Keyboard Action	Performs some simulated keyboard action.
Window Action	Performs some simulated action on a desktop window.
Timing Action	Performs some timing action.
Boolean Assertion	Performs an assertion that compares a Boolean value to some expected value.
Numeric Assertion	Performs an assertion that compares a numeric value to some expected value. Note that all numerics are coerced to `DBL` to make this type of assertion as generic as possible.
String Assertion	Performs an assertion that compares a string value to some expected value.
Image Assertion	Performs an assertion that compares an image value to some expected value, quantifies the difference between them using a specified compare method, and compares that calculated quantity to a specified threshold.

Delay

The delay, in milliseconds, after a step finishes, before proceeding to the next step (or next iteration of the current step if the step repeats).

Repeat

The number of times to perform the step.

Abort on Fail?

Specifies whether to automatically abort the macro if the step fails or if an error occurs during the execution of the step.

Step Notes

A note of what the step is meant to do or test.

Remarks

In order to simplify the saving and loading of specific steps, every parameter of a step is saved when the macro is saved, even if the step does not use some of those parameters. For example, the Mouse Action → Absolute Move step does not use Relative Object Name, but that parameter is still saved with the step.

This also simplifies the process of switching between different step subtypes. For example, if the user switches from Relative Move to Absolute Move, Relative Object Name will become disabled to indicate that it isn’t used in this context, but its value will not change. If the user then switches back to Relative Move, that same value will still be there.