Recording a macro

To record a macro while in a host session, either click the Record macro button or click Actions > Record Macro. This opens the Record Macro window. Using this window, you can do the following:

Macro Location:

At the top of the panel, select the location where your recorded macro should be saved. You may choose from any of the existing locations, or define a new user location. Note that you may not save a macro to a server library accessed through the internet, and thus it will not be presented as one of your choices. When macros are placed in a library, rather than in the Current Session, they can be easily shared by multiple users and/or sessions. See Sharing and reusing component definitions for more information.

User-defined Locations:

You can use the Add... button to define up to three user locations. When you add a fourth location, the least-recently-used location is automatically removed. You can also explicitly delete user locations with the Delete button. Note that you must have write access to the location to save your macro.

Record a new macro

If you want to record a new macro, click New.
Type a name for your macro. The name should indicate the purpose of the macro for easy recognition. Macro names are case-sensitive! Therefore, mymacro is a different name than MyMacro, MyMacrO, myMacro, and so on.
Optionally, type a description. This is useful when you have more than one macro, because it can help remind you what the macro is used for.

The file name is the macro name plus a .mac extension.

Overwrite or append to an existing macro

If you want to overwrite or append to an existing macro, click Existing.
Select a macro from the drop-down list.
If you want to append to the existing macro, select "Append to existing macro". Otherwise, the existing macro will be overwritten.

Express Logon Feature (Optional):

If you are recording a macro to use Express Logon, select Web, Certificate, or Reuse Active Credentials under Express Logon Feature. Both Web and Certificate allow users to log on to a host system without having to enter the user ID and password. Reuse Active Credentials also does this if a user has previously authenticated to the host. If not, the Reuse Active Credentials macro will prompt the user for the user id and password and then save them in memory to be used if the macro is run at a later time. Once Host On-Demand is closed, the credentials will be cleared. All types of Express Logon allow users to log on to a host system without having to enter the user ID and password. Note: If you wish to use an Express Logon macro, the session must be configured appropriately. See the Express Logon topic in the online help for more information.

Begin recording:

Once you have completed the steps from one of the sections above, do the following to begin recording a macro:

Click OK.
In the host session, perform the task you want to record. Every key you press is recorded as part of the macro. To press keys you don't want to be included in the macro, click Pause. When you finish, click Pause again to continue. If you enter the wrong data while recording a macro, you cannot go back to make corrections. You can, however, record over the existing macro or edit the macro code using the Macro Editor.
When your task is complete, click Actions > Stop Macro. Recording stops and the macro is saved. Macros are recorded using XML script. To make changes to the macro, click the 'Edit current macro properties' button to open the Host Access Macro Editor.

To view the macro properties, click the Select button from the Macro Manager toolbar, select the macro location, right-click the macro name, and select Properties. Macro properties include the macro name, description, author, creation date, and macro location.

Customizing the "Play Macro" and "Record Macro" panels

The lockMacroSaveLocations and RemovecurrentSessionOption HTML parameters allow you to customize the Play or Record Macro panel.

Using the HTML parameter lockMacroSaveLocations allows the administrator to add macro locations to that particular Host On-Demand client. This HTML parameter takes input as a string. The value for this parameter is the location/path that appears in the Macro Location. If the administrator decides to add more than one location or path, it is a list of locations separated by semicolon. Also, if both path name and Path have to be specified, the path name should appear first and the path should be separated by a '*' character.

Using the HTML parameter RemovecurrentSessionOption allows the administrator to exclude the "CurrentSession" option appearing in the MacroLocation list. Possible values are true or false. The default value is true. If the value is set to true, "currentSession" appears in the macro Locations list. If the value is set to false, the current Session does not appear in the macro Location.