15-Minute Reviews :: Macro Recorder v3.82.0

Hello all and welcome to another 15-Minute Review! Today’s application is Macro Recorder version 3.82.0 by Jitbit Software – An application to record and play back mouse and keyboard macros.

Software Description

As Giveaway of the Day states:

“Jitbit Macro Recorder records mouse and keyboard activity, saves them as a macro and replays it, automating your routine tasks. It also edits the resulting macros and even compiles them to EXE-files. Macro Recorder also allows creating macros from scratch using the built-in editor and inserting complex commands like ‘open URL’, ‘shutdown’, FOR-loops and IF-statements.

Use Macro Recorder to automate ANY routine activity in ANY windows application.”

Quick Pros

• Interface makes it easy to create and alter macros
• Macro building is very easy – Lots of functions to choose from
• SMART-Rec feature makes application not as dependent on window positioning
• Capability to compile macro as an executable file very handy for portability
• Ability to use macros attached to hotkeys with Macro Launcher

Quick Cons

• Could use a few more functions and capabilities such as screen monitoring
• Macro Launcher could have an option to start with Windows
• Default global hotkeys likely will conflict with other applications but are changeable
• Memory usage a bit heavy

Expansion

When you first launch the application, you are greeted by a very simple interface. There is a toolbar along the top of the window featuring a Start Recording button, a series of playback buttons for debugging your macro, and the Settings button. Along the left side of the window is a series of buttons for inserting functions for building your macro. Finally, in the center is a 4-column grid in which is displayed your macro steps. Most functions don’t enter the third and fourth column; You will likely want to widen the second column so you can see the primary contents. Inside the menus you will find all the same contents as the buttons, plus links to Windows Scheduler, Hotkeys, building your macro as an executable and so forth.

I found macros were very easy to build as well as recording. Using either the Insert menu or the buttons down the left, I could build some fairly powerful macros, including a generic dialog box, wait for a keystroke before continuing, delays and so forth. There is also conditional if-then-else capabilities as well, and also the ability to build loops into the macro. The macros can be window-aware as well, and the awareness is fairly powerful too for tracking what is going on. The great feature here (As well as during recording called SMART-Rec in the Settings) is that the macro can use mouse positions based on the window position itself rather than relying on screen-wide coordinates, allowing for more precise movements and less reliance on making sure windows are jockeyed in the correct position before running the macro; Quite a few macro applications I’ve ran in the past seem to lack this functionality and it just baffles me why it isn’t included. I do feel that while there are a lot of capabilities with this application, it could be expanded, including the capability to monitor the screen and then set off a trigger if a pixel (or pixelset) changes or changes to another form. This could be handy with scripting tutorials as well; Watch for a certain state or positioning and then present the next set of instructions.

One of the best functions with this application is the capability to compile the macro as an executable. This allows the macro to be portable (Easily distributable to an array of computers, say in a learning lab for example) but also allows it to be used with the Windows Scheduler directly (Which the application links to this) as well as on startup and shutdown and many other locations.

The application does also have the capability to run macros via hotkey; However, instead of using the main application in the system tray, there is actually a secondary application called Hotkey Macro Launcher, which sits a little lighter on system memory usage and is pretty easy to use. The only thing I do wish that the mini-application had was the capability to set itself to start on boot (and minimized to the tray); Instead, you’ll have to do it yourself.

For the application itself, it does have some global hotkeys for starting/stopping macro playback and recording as well. Unfortunately, the defaults are Control-P/Control-R/Scroll Lock. The Scroll Lock likely won’t conflict with too much, but the Control-P/Control-R likely will and give you undesired effects. The flipside here is that they can be changed, and I would suggest doing so to something a little more obscure.

On a final note, I do need to mention the memory usage. Under typical usage, the main application uses almost 15MB of memory; Fairly hefty. The redeeming quality here is this, as with the compiled macros are only temporary usage and shouldn’t affect your overall performance. Both the precompiled macros I tested as well as the Hotkey Macro Launcher sit at a bit under 6MB memory usage, which isn’t bad.

Final Verdict

While I wasn’t impressed with the main grid’s look (it really could use some sprucing up) and could use a bit more power, the application as a whole works well for what it is intended for. For free, if you’re looking for a low- to medium-powered macro application, this may be a good one to start with for its ease of use and some of its alternate capabilities such as compiling the macros into executables. As for paying $39.85 for this title, this is kind of on the fence for myself; It is pretty powerful for what it is, but at the same time some of the little things like the lack of built-in boot functionality or auto-minimize, simple features that should have been included.

Posted by BladedThoth on Wednesday, October 10, 2007