WinWarbler Macros

WinWarbler Online Help Contents

WinWarbler's two banks of sixteen macros allow you to transmit information with a single mouse click or keystroke. To invoke a macro in the first bank, click on its button, or strike its associated function key (F5 through F12, and Shift-F5 through Shift-F12). To invoke a macro in the second bank, depress and hold the ALT key to display the second bank, and then click the appropriate macro button, or strike its associated function key. Checking the ALT checkbox, located between the 4th and 5th macro buttons, displays the second bank of macros until you uncheck it. You can also switch macro banks using the <macrobank n> command described below.

WinWarbler also provides 

• a CW startup macro that can be executed whenever you switch to CW mode

• a Phone startup macro that can be executed whenever you switch to Phone mode

• a PSK startup macro that can be executed whenever you switch to PSK31 or PSK63 mode

• a RTTY startup macro that can be executed whenever you switch to RTTY mode

These dedicated macros can be used to set transceiver parameters, select a macro bank, and/or load a macro bank from a file containing macros appropriate for the mode.

Letting the mouse cursor linger above a macro button displays a popup showing what the macro will transmit.

To modify a macro, depress the Ctrl key while clicking on the macro's associated button or striking its associated function key. WinWarbler will display its macro definition window, which displays two components for each macro: title, and contents. The title is used to label the macro buttons on WinWarbler's main window. The contents determine what is transmitted when the macro is invoked. 

To set the color of the font used to label a macro button, click the appropriate Set button in the Font Color column, and choose the desired color from the color selection window. If you depress the CTRL key while clicking a Set button, the macro button's font color will be set to black.

To set the color of a macro button's face, click the appropriate Set button in the Button Color column, and choose the desired color from the color selection window. If you depress the CTRL key while clicking a Set button, the macro button's button face color will be set to the standard button face color in the current Windows color scheme.

For macros whose length exceeds that of the macro definition window display, double-clicking in the contents field will invoke a resizable editing dialog.

You can save a macro bank's sixteen macros to a file by clicking the Save button and selecting a destination pathname. You can load a macro bank's sixteen macros from a file by clicking the bank's Load button and selecting a source pathname. The last filename pathname associated with a macro bank is displayed in the Macro Bank panel's caption; if a macro is subsequently modified, this will be noted in the panel's caption. The simple name of the file is displayed in the Main window's Macro panel caption. If you use a text editor to modify the contents of a file into which macros have been saved, do not insert line breaks, as this will prevent WinWarbler from properly loading the file; to insert a line break in a macro use the <enter> substitution command described below.

The PSK startup, RTTY startup, and CW startup macros are defined in the lower portion of WinWarbler's macro definition window; there's a checkbox associated with each startup macro that determines whether the macro's commands are executed when a switch to its mode occurs.

To insert a line break in a macro, use the <enter> substitution command described below. 

In a macro's contents, any information not surrounded by a pair of angle brackets is transmitted verbatim in every mode except phone. Valid commands begin and end with an angle bracket; WinWarbler processes such commands in a macro's contents by replacing them as enumerated in the following substitution table, or by executing an action specified in one of the following action tables:

The <say: message>, saycallsign>, and <saytxserial> commands require that you populate WinWarbler's Phone folder with the following files:

• A.wav, B.wav, ... Z.wav - each containing a recording of the spoken letter

• 0.wav, 1.wav, ... 9.wav - each containing a recording of the spoken number

• slash.wav - containing a recording of the word slash or stroke

The <saycallsignphonetics>  command requires that you populate WinWarbler's Phone folder with the files A_phonetic.wav, B_phonetic.wav, ... Z_phonetic.wav - each containing a recording of the spoken letter's phonetic (e.g. Alpha, Bravo, ...Zulu).

If Commander is running, the following substitution commands can be used to control an attached transceiver; if Commander is not running, these commands have no effect:

For applications using frequencies outside of the amateur radio bands,  there exists a version of WinWarbler that allows you to schedule the execution of macro sequences, where a macro sequence specifies the execution of one, two, or three macros. Each of the macros within a sequence can be repeated up to three times, and the entire sequence can be repeated up to three times at specified intervals. If you have need for this functionality, contact AA6YQ at [email protected] .