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782 Chapter 21: User Interface
Macro Recorder is enabled, every t hing recorded is
displayed in the Macro Recorder pane. The output
of results from scripts are displayed in the output
pane. The output of code executed in the Macro
Recorder pane is always directed to the output
pane so as not to clutter the recordings. Both
panes allow you to cut-and-paste, drag-and-drop,
edit, select, and execute code. You can resize the
panes by dragging the split bar between them.
The left-en d of t he status bar contains a resizable
Mini Listener. If the Mini Listener is not visible,
drag on the vertical spl it bar at the left end of the
status bar to reveal the Mini Listener. The Mini
Listener panes act as single-line sliding windows
for the current line in the corresponding Listener
panes. The Mini Listener panes always show what
you are typing or where the edit cursor is placed
in the Listener panes. Conversely, anything you
type into a Mini Listener pane is entered into the
correspondingListenerpaneatthecurrentedit
cursor position.
The MAXScript Mini Listen er on the Status Bar
You c an install t he Listener into any viewport by
right-clicking the viewport label, cho ose Views >
Extended, and then MAXScript Listener.
For detailed information about the MAXScript
utility, open the MAXScr ipt Reference,available
from Help menu > MAXScript Reference.
Macro Recorder
MAXScript menu > Macro Recorder
The MAXScript Macro Recorder captures many of
the actions performed by the user, and generates
the MAXScript commands that correspond to
those actions. Output from Macro Recorder
is displayed in the Macro Recorder pane of the
MAXScript Listener window. Several filtering
options are available that control what types of
user actions are recorded, whether the gener ated
MAXScript commands contain explicit object
references or are selection-relative, and whether
the generated MAXScript commands contain
absolute or relative transforms and coordinates.
These options are set using the MacroRecorder
menu in the Listener window. The default option
settings are specified in the MAXScript page of
the 3ds Max Preferences dialog, as described in
MAXScript Preferences (page 3–834).Youcan
also make and change these settings by editing
the [MAXScript] section of the 3dsmax.ini (page
1–18) file.
WhilemanyareasinthesoftwaregenerateMacro
Recorder output, there are also many areas
that do not. In general, most of the buttons on
the software’s menu bar, toolbars, status bar,
Create panel, and Modif y panel will generate
Macro Recorder output. If the button invokes a
secondary dialog, changing settings or performing
actions in the secondary dialog typically do not
generate Macro Recorder output. In the Create
and Modify panels, Macro Recorder output is
typically generated if the object or modifier can b e
created by MAXScript. In rare cases, the plug-ins
implementing an object or modifier have not been
updated to support Macro Recorder , so that object
or modifier do es not generate Macro Recorder
output.
MAXScript supports text drag-and-drop onto
toolbars to create Macro Script buttons. You can
select and drag text from any text window, such as
the Listener window panes or Editor window, onto
any visible toolbar. The cursor changes to an arrow
with a + sign when it is permissible to drop the
text.DroppingitatthatpointaddsaMacroScript
button to the toolbar w ith the dropped text as the
body of the Macro Script. A typical usage of this
wouldbetodragtextfromtheMacroRecorder