I'm having trouble understanding how the MacroAPI.PasteText(string text) function works.

I have read the documentation at http://www.clipboardfusion.com/Macros/Function/?ID=356d469c-d2d6-49a7-ad05-930a623223bf, which says: This function sets the Clipboard to the given text, then pastes that text into the currently focused window.

I tried creating this Macro:
[pre]using System;

public static class ClipboardFusionHelper
{
public static string ProcessText(string text)
{
text = "1";
MacroAPI.PasteText("2");
return text;
}
}[/pre]

From this, I would expect that the value that is saved to the clipboard and is pasted is "2", but it saves and pastes "1" instead. It doesn't seem to matter what text I pass into the MacroAPI.PasteText function, it never seems to use this text.

Can you provide some more details on how this MacroAPI.PasteText function is supposed to work, perhaps with some examples?

Thanks
- Stephan

Thanks for the follow-up Jon.

To give you an idea of why I want to do this... I was hoping to be able to use the macros as a sort of smart snippet library, so when I press the HotKey for a given macro, the current clipboard value is temporarily saved, then a different string is created and pasted to the currently focused window, then the temporarily saved original string is put back on the clipboard. I do a lot of HTML editing in Notepad (sometimes nothing else is installed on the PCs that I use), and it would be good to be able to insert HTML snippets, so if I copy a string like "head" to the clipboard and run a macro, it will paste a framework of all the HTML elements that I need in the head of a document (head, title, meta, style, etc), then put the original string "head" back on the clipboard.

From what I understand of what you are saying, my example macro should be doing to following:
[list type=decimal]

I press (and hold) the HotKey (eg. Ctrl + Alt + Q)

Nothing happens until I release the keys

I release the HotKeys

The macro starts

The 'text' value is set to "1" (in this example macro) - effectively ignoring whatever was on the clipboard before I started the macro

The MacroAPI.PasteText function is called

The string "2" (in this example macro) is pasted to the currently focused window

The string "2" (in this example macro) is saved to the clipboard

The ProcessText function returns the value of 'text' (which, in this example macro, should return "1")

The return value of the ProcessText function is saved to the clipboard (which, in this example macro, should be "1")

[/ul]
So at the end of this, the macro should have pasted the string "2" to the currently focused window, and then the string "1" should be saved to to the clipboard.

If I used the standard paste command after this, it should just paste whatever is left on the clipboard after running the macro (in this example, it should be "1").

But, what is happening is that the string "1" (not "2") is being pasted to the focused window, and the same string "1" is being saved to the clipboard. So it seems to be ignoring whatever string I pass to the MacroAPI.PasteText function.

Or am I missing something here...?

I'm just trying to get my head around this... thanks for any further insight that you can give me.

Cheers,
- Stephan

Thanks Jon.

I thought that I was going crazy for a little while there.

Good to know that it was an intermittent issue, and that you are aware of it now. I look forward to the next release.

I have just downloaded v2.0.2.101 Beat 1 and installed it, and tested my simple example macro again.

It works as expected now

I am getting the string "2" pasted to the currently focussed window, and the string "1" left on the clipboard.

Thanks Jon. I really appreciate that you take the time to investigate and address these issues, bugs and feature requests.