In this tutorial you will:

Tools

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In order to execute command file commands or Tcl scripts from a button on any of the HyperMesh Utility Menu pages, a Utility Menu macro must first be defined.  A Utility Menu macro contains valid command file or templex commands that execute the appropriate operations, and is defined using the *beginmacro and *endmacro commands.  Macros may accept data passed to them using the arguments $1, $2, etc.  Each argument specifies where the values should be substituted.   These macros are defined within the .mac files, including the userpage.mac file.

The following skeleton code shows the format of a Utility Menu macro:

*beginmacro(macroname)

   command statements go here

*endmacro()

Utility Menu macros consist of HyperMesh Tcl modify commands.

 

Exercise

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Create a Utility Menu macro from a command file that saves the model and add a button on the User page that will launch the macro:

Step 1:  Define the task.

The first step in creating a macro is to define the process you want to automate and recognize the individual tasks to reach the desired conclusion.  Here, you want to create a one-button macro to automate saving the current HyperMesh model to a file named temp.hm. The actions necessary to complete this task are:

Step 2:  Delete the existing command.cmf file.

The current command.cmf file is located in the current working directory.  When first opening HyperMesh, the file is created in the directory HyperMesh is launched from.  As soon as you begin working in HyperMesh all executed commands are written to the command.cmf file.  If the file already exists, the commands are appended to the file.  Deleting the file allows HyperMesh to create a new file and allows the user to easily find the relevant commands.

Step 3:  Perform the operations in HyperMesh.

Execute the full process within HyperMesh.  Every command issued in HyperMesh appears in the order executed and is reflected in the command.cmf file.

Remember this is just a temporary file and will be overwritten each time the macro is executed.

Step 4:  Extract the commands from the command.cmf file.

This is the command that writes the model file.

Step 5:  Add the commands to the userpage.mac file.

Step 6:  Modify as necessary and add Utility Menu macro wrapper commands.

*writefile("temp.hm",0)

 

*beginmacro(macroSave)

   *writefile("temp.hm",0)

*endmacro()

 

The macro name macroSave will be used to connect the button with the macro via the macroName field in the *createbutton command.

The command *answer(yes) automatically answers “yes” if prompted to overwrite the file in the event temp.hm already exists.

Step 7:  Add the macro button.

Create a button on the User page to execute the macro.

*createbutton(5,"Save File",20,0,10,GREEN,"Save file","macroSave")

This creates a button on page 5 (User page), names it, places it in the 20th row, starts it at column 0, sets the width at 10 columns, applies to it the color green, provides a help string and references the macro macroSave defined in Step 6.

Step 8:  Reload the current .mac file into HyperMesh to load the modified userpage.mac.

To reload the current macro menu .mac file while HyperMesh is open, select Preferences  > Menu Config from the menu bar and click on retrieve next to macro file.  Make sure to load the proper .mac file from the hm\scripts\<profile name> directory based on the current user profile, or load the default hm.mac in the hm\bin\<platform> directory if no user profile is loaded.

Step 9:  Test the macro.

The new button labeled Save File should be on the User page.

The file is saved to the directory specified in the *writefile command. In this case no directory is specified so HyperMesh saves the file to the start-up or current working directory.  It will always save with the name specified in the macro (in this case, temp.hm).

 

 

See Also:

HyperMesh Tutorials