My large Macro Scheduler Macro won't run with IE8 Beta 2

[evangelmike]

Greetings! I thought you all would be interested in a Bug Report I wrote against IE8 Beta 2. To compact the code a bit, for the purposes of the Bug Report, I put comments on the same line as the code (which hopefully will be implemented in some future version of Macro Scheduler).

I previously submitted Bug Report ID 331953 which said:
"I am using IE8 Beta in Emulate IE7 Mode. I have written a macro program which (among other things) determines whether or not certain text appears on a page. The way I do this, is to use F3 to search for the text. In IE7, if the text is not found, IE 7 opens a "Not Found" window. My macro uses the presence of this "Not Found" window to determine whether or not the text appears on the page. In Emulate IE7 Mode, instead of opening a "Not Found" window when the text is not found, Emulate IE7 Mode makes the sound "thunk". In other words there is no way in Emulate IE7 Mode for my macro program to determine whether or not given text appears on a web page. Emulate IE7 Mode should emulate IE7 more closely here. Users all over the world who need to search web pages for a given text are going to find that their Macro Programs no longer work. Since I must run this Macro Program each and every day, I am forced to uninstall IE8 and reinstall IE7. I will have to put my Beta Testing of IE8 on hold until this problem is fixed. Hopefully this problem will be fixed in IE8 Mode as well as in Emulate IE7 Mode."
I installed IE8 Beta 2, selected Compatibility Mode, and tried to run my macro program. When my macro program performed "Press F3", a separate find window like the Find Window in IE7 does not open. Instead a "find field" integrated into the IE8 web page appears which my macro program can not handle without extensive modification because it is totally different than the Find Window of IE7. The code my macro program (written in Macro Scheduler macro language) utilizes to handle Find Windows appears below:

Logic to find text on page:
[code]
Press F3 // Open Find Window
WaitWindowOpen>Find // Wait until a window labeled "Find" opens
Send>mouse%CR% // Send text & Enter to Find Window to locate text on page
Press Esc // Close Find Window
[/code]

But since no separate Find Window (labeled "Find") appears "WaitWindowOpen>Find" waits forever.

Logic to test if text occurs on Web Page:

[code]
Press F3 // Open Find Window
WaitWindowOpen>Find // Wait until a window labeled "Find" opens
Send>no results%CR% // Send text & Enter to Find Window in attempt to locate
// text on page
Press Esc // Close Last opened window which will either be a
// Text Not Found Window (text not on page) or the Find
// Window (text found on page)
// If the Find window is still open after pressing above Esc,
// the phrase "no results" was not found on page.
// Check if Find Window is open. If open, branch to CheckForTooManyResults;
// Otherwise branch to NoResultsExit:
IfWindowOpen>Find,CheckForTooManyResults,NoResultsExit
[/code]

There are probably about 1000 "Press F3 Finds" in my large macro program, and it would take several weeks to modify all the logic needed to properly handle the way Compatibility Mode has implemented the F3 Find. I had hoped that IE8 Compatibility Mode would handle the F3 Find exactly as it is currently handled in IE7.
Since I must run this Macro Program four or five times each weekday, I am forced again to uninstall IE8 and reinstall IE7. I will have to put my Beta Testing of IE8 on hold again until this problem is fixed. Hopefully this problem will be fixed in IE8 Mode as well as in Emulate IE7 Mode. Please reread my original Bug Report ID 331953.

[bnc1]

"To compact the code a bit, for the purposes of the Bug Report, I put comments on the same line as the code (which hopefully will be implemented in some future version of Macro Scheduler). "

I agree with the comments on same line as code suggestion

Somewhat off topic, but what is your impression of IE8 Beta 2 ? I have downloaded it, but not yet decided if and when I will use it.

[Me_again]

Since I must run this Macro Program four or five times each weekday, I am forced again to uninstall IE8 and reinstall IE7.

I'm surprised you would beta test a windows OS component on your production PC. Have you thought of using one of the many virtual machines that are available?

[evangelmike]

Reply to bnc1 question: I visited about 7 websites with IE8 Beta 2 in Compatibility Mode, and it worked great with those websites. But because of its different implementation of the F3 Find, I am unable to use it, and I removed it from my computer. Therefore I did not even try to use it in IE 8 Noncompatibility Mode (Regular Mode).

Reply to Me_again comment: Before installing IE 8 Beta 2, I used True Image to make a complete image of my Drive C. Then when IE 8 Beta 2 failed to work with my macro programs, I restored the saved True Image. If it had worked I would have continued to use it till it failed, and then restore the saved Saved True Image files.

BTW, there are 222 instances of "Press F3" scattered among 26 of my Macro Scheduler macros.

[Marcus Tettmar]

WebRecorder offers a ContainsText function which will allow you to determine whether the page has text without having to send keystrokes and manipulate the find box. Another way to do it is with GetWindowTextEx.

[evangelmike]

Greetings! Thanks for the good info on ContainsText and GetWindowTextEx. My major concern here, is making 222 changes to a completely debugged set of macros. Not only will it take about 20 hours work to make and test these 222 changes, but I anticipate that it will probably take about an additional 4-8 hours to fix bugs as they occur. My best hope is that Microsoft will relent and make IE 8's Compatibility Mode truly compatible with IE 7. If not, I will probably continue using IE 7 for the next few years (unless of course someone on this forum thinks of a real quick and easy way of making these 222 changes, but unfortunately some of the "Press F3"'s occur within small loops that ensure that the Find Window is really open, and others do not occur in these small loops, which would need to be modified differently). But then again, when Microsoft sees that one of their more important users ( ) is not using their latest and greatest browser, they may just cave in and make the compatability mode of IE 8 or IE 9 truly compatible with IE 7