The renewal maintenance has officially ended for Progress iMacros effective November 30, 2023.
This Wiki site will also no longer be moderated from the Progress side.
Thank you again for your business and support.
Sincerely, The Progress Team
First Steps
Starting iMacros
iMacros is distributed as a browser add-on for Firefox, Chrome, and Internet Explorer. Two of the commercial editions of iMacros (PRO Edition and Scripting Edition) also include the standalone iMacros Browser, a derivative of IE with a command-line interface.
This article primarily covers interaction with the iMacros Browser, however, the concepts and interface are fairly consistent among all the different versions of iMacros. Throughout this Wiki, iMacros commands and functionality are are associated with browser icons ( ) to designate their applicability to a particular browser.
Internet Explorer Plug-in
After installing the software a new iMacros icon appears on the command bar of Internet Explorer (IE).
Click this icon to start iMacros.
If you have already customized your IE command bar, you might need to manually add the icon or reposition it so it's visible. Please see this relevant FAQ for more on how to do this.
You can also start iMacros for IE by selecting 'iMacros Web Automation' from the IE Tools menu.
The iMacros Browser (PRO and Scripting Editions)
To start the iMacros Browser, select the program from the Windows Start Menu, double-click the icon on your desktop, or navigate to the file "imacros.exe" (typically in C:\Program Files\iOpus\iMacros) and double-click it using Windows Explorer.
To become familiar with iMacros run the "FillForm" demo macro that is automatically installed. This demonstrates the basic features of iMacros in a straightforward way. It navigates to a test form, fills the form and submits it, then returns to the iMacros Website.
The iMacros Graphical User Interface
We have invested a lot of effort in making the Graphical User Interface of the iMacros Browser and the Internet Explorer add-on as intuitive as possible. This section explains the basic elements.
The Main Window
The main window consists of three parts: the menu and toolbar at the top, the iMacros sidebar on the left, and the browser window on the right. Web pages are displayed in the browser window using a tabbed interface just like other browsers. You control iMacros with the elements in the sidebar on the left.
The iMacros Sidebar
The iMacros sidebar is divided into two parts. The top half displays a tree view of all your macros when iMacros is stopped, and the current macro code when you are playing or recording a macro. Only files with an .iim extension in the Macros folder are recognized by iMacros. The Macros folder is specified in the Path settings of the iMacros Options. The default macro folder is located in My Documents under iMacros\Macros.
The lower half of the sidebar consists of three tabs: Play, Record, and Edit. As the names suggest, the Play tab contains controls for playing macros, the Record tab contains controls for recording macros, and the Edit tab contains controls for editing macros, changing options, and getting help.
Tip: You can auto-hide the sidebar by "un-pinning" it from the main window (just click on the thumb-pin icon to pin or unpin the sidebar). You can also hide the toolbar from the View menu. The sidebar needs to be open in IE for iMacros to function.
Recording Macros
What's a Click Mode?
It is important to note that the primary way iMacros records your interaction with a web page is by recording your mouse clicks on the various web page elements. iMacros records these clicks as well as text entered into input fields on web forms and translates them into TAG commands. If you are entering and selecting values in a series of fields on a web form, you need to navigate to each field with the mouse and click on/into that field.
Note: Navigating through fields with the keyboard (i.e. using the TAB key) is not supported and will not be recorded.
Before recording, it is important to understand the different modes of recording that you can use. This is also known as the Click Mode. The three main click modes are Automatic, Expert (Use complete HTML tag), and DirectScreen. To select a click mode, use the ClickMode menu item or open the Click Mode Dialog from the main toolbar or Record tab.
Automatic
iMacros attempts to choose the best recording options (recommended in most cases for recording on HTML websites). In the automatic mode iMacros looks at the different attributes an element has (such as ID, NAME, Text, HREF,...) and selects the one attribute it thinks fits best (for details, please see the "For advanced users" description). Note that the automatic mode never switches to Expert or DirectScreen mode. If you need these recording modes, please select them manually.
Expert
This mode is for advanced users: iMacros does not select just one attribute as in the automatic mode, but instead creates a TAG command that consists of all attributes of the clicked HTML element. The purpose is to give the user a quick overview of all of the element's attributes. Typically the user will use such a TAG command as a starting point, and then delete the attributes that should not be used. Often this is more convenient than building such a TAG command manually.
X/Y
iMacros for Firefox provides this mode for identifying elements by their position on the web page. This can be useful if the name and URL of the item you want to click on changes dynamically from visit to visit. It should also be used if the web page element is embedded in JavaScript and iMacros can not find the recorded name during replay because it was created "on the fly" by JavaScript. For more information on this mode, see the CLICK command.
DirectScreen
This is the ultimate solution if everything else fails. It simulates standard mouse clicks and movement within the browser window. This feature works with all web pages. For non-html elements such as Flash or Silverlight, you must use the DirectScreen mode. DirectScreen is only available in the iMacros Browser and iMacros for IE commercial editions.
Changing Modes
In most cases you will record your macros using just one click mode, but you aren't limited to just one click mode per macro. In fact, you can mix the modes in a single macro by changing the click mode while you are recording! This is useful if you encounter problems while attempting to record one or more elements on a web page: simply switch to a different click mode and try clicking the element again.
You may also have to change click modes if you notice that your recorded commands are not playing back successfully. In this case try selecting a different click mode and re-record your macro.
To record a macro
To record a macro select the Record tab in the iMacros sidebar and click "Record" to start a recording (or click the "Record" button on the toolbar). Now simply perform whatever tasks you wish to record, such as surfing to web sites, filling out forms, making a test order on your e-commerce site or any other task of your choosing.
After you have finished recording press "Stop". The current recording is automatically saved as a macro named "#Current". Press "Save Macro As..." to save it as a different name, or right-click the macro in the macro list and select "Rename".
Hints for successful recording
- Select elements to record by clicking them with the mouse (don't use the TAB key to navigate through fields).
- During recording do not use your browser's Back or Forward button or change the address line. Use the buttons supplied by iMacros instead (iMacros Browser and IE add-on only).
- Recording "Clicks". If a macro generates an error during replay you can experiment by selecting the link recording option (Click Mode) manually from the dialog after clicking Click Mode.
- Because the iMacros recording language is fully documented it is easy to edit and "tweak" the macro manually after recording!
- The iMacros PRO and Scripting Edition licenses include free Silver Level tech support, so our support team is ready to help you with your project and any recording issues that you might encounter.
Related animated tutorial: Recording a macro
Note: The relationship between a recorded TAG command and the actual web page HTML code is fully documented. There is also an example page to test the iMacros recording. Advanced users can use this documentation to manually created TAG commands based on the HTML source of the website and/or have a program generate the iMacros macro commands.
Playing Macros
To play a macro, select the macro in the macro list and click "Play" or simply double-click the macro in the list. During playback a blue frame shows you which parts of the web page are being manipulated.
To play a recorded sequence multiple times, fill in the Max. number of times to repeat the macro and press the "Play (Loop)" button.
Controlling playback speed
There are two different options that affect the speed at which macros are replayed. These can be set in the General tab of the Options dialog as well as within the macro with the !REPLAYSPEED variable.
The first option is the replay speed, which can be set to three different values:
- FAST: the macro is replayed at maximum speed (Recommended in most cases).
- MEDIUM: iMacros waits for 0.25s between each command.
- SLOW: iMacros waits for 1s between each command.
The second option is to add timing information during recording (DirectScreen click-mode only). If the "Add timing information" checkbox is checked in the Click Mode Dialog, then WAIT statements are automatically included in the macro. Thus, during replay these WAIT statements slow down the macro playback.
Of course, you can also always manually add WAIT statements to your macro to further control the speed.
Errors during replay
We work hard to make iMacros as "intelligent" as possible, but it still is not as smart as you. If an error occurs during replay it is mostly due to a "tricky" web page in which one of the automatic suggestions of the iMacros Recorder failed. In almost all cases re-recording the macro with different settings or manually editing the macro solves the problem. For recording tips please see the Recording section and for information on how to edit your macro go to the Editing Macros section.
Related forum posts:
Tip: If you want to prevent the blue frame from being drawn around tagged elements during playback, add the following statement to your macro:
SET !MARKOBJECT NO
Edit Macros
(Related example macros: Demo-FillForm)
All recorded macros are stored in a plain text file with the ending .iim in the directory defined by the Folder Macros text field in the Path tab of the Options dialog, e.g. C:\Program Files\iMacros\Macros\. You can manually edit and tweak the macros using any text editor you like, e.g. Notepad, which is shipped with the Windows operating system by default. To open any macro open the Edit tab, mark the macro you want to edit and click the "Edit" button. The editor you entered in the Path Macro Editor text field located in the Path tab of Options dialog (Notepad by default) will open and display the macro - in this example we chose Demo-FillForm:
As a simple edit step, let us change the content of a form text field now. To change the Name below from "Tom Tester" to "Dr. A. Award" locate the TAG command that contains "Tom Tester" and change is as shown below:
Old:
TAG POS=1 TYPE=INPUT:TEXT FORM=NAME:f1 ATTR=NAME:n1 CONTENT=Tom Tester
New:
TAG POS=1 TYPE=INPUT:TEXT FORM=NAME:f1 ATTR=NAME:n1 CONTENT=Dr.<SP>A.<SP>Award
When assigning values to the CONTENT parameter of any iMacro command all whitespaces in the text must be substituted by <SP> and all newlines must be substituted by <BR> (Related forum post). After you save the changes to the file iMacros will immediately apply them during the next replay of the macro.
Tip: iMacros uses the Windows Notepad as default editor. We recommend to install and use the free Notepad++ editor. It not only has better features such a line numbering, but also supports with iMacros syntax highlighting.
Security
Many web sites require you to type a user name and password before you can enter the site. For instance, personalized pages and web sites containing your financial information require you to log in.
The iMacros Password Manager can help you by storing your user names and passwords in macros, and entering them for you automatically when you visit such sites.
There are three ways to store passwords in macros you record. The password encryption method can be either set or disabled for all macros in the Security tab of the Options dialog or individually for each macro with the !ENCRYPTION variable.
No encryption
The password is stored inside the macro in plain text. This method is very convenient, but keep in mind that everybody who opens the macro can read the password.
Encrypted web site passwords
Passwords are encrypted using a strong 256-bit encryption based on the industry-standard AES algorithm. This encryption requires a master password, which is stored on your own computer in the iMacros settings file. The default master password is "iOpus2004". This master password can and indeed should be changed in the Security tab of the Options dialog. The iMacros settings file is very difficult, but not impossible, for an intruder to read. For macros that need to run unattended this is the best solution possible as every automatic solution needs to store the password somewhere. This is the default setting.
Encrypted web site passwords and ask for the Master Password
Passwords are encrypted using the same strong 256-bit encryption based on the industry-standard AES algorithm as in 2., but the master password is not stored. It is only kept temporarily in memory while you run the macros. You need to re-enter it once when you start iMacros and use a website password the first time; much more secure than the other two options, but less convenient. This means that even if somebody steals your PC they can not run the macros which include website access using passwords. This method is recommended for macros that you start manually, such as your personal online banking macros.
Tip 1: If you need to change a password inside a macro, you can create new secure password strings with this password tool. Using this tool avoids the need to re-record a macro just because you want to change the password.
Tip 2: The iMacros encryption is very secure but some users prefer to store no password information at all. If you simply want iMacros to wait while you enter a password for a website you have two options:
- PAUSE: iMacros will wait for you to enter the password. Press the PAUSE/CONTINUE button to resume the macro execution.
- PROMPT: iMacros can ask for the password during the macro run.
Offline
If you work on a PC without Internet connection, it is recommended that you check the box "Work Offline" in the Options dialog. This avoids the Internet connection check at iMacros startup.