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
Upgrading to Version 7
Welcome to the iMacros V7.0 Upgrade Page
Unless otherwise noted this document refers to an upgrade of the iMacros Browser 6.86 or later to the iMacros Browser V7.0 or later.
Download
You can download the latest iMacros 7 release at: http://www.iopus.com/download/imacros/
Note: V6.90 and V7 can be installed and used parallel (Installing V7 does not remove V6).
What's new?
- Please see the new iMacros 7 Version History.
Experiencing problems?
Please report any problems or suggestions to support@iopus.com or in the user forum. In the forum, please mention [V7] in your header, so we know it refers to iMacros Version 7.
Upgrading from V6
How to test
You can install both, V6 and V7 at the same time!
So for example, you can run your old macros still in Version 6.90, while recording new macros in Version 7. This way you can avoid changing old macros that might not work without manual tweaking to some breaking changes between V6 and V7.
Switch in scripts
Use iimInit ("-v6") or iimInit ("-v7") to switch between both versions.
Change the default version in the registry
Without the -v6 or -v7 parameters a registry entry defines what version is started as default. To change this setting, open the registry, navigate to "HKLM/Software/iOpus/iMacros" (cf. the screenshot for an alternative path) and set "UseV7" to either 1 or 0.
Image Recognition
In iMacros V7 we have introduced a new algorithm based on computer vision. This replaced the former (color blind) algorithm B which is now the default.
The new algorithm B can compare the images in gray level (8 bits per pixel, in contrast to 24 or 32 bits per pixel in a color image). In some cases, this might be more effective than the color comparison.
In iMacros V7 we chose to switch to gray level comparison if the user sets the confidence level below 91. Therefore, there might be cases when a confidence level of 90 gives a better match then using 91. We advice you to test first using the ImageSearch wizard which confidence level will give the best result for your image.
Breaking Changes
Our goal is to make all Version 6 macros run in V7 with as little changes as possible. We had to make a few breaking changes, as our other goal was also to make all macros run in IE, Firefox and Chrome without changes. These changes will only affect a few macros, but make your iMacros experience much better in the future.
1. Different processing of TYPE=*
Example macro:
URL GOTO=http://www.iopus.com/ TAG POS=1 TYPE=DIV ATTR=TXT:iMacros<SP>is<SP>the<SP>industry-leading* TAG POS=1 TYPE=* ATTR=TXT:iMacros<SP>is<SP>the<SP>industry-leading*
TYPE=* matches a different element in V7. We made the change to match the iMacros for Firefox behavior, which in turn is based on the XPATH standard. The reason why a larger region is highlighted in v7 and Firefox is related to different treatment of ATTR:TXT. The outer region's innerText also matches the pattern "iMacros<SP>is<SP>the<SP>industry-leading*", and the outer region is searched first.
2. Relative positioning is now relative to the html element's end, like in Firefox. Please, see V7 Relative positioning for details.
3. Select Box index start with 1 (V6 used to start counting with 0) (forum post)
Example macro:
URL GOTO=http://www.tiendamovistar.com.ar/Catalog/Catalogo,205.aspx TAG POS=1 TYPE=SELECT FORM=NAME:aspnetForm ATTR=ID:ctl00_MainContent_CategoryInfo1_ctl00_cboSort CONTENT=2
4. STOPWATCH log file format changed
Please see this discussion for details and to give your feedback on the new format.
5. IMAGESEARCH and IMAGECLICK used to wait the full !TIMEOUT period. Now they wait 1/10 of this value by default, just like the TAG commands. The best solution is to define the retry time directly with SET !TIMEOUT_STEP.
6. A few rarely used command line switches are deprecated:
- -datasource - use iimSet instead
- -timeout - use !TIMEOUT_MACRO instead
- -useragent - a new useragent change command will be available soon
- -var_varname - - use iimSet instead
7. A few rarely used macro commands are deprecated:
- CMDLINE => use SET instead
- EXTRACT... old format from Version 5 no longer supported
- !DATASOURCE_COLUMNS => No longer required (automatic column # detection)
- !ERRORMACRO => use iimPlay return code instead
- !EXTRACTADD => Use ADD
- !MACROTIMEOUT => TIMEOUT_MACRO
- !LOADCHECK => TIMEOUT_STEP
- !TIMEOUT => TIMEOUT_PAGE (!TIMEOUT still supported, but deprecated)
- !VARDEFAULT, !URLSTART, !POINTER, !FOLDERIMACROS => deprecated because never used
- WAIT SECONDS=#DOWNLOADCOMPLETE# => no longer necessary.