Create a Macro for a tool's settings?

I would like to have a macro (so I can assign a button to this task) that just "sets up" the clone tool. Specfically, my users need the texture fill of the clone tool. I would like to make a "Texture Tool" selectable via a button that uses the clone tool with settings XYZ. A contact at Corel said you can save settings like these in a macro. Is that true and if so, how?

[Alex]

I don't think you can do that. Yes, you can record and play back the brushes. That is, if you apply a stroke to a document, you can replay it later with the same parameters. However you can't set up the tool's UI through VBA/CorelScript to be later used with the mouse/pen tablet...

[Alex]

Sorry, one little correction. You might be able to do that by sending keystrokes to the application using VBA's SendKeys command. So if you can set this up from your keyboard (without using the mouse), chances are you can script this in VBA...

You can do a search on SendKeys command in the forums here and you'll find a few threads discussing this approach.

[Alex]

By the way, here is an earlier thread which shows how to automate the Crop tool in PhotoPaint. Doing this for the clone tool is a very similar task.

http://forum.oberonplace.com/showthread.php?t=1004

Thanks, Alex.
You were right, the only way to do it is with keystrokes. Corel ended up sending us a .gms file with the solution. I opened it for editing and found that was basically what they were doing.

Alex, I just checked out your solution to the crop tool question. YOur code is almost identical to what Corel did for us!

[Alex]

Hmmm, I wonder why...

Although the problem has been resolved I thought it may be worth mentioning alternatives outside of Corel itself.

I have been using Macro Express for years to automate processes. It is a keystroke sender but is capable of so much more. I was batch processing in Paint Shop Pro years before they built in the capability. Basically, whatever you can do manually in Windows you can automate. It may be clumsy at times but it works.

I presently have a macro that I use a lot in PP7 to toggle the clone tool between "normal" and "if darker" modes, or to reset from any mode back to normal using a hotkey (ctrl+space). That may sound trivial but when you are swopping every few seconds it saves a lot of time. The mouse does not have to be moved at all.

To do the clone tool setup in this thread, I would set up a custom clone tool with the required settings and texture and save it as a named custom brush. I would use basically the above macro, only instead of going to the paint mode dropdown box and "if darker", it would access the brush type dropdown box and seek the specific custom brush.