The latest release (v5.0.2.0) brings two small but useful improvements to PTFB Pro: better handling of hotkey triggers, and the ability to supply to text that prevents a match when looking for target windows for macros and single-press items.

The first change causes PTFB Pro to wait until the most important modifier keys (ALT, SHIFT and CTRL) are not still down before triggering a macro by hotkey. Previously the macro would trigger immediately – possibly while a modifier key was still in the “pressed” state on the keyboard. In some programs (MS Office particularly) this could cause a “sticky” key problem; by waiting for the modifier keys to come back up, the problem is eliminated. If for whatever reason you prefer the previous behavior you can bring it back: just head over to Options -> Configure and turn off “Wait for key-up on hotkey trigger”.

The second change concerns the “Identifying the Target” page of items like single-presses and window-based macros.  If you look at the top section of this page, you’ll now see an extra field titled “Exclude this text”..

This optional field – which can be a regular expression if required – specifies text which will prevent the macro firing if that text is present in the target window’s title (aka “caption”). This small addition provides a surprising amount of extra control over when a macro fires. For example, let’s say you’ve made a macro that automatically saves your work every few minutes in your favorite editing app. The problem is, the macro fires even when you’re editing a new (“Untitled”) document that hasn’t been saved yet. The solution is just to add “Untitled” to the “Exclude this text” field; now the macro makes an exception for untitled documents, but saves all your other work automatically.

This new functionality was requested recently by a new customer. If there’s something YOU would like to see added to PTFB please get in touch; I can’t guarantee that all requests will be implemented, but if it’s something that could benefit other PTFB users we’ll certainly consider it!