If necessary you can still have PTFB Pro restart a program at the very first sign of a hang, but now you can also make PTFB Pro keep an eye on the program and only execute the restart if it’s been hung continuously for some time.

Get the new version from our download page: http://www.ptfbpro.com/download.shtml

Related posts:

1. PTFB Pro v4.1.5
2. PTFB Pro v4.2

The first is the ability to restrict items to acting only on foreground windows – those that currently have “focus”. This might not sound like a big deal in itself, but it enables PTFB Pro to be used in a number of new ways. For example, a common source of annoyance on Windows is that different programs often use different keyboard shortcuts for what is basically the same action. This new release of PTFB Pro allows you to bind that common action in all your favorite programs to a hotkey of your choosing, so there’s no longer a need to remember the program-specific keys. One of our customers who has reduced hand function is already using this to make it easier to drive his favorite apps.

The second new feature is the ability to temporarily enable an otherwise disabled macro when certain circumstances occur. This makes it possible to chain macros together in remarkably sophisticated ways, but rather than asking them to run immediately, you simply enable them to run when the time is right.

Here is the full list of changes for this release:

• Added ability to limit items to fire only on foreground windows (those with focus).
• Added ability to temporarily enable an item from within a macro
• Added “cycle” option to Switch To Prog macro action
• Minor user interface improvements.
• Changes/Additions to the Help file.
• Note that the file format has changed with this release.

You can download the latest version here: http://www.ptfbpro.com/download.shtml

Related posts:

1. PTFB Pro v4.1.5
2. Windows Automated Tray Icon Hiding and PTFB Pro

This is a recommended update, as it fixes an occasional fatal error associated with the creation of “window restore” items, and makes PTFB Pro able to “read” URLs and html pages in the latest versions of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer and Mozilla’s Firefox. As usual the update is free for all those already running PTFB Pro version 4.x. Anybody running an earlier version should visit our upgrade page to find out whether they can get the latest version for free, or at a substantial discount.

A further release is planned in about a month’s time. This will include some small but powerful changes that will make PTFB Pro even more flexible, and better suited for those who have issues with hand/finger motion when using their computer.

Related posts:

1. New release – PTFB Pro v4.1.3
2. Advanced Target Recognition – What it is and How to Use it!

Click the arrow to see the icons that Windows 7 has hidden, then drag PTFB Pro’s mouse-like icon out of the popup window and back into the system tray..

Now PTFB Pro’s icon will stay in view permanently!

This is fine for users that know about it, but I’m sure it confuses a lot of people. They see the icon one minute, and the next minute its gone, without any warning from Windows. Not very helpful, Microsoft!

To help counter this, the latest release of PTFB Pro can now live either solely as a system tray icon (like all the previous versions) or as a regular task bar button. On Windows 7 and Vista, this choice is now offered within the installer:

Minimize To Tray Option In the Installer

It’s also available at any time via the “Minimize To Tray” entry in the Options menu within PTFB Pro itself:

Hopefully this will help new users who aren’t familiar with Windows 7′s icon-hiding practices, whilst allowing more experienced users to run with PTFB Pro in its most discrete yet readily accessible form: the system tray icon.

Related posts:

1. Windows Automated Tray Icon Hiding and PTFB Pro

Windows 7 contains a new technology that enables PTFB Pro version 4.1 and onwards to find targets in non-standard screens and even some browsers. We’ve called this new feature “advanced target recognition”. It dramatically increases the power of the “single press” item, allowing it to auto-click on links in browsers like Internet Explorer and Firefox reliably even if the browser window is resized.

XP, Vista & Svr 2008

If you’re running PTFB Pro on an older operating system such as XP, Vista and Svr 2008 you can still take advantage of Advanced Target Recognition as follows:

1. Download and install the latest version of PTFB Pro from our website: http://www.ptfbpro.com/download.shtml
2. On PTFB Pro’s main screen, select Options -> About PTFB Pro. If you see the text “Advanced Target Recognition AVAILABLE” in the resulting About screen, you already in business; any new single press items you create will use advanced target recognition automatically.

   

3. If the About screen said the new technology is unavailable, you need to install Microsoft’s “Platform Update for Windows Vista” via Windows Update. Don’t be put off by the name if you’re not running Vista – the update works for XP and Svr 2008 as well. It’ll most likely show up as an optional update, and also goes by the name of KB971513. Once it’s installed, revisit PTFB Pro’s About Screen to verify that is well, then you’re good to go!Get more information on the Platform Update for Windows Vista here:
   http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee663866%28VS.85%29.aspx

Using Advanced Target Recognition

Once Advanced Target Recognition is available, you don’t need to do anything special to use it; every new item you create will use it as appropriate. Single Press items get the most benefit, but macros and Window Restore items can also use it to help make sure that they’re acting on the right window. It really comes into its own if you want PTFB Pro to click a particular link on a page in Internet Explorer (v8 or later) and FireFox. It won’t help so much in other browsers as yet; at the time of writing, Opera and Google Chrome still aren’t exposing their pages using the new Microsoft technology.

Performance

While the new technology in Windows 7 and the platform update lets PTFB Pro “see” more, isn’t quite as fast as the older methods. To offset this PTFB Pro only uses the new tech when it really needs to. You can also help to keep performance high by making your new macro and single press items as specific as possible. For example, if your item operates on a particular program, go into the “Identifying the Target” page of the item properties and make sure you tick “Fire only if window belongs to program” and “Match Window Type”. Using these two settings allows PTFB Pro to narrow down its matches using the older technology, and only use the new stuff once it’s pretty sure it’s found the right target.

Enabling/Disabling Advanced Target Recognition

It’s highly unlikely you’ll ever need this, but there is an “off” switch for the new technology. You’ll find it on the first page of the configuration screen (Options -> Configure) :

As the option itself suggests, changes only take effect on new items. If you’ve already created some items that use the new tech, they’ll continue to use it even if you disable the option, but any new items you create will use the old technology exclusively.

How to tell if an item uses ATR

Go to the “snapshot” page of the item’s properties and look at the scrollable text box. Under the section titled “CHILD CONTROLS”, you’ll find a short introductory line of text. If it includes the words “standard windows children” then the item uses only the old technology; if instead you see “accessibility children” or “UI automation children” then it uses a mix of old and new technology to do its job.

Related posts:

1. How to stop the Windows Update Restart Nags using PTFB Pro’s autoclicker

Unfortunately, they can be an annoying distraction if they’re not carrying relevant information. For example if you temporarily turn off Windows’s inbuilt firewall to troubleshoot a network problem, you’ll get a balloon pointlessly telling you what you’ve just done. A battle of wills between you and the computer now ensues: can you ignore the balloon until it closes, or will you succumb and interrupt your troubleshooting to hit the balloon’s close box? Of course you could just disable such warnings completely, but that’s generally not a good idea.

Happily, PTFB Pro can now dismiss these tedious little attention seekers. Here’s how:

1. When the balloon next appears, create a new single-press item (not a macro)
2. Target the single press item on the balloon’s close box

The resulting item can be edited just like any other. You can for example set a trigger delay of 1 to 2 seconds so that you get to read the notification, but it closes before it becomes an irritation. The only difference is that on the General page of the item’s properties, the Action section now carries an explicit “Close Tooltip” option.

Find out more about boosting your productivity with autoclicks and macros.
CLICK HERE to download a free 30 day trial, no strings attached. If you aren’t entirely happy simply uninstall!

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1. Windows Automated Tray Icon Hiding and PTFB Pro
2. Stop Annoying Balloon Messages
3. How To Automatically Respond to Irritating Prompts and Popups

PTFB Pro allows you to export a set of items to a special file held in a shared area, and tell all copies of PTFB Pro to load items from that file. Updates to the file can be picked up automatically if required. Each user is still free to create their own private items.

Here’s how …

1. Export the items you wish to share to a separate file. This done through the “Export items to file” command in the Options menu, and produces a .ptfbx file which you should place in a suitable shared location.
2. Next you have to tell all the other copies of PTFB Pro to load items from the .ptfbx file. This is most easily done in the “Shared File” page of PTFB Pro’s configuration screen.
   
   

First tick “Use shared file”, then either browse to the file or enter its path directly. Next, set the name of the tab which should receive the shared items. If desired, you can also set PTFB Pro to periodically check the nominated file for changes and reload it if required.

A few points to note about the shared file:

• The items imported in this way are considered “on loan” and are therefore not editable, though you are free to duplicate them and edit the duplicates.
• You can disable and even delete shared items, but if “Reload updates automatically” is set and the shared file is updated, the items will automatically revert to their original state.
• The user is not limited to the shared items; they can create and modify their own items.

Find out more about boosting your productivity with autoclicks and macros.
CLICK HERE to download a free 30 day trial, no strings attached. If you aren’t entirely happy simply uninstall!

Related posts:

1. Enabling macros to work even when Remote Desktop is closed or minimized

1. Get your chosen program running and position its window exactly how you like it.

2. Open up PTFB Pro’s main window

3. Click on “New Macro…” and choose “Window Restore”

4. Select the window in the resulting list, or if you prefer hit “Choose by Mouse” and click on the window with the hand-shaped mouse cursor. Click Next.

5. Since the title is a key feature that PTFB Pro uses to recognize your window, take a moment to review the options on the next screen. When you’re happy with your choices, hit Next.

6. Now tell PTFB Pro what actions to take on the window. You can choose to restore its current size and position, center it on the screen, maximize, minimize or restore it, and/or set it to stay on top of other windows. Hit Next when you’re done.

7. Pick a title for your new macro and choose whether the actions should be carried out once when the window opens, or applied & reapplied repeatedly to prevent the window from moving or changing state.

You may wish to tweak your new macro’s settings after you’ve created it. For example, you might find that the restorative actions occur too quickly after the window has first appeared. If so, you can introduce a longer initial delay to give the window a little time to “settle” before it is resize/repositioned by PTFB Pro.

Find out more about boosting your productivity with autoclicks and macros.
CLICK HERE to download a free 30 day trial, no strings attached. If you aren’t entirely happy simply uninstall!

Related posts:

1. How to recover an off-screen window with PTFB’s Window Restore Macro
2. Automatically resize/reposition a window
3. How to Keep one Window/Program on top of others

Another critical program occasionally hangs or goes into the ‘not responding’ state. It needs to be restarted quickly when this happens – even during the night when there’s no one on the premises.

How to do it …

1. Open up PTFB Pro’s main window by clicking on its tray icon
2. Click on “New Macro…” and choose “ProgMon Macro”
3. Select the program in the resulting list and hit Next
   
4. Choose “Restart the program ONLY if it is not responding” and set the frequency of the check (make this as long as you’re comfortable with). Hit Next
   
5. The next page deals with how the program will be terminated when it has become unresponsive. By default, PTFB Pro choose “Forced Exit” and ticks “Only terminate program if it is not responding. Unless you have good reason to do otherwise, just hit Next to take these defaults.
   
6. The final page deals with relaunching the program. Again, you can usually just take the defaults and hit “Finish” but if you want to make changes you can.

You may wish to tweak your new macro’s settings after you’ve created it. If so, just double-click on the new macro in PTFB Pro’s main window and work through its tabbed Properties screen.

Find out more about boosting your productivity with autoclicks and macros.
CLICK HERE to download a free 30 day trial, no strings attached. If you aren’t entirely happy simply uninstall!

Related posts:

1. How to automatically kill then restart a program that is “Not responding”?
2. People keep closing a vital program on our shared office PC. How can I restart it automatically?
3. How to Keep a program running that crashes without warning or error

How to do it …

1. Open up PTFB Pro’s main window by clicking on its tray icon
2. Click on “New Macro…” and choose “ProgMon Macro”
3. Select the program in the resulting list and hit Next
   
4. Choose “launch the program if it’s not running”
   
5. PTFB Pro will suggest a command line to launch the program. In most cases this will do fine, but if you need to make changes or cause the program to run under a specific account, you can.
   
6. When you’re done, hit Finish

You may wish to tweak your new macro’s settings after you’ve created it. By default a macro like this is set to run every second or so, but if you’re happy with PTFB Pro checking for the program say every ten minutes, you can change the repeat delay in the Triggers page.

Find out more about boosting your productivity with autoclicks and macros.
CLICK HERE to download a free 30 day trial, no strings attached. If you aren’t entirely happy simply uninstall!

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2. People keep closing a vital program on our shared office PC. How can I restart it automatically?
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