A macro refers to a constellation of particular milling and engraving objects that are not assigned to a specific front panel, but rather belong to a library whose inventory is available for the design of any front panel.

A "macro object" is a group of standard objects (milling or engraving objects, including free contours) with individual properties and a defined geometry.

During its creation, each of these macros must be assigned a category and a name (if necessary in several languages), from which the corresponding catalog entries are then generated.

The hierarchically organized categories are managed in the Macro Manager. The macros with names and categories are placed in a Library which is maintained as a database.

The insert procedure for macros is different from the standard routine of (1. Selection of the type of object, 2 Placement and 3. Customization of the object properties) in the following respect: Instead of customizing the object properties upon completion of the placement routine, you have to "take care of" this at the start by selecting the desired macro as a first step (marking).

After selecting a macro in the Macro Manager (marking) you can place the macro in the following way:

1. Drag and Drop

2. Precise positioning

The placement completes the insertion procedure. Any necessary customization of the properties must be carried out separately.

In principle you can make every single object as well as any group of objects into a macro. When there are multiple objects (such as a row of drilled holes), these must be grouped.

In order to create a macro, the object or group in question must be selected. Then, by clicking Selection > Create macro object… or pressing Shift + m , you can open the "Properties of the macro object" dialog box:

When you click OK, the object is saved in a database as a macro object with all the information and a corresponding entry in the catalog is generated. A distinction should always be made between whether the catalog entry or the macro object itself is being processed.

In order to edit the group properties of a macro, you first must insert it.

A macro object you have inserted in "Front Panel Designer" is displayed as a group (editable objects). That is why the associated properties dialog box is called "Group properties". The following properties can be set:

Please see the notes on the procedure for saving modified macros at the end of this page.

In order to edit the properties of the objects of a macro, it must first be inserted.

As an inserted object, the macro is a group. To change the composition of the macro or the properties of the objects contained within it, you therefore first have to break it up into its elements ("Ungroup"). Then you can edit the current properties of individual objects and, after re-grouping, create a new macro object.

Please see the notes on the procedure for saving modified macros at the end of this page.

Although you cannot edit the Standard Catalog as opposed to the User Catalog, all of the macros listed there are available to you as templates, which means that you can "load" any macros you like from the standard catalog, amend them, and then "incorporate" them into your user catalog.

The actions listed can only be applied to entries in the user catalog. To carry out one of the actions, please proceed as follows:

The entries for the standard catalog may neither be edited, renamed nor deleted. However, after inserting it, you can enter every macro object from the standard catalog into your user catalog either immediately or after processing.

As you cannot generally "overwrite" macros, you have also to create a new macro, even if you have made only one single change (whether to the group or to an object within the group). Please remember to delete the original macro in such a case.

In the event that you wanted to create an additional version anyway, this feature is naturally irrelevant.