Good technique.

I don’t know if your posting makes it totally clear enough (especially if one has never opened a second view) that for it to work one tab must be in one view and the other tab must be in the other view. But…it should be clear now. :-)

like many of Notepad++'s GUI commands…is not macro-recordable, but it is apparently macro-playable

Sad that more actions aren’t directly macro-recordable, as that’s probably the only way a non-poweruser can achieve some of these things without having help.

From what I’ve seen in macro recording, if you click anywhere, Scintilla registers that “I clicked in this Scintilla window to activate that editor” using those two messages (start a selection, then stop selecting).

Fortunately, like many of Notepad++'s GUI commands, it appears that the toggle-view (View > Focus on Another View [F8]) is not macro-recordable, but it is apparently macro-playable as IDM_VIEW_SWITCHTO_OTHER_VIEW = 44072

    <Macro name="changeFocus" Ctrl="no" Alt="no" Shift="no" Key="0">
        <Action type="2" message="0" wParam="44072" lParam="0" sParam="" />
    </Macro>

So @Noobstein , you might be able to make it work by recording the various pieces of your actions, then edit the %AppData%\Notepad++\shortcuts.xml file to merge the pieces, with the

        <Action type="2" message="0" wParam="44072" lParam="0" sParam="" />

line in between each group. So the actions would be

• Activate TAB1

• Start Recording

• perform the TAB1 actions

• Stop recording. Save macro as TAB1_ACTIONS

• Activate TAB2

• Start Recording

• perform the TAB2 actions

• Stop recording. Save macro as TAB2_ACTIONS

• Exit all instances of Notepad++

• Edit %AppData%\Notepad++\shortcuts.xml

  • Start with something like:

      <Macro name="TAB1_ACTIONS" Ctrl="no" Alt="no" Shift="no" Key="0">
          <Action ...FIRST... />
          <Action ... />
      </Macro>
      <Macro name="TAB2_ACTIONS" Ctrl="no" Alt="no" Shift="no" Key="0">
          <Action ... />
          <Action ...LAST... />
      </Macro>
    

  • Replace with something like:

      <Macro name="JOINED_ACTIONS" Ctrl="no" Alt="no" Shift="no" Key="0">
          <Action ...FIRST... />
          <Action ... />
          <Action type="2" message="0" wParam="44072" lParam="0" sParam="" /><!-- toggle view -->
          <Action ... />
          <Action ...LAST... />
      </Macro>
    

• Save shortcuts.xml and exit Notepad++

• Open new Notepad++

• You should have JOINED_ACTIONS in the Macros menu now. It might do what you want.

Using a similar technique, I created a macro which types “First Tab” in the first tab and “Second Tab” in the second tab:

        <Macro name="forum" Ctrl="no" Alt="no" Shift="no" Key="0">
            <Action type="1" message="2170" wParam="0" lParam="0" sParam="First Tab&#x000D;&#x000A;" />
            <Action type="2" message="0" wParam="44072" lParam="0" sParam="" />
            <Action type="1" message="2170" wParam="0" lParam="0" sParam="Second Tab&#x000D;&#x000A;" />
        </Macro>

I verified when I run it, that the two lines are typed in opposite views.

Macro operations don’t seem to operate between tabs. If they did, the simplest operation–switching tabs–would work, and it doesn’t seem to. Try this:

• Start macro recording
• Switch from one tab to another
• Stop macro recording
• Replay macro (nothing happens)

It is curious that macro replay is even enabled after stopping macro recording…hmmm…

The recorded macro looks like this:

    <Macro name="test" Ctrl="no" Alt="no" Shift="no" Key="0">
        <Action type="0" message="2422" wParam="0" lParam="0" sParam="" />
        <Action type="0" message="2325" wParam="0" lParam="0" sParam="" />
    </Macro>

Here are the definitions of those commands:

• #define SCI_SETSELECTIONMODE 2422
• #define SCI_CANCEL 2325

Doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me…