Current Page: NeXtMidas User's Guide Macros
| ## Macros Macros are a sequence of operations that are invoked with a single command. A macro serves as a convenient, and possibly temporary, alias for a single lengthier command (or sequence of commands) that needs to be executed frequently. More significantly, macros define complex, distributed signal processing applications. A macro might comprise thousands of NeXtMidas commands running on different machines. A NeXtMidas macro has the extension `.mm` (Midas Macro). The file name extension is changed to allow NeXtMidas and X-Midas macros to coexist without name collisions. Since NeXtMidas translates macros on-the-fly, there are no translated `.mcr` files on disk as there are with X-Midas. There are two types of macros: Installed Macros: A macro command can be installed by adding it to the command dictionary. Parameters of an installed macro are assigned default values. User Macros: An uninstalled macro runs as a user macro by preceding its name on the command line with the % character. An uninstalled macro cannot have system-provided default parameter values. The following subsections provide an introduction to NeXtMidas macro programming. Additional information is found in Graphics and Interoperability with X-Midas. Macro Structure and Execution Messages Piping Creating a New Macro User Macros