Macro Support

[AtomicLaser]

I realise it is still early days for OpenASK, but given how useful macros have been in extending GSAK’s capabilities, are there any plans on the roadmap to support something similar in OpenSAK?

For example, allowing users to write or run macros/scripts to automate tasks, generate outputs, or customise workflows would be extremely useful.

I appreciate that you are still waiting for API access from Groundspeak, and I imagine that once this is available, the product will be able to develop much further.

I currently use a lot of macros in my day-to-day GSAK workflow, as do many others in the community. However, as GSAK is closed source and no longer actively maintained in the same way it once was - although lignumaqua and Kai Team continue to patch issues where they can, it feels inevitable that one day GSAK may no longer work reliably on modern operating systems.

Because of that, I’m very interested in whether OpenSAK might eventually offer similar extensibility, so users can recreate or improve some of the workflows they currently rely on in GSAK.

[CheminerWill]

I agree that the GSAK macros are very, very, helpful in managing workflow. I use several of them. A couple, like the garminexport macro I use probably 50+ times a year. Having agreed and said that here is what I am thinking about macros that might make that capability different in OSAK. I am not a coding or open source expert by any means, just a long term user of anything technical related to geocaching and back-country hiking. I think maybe because OSAK is opensource, many of the things that macro creators did for GSAK might be more easily accomplished in OSAK. Once the API is working and the coming donation/funding structure is in place I bet that some of the macro abilities may be able to be implemented in OSAK more easily than they were in GSAK.

As I said, I am not expert on this and I suspect Fabio or Allan will let us know how some of the macro functions might eventually be brought from GSAK to OSAK. And please, F.&A. correct my thinking on this if it is off base. But in any case, I am excited about the open source aspect of OSAK as I think this might allow development along this path easier for the people who wrote, implemented, and support the GSAK macros. Those coders may be able to see how to write something that does what their GSAK macro does that the developers of OSAK can then review, edit, approve and make part of a future release. Some things may have to stay as stand apart macros, but other functions may be able to be coded into OSAK.

But yes, there are a couple of macros I use that I do not know how I would live without and absolutely want to eventually have their functions in OSAK. It will be incumbent upon us as users to support with donation/funding once that ability is in place to make this sort of advancement a shared effort. For now we should just all run the latest betas into the ground and post any issues or suggestions we have. Allan and Fabio have been (are) amazingly responsive and supportive of anything I have brought up so far. And incredibly quick to implement things that they agree would fix, improve, or advance OSAK.

[AgreeDK]

We will add some kind of macro support and have talked about the best way to implement it, but first we want to make our current code more mature and aligned with basic GSAK functionality, thats why we need you to test our code and report back to us, so we can make better.