New "Macro Strings", Macro's Reborn!

[kingfury]

I'm surprised this wasn't mentioned before, but same as additional macro lines, this would require more space, and if I understand the post correctly, quite a lot. If you store macro strings serverside though, there would be lots of new issues. For one, I don't think the coding would be that simple, it would require a lot of safeguards. Not being able to enter the same string title twice isn't enough to prevent looping, since /macrostring would be a normal command, it could be called within a macro string as well. Disabling that may not be as easy as it sounds, since currently there's no way for SE to know where a command comes from, if it comes from a normal macro, entered manually, or from within a macro string. They would have to change the ways commands are sent/interpreted completely to make it work, for example send an additional overhead to the server every time a command is sent. This would take lots of extra traffic and computation cost though.
If it was stored serverside, it would again have to have some additional safeguards to prevent looping, since one macro could call a macro string several times, or make a macro string execute a macro that contains another macro string, etc. It would have to implement some kind of stack to trace where macro calls are coming from, to prevent looping.
It is a new idea, additional macro lines would, so to speak, just delay the problem. This offers a new solution of being able to combine macros in a new way. However, there's plenty of pitfalls to consider, and maybe from space requirements alone it wouldn't be feasible. Also, I don't know if it's very user friendly, plenty of people don't even understand current macros fully. And I have to say, even I am a bit confused by this idea, especially the grouping thing. I hope SE considers Tamarsama's idea, it seems simpler both to understand/use (in fact, it would make gear macros a lot easier to understand than they are now) as well as being easier to implement. And with some sophisticated coding it could even conserve lots of space, cause it would alleviate the need for so many macro lines, unlike this idea that would add new lines with the respective macro strings.

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Awesome feedback ^^ / Thanks friend

Again, like I said in the OP ^^,

"I'm not a programer, but I've seen the Dev Team produce some amazing feats over my years of playing FFXI, and this (at least in my mind) would be easy prey to tackle Of course this is just a suggestion for making things better/more efficient, so if my ambitions are too high with this proposal, then maybe it will serve as a bridge to newer thinking and approaches to the subject of improving Macros for all."

I'm very glad that this has in fact happened based on my post and the others like it. ^^ However I believe the weary feedback that I'm getting from my proposed concept vs Selzak's and Tamarsama's is due mostly because it doesn't focus on "gear sets" only. I would like to think that the memory used for macro lines can't be very much, but I can't pull up the files using my Xbox 360 to check the file size like, I would assume, PC users could. I suppose I would just love the ability to swap gear + WS + swap back into TP gear with the use of only one macro line ^^;. With the feedback stated in a few post(yours as well), including the post from Camate, I now understand the pit falls associated with my concept. It would indeed need a hardy dose of policing functionality to prevent abuse towards automation.

If I took out the ability to input the macro lines manually and other commands such as JA, spells, etc. my concept would just about mirror the other concepts, which is pretty much the correct thing to propose anyway ^^. Thanks again for all the great feedback guys. /salute

I'll edit my post accordingly based on all this great feedback.