WinParrot

Let's suppose that you are working in a technical support department in a large company and you would like to show to a customer how a certain feature of your program works. It's difficult to explain it over the phone or using a help document. A much better solution would be to actually show to the user how that feature works. That's why it would be a good idea to create a macro. Macros are small programs which can automate certain actions, for example, mouse movement, pressed keys and so on. Using a macro for showing a feature to a user is like being there with him and showing him how the feature works.

Windows doesn't have a feature for creating macros, but fortunately, there are a lot of programs on the market for creating them. One such program is WinParrot. This simple Windows application allows creating macros by recording anything that's happening on the computer in a certain period of time. The software doesn't have to be installed, as it can be run by simply double clicking on its executable file.

After the program is run, the user can start recording a new macro by accessing the graphical toolbar. One can stop the recording of the macro at any moment by using the V and END keys together. After the macro has been recorded and saved as a file, the user can preview it. For making it easier to understand what a certain macro is about, the program automatically records a video of the screen during the macro recording and also displays all the actions performed by the user during the recording time.

After the macro has been created and verified if it's all right, it can be saved as a project file. Unfortunately, the latest version of WinParrot doesn't allow saving the macro as a regular executable file and, as such, running a macro can be possible only after installing WinParrot.