I guess this was an official decision by the WOW Devs, but for those of us having macros over 255 characters was a life saver. Any rationale for why this is gone or at least so low? Why not 500 characters?
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This is all we really know.
opened 04:14PM - 18 Apr 24 UTC
closed 02:09AM - 03 Jul 24 UTC
Mainline Beta
Feedback
High Priority
In the initial alpha build of 11.0.0, the "macrotext" secure attribute appears t… o have been removed from the macro action available to secure action buttons.
The removal of this functionality has a wide-ranging impact that will negatively impact users quite significantly, primarily over concerns with the limitations of the built-in macro system.
This ticket is intended to collect a few examples of use cases that will be broken to see if improvements can be made for end-users, or for certain functionalities to be added to the API to restore parts of what has been broken.
### Macro limits are too low
One common point of feedback so far is that both the length limit of individual macros (255 characters) and the number of available macro slots is considered to be extremely limiting. Addons such as [Clique](<https://www.curseforge.com/wow/addons/clique>) and [MacroToolkit](<https://www.curseforge.com/wow/addons/macro-toolkit>) which extensively make use of the "macrotext" attribute to allow macros to be bound directly to keypresses or unitframe clicks without consuming precious macro slots.
Increasing both the number of available character and account-wide macro slots, as well as bumping macros to natively support 1023 characters matching what RunMacroText actually supports would be helpful and may mitigate some common uses of the macrotext attribute.
### Item processing and other out-of-combat usages
A number of addons use macrotext for tasks such as item processing. Typically this takes the form of a `/cast <spell>` followed by a `/use <item>`. In some cases these can be replaced by proper use of the "target-bag"/"target-slot"/"target-item" attributes, but there's allegedly a few use-cases where these item-targetting attributes aren't suitable.
Additionally, for roleplayers addons such as [Total RP 3 Extended](https://www.curseforge.com/wow/addons/total-rp-3-extended) provide the ability to create custom items that may execute macro texts on a click, which makes it very easy for users to have an item that performs an emote for example. Our use case here is strictly out-of-combat, and we're not keen on the alternative idea of allowing unrestricted loadstring access to users as a replacement.
All of these cases could be made to continue working in 11.0 unaltered if the "macrotext" attribute were re-added, **but limited to only ever working while out-of-combat**. Conceptually this is a bit similar to InsecureActionButtonTemplate, which allows delegated execution of secure actions on click but only while out-of-combat.
### Some slash commands have no secure action equivalents
A few common examples that I've seen so far are `/clearfocus` and `/targetexact` - neither of these seems to be directly possible with the existing attribute system available to SecureActionButtonTemplate.
There's also cases of command sequences that aren't trivially replicated without the use of macrotext - for example, `/cleartarget` followed by `/target somethingelse`, or casting/using multiple spells or items back-to-back where one doesn't trigger a global cooldown.
In general - it would be wise to do a pass over SecureCmdList and see what makes sense to bring over to secure actions.
### Built-in macro conditions are extremely limited
The client doesn't support a lot of macro conditions natively, and the availability of certain conditions like `[known:spell]` isn't consistent between client flavors. A general resolution for this use case is proposed in #554.
### Concerns over macro slot reservations
The removal of this functionality may incentivize addons to "reserve" proper macro slots for their own functions, which would be a significant annoyance for users.
It wouldn't be surprising if the macro APIs need restricting to prevent this from happening, but that would then also wipe out any form of macro management addons that for example save and load macro sets based upon factors such as what instance you're in, or what class you're playing.
Thank you! I guess it was known for a while. It really hurts, but it REALLY REALLY hurts my druid… at least 5 macros will now require that I learn like so many more binds or find an addon to work around these limitations… I am using Clique, so I think I am going to setup a spec specific macro for each of these abilities.
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I don’t mean to necro an old thread, but I did just come across this and no one had mentioned it. You can work around this limit by using a macro ‘click’ to chain one macro into the next and keep running.
Here is a quick rundown:
That technique no longer works.
Macros cannot execute other macros with /click nor can you exceed the 255 char maximum using addons anymore. Both topics coverd by the linked post.
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Also, the wiki has moved. For the up-to-date version see:https://warcraft.wiki.gg
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As Fizzlemizz previously eluded to on other threads on this forum, you could create your own addon/text lua file to get around this limit, then just reference that lua file in your macro. Not 100% sure but that’s the rough idea if I remember correctly.
That will work for executing lua code longer the 255 (eg. place the code in a global function or 3, call the function(s) from a macro) but whatever you do, you’re restricted in your execution of secure macro code.
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