Disclaimer: Careless use of Macros/keystroke players can cause damage to your files. Use with Care. You have been warned.

The Problem

A Possible Solution

A kludgy solution solution to this is to use a Windows Macro-keystroke logger/player. When combined with the (presently a beta version) PRJ program from Andrew Jupe. This will help you setup a PRJ file, ready to do some automated peak fitting on. A better solution would be software that allows for "mass analysis of data" given the improvement in data collection times, especially in use at Synchrotrons.

Following is a quick guide to hopefully get you going if you are interested in using a simple macro/keystroke playing based method for automating XFIT under these circumstances.

The page on "Why does XFIT seem slower than usual?" explains why you cannot just display 150 patterns on the screen (with peaks inserted ready to go) and start fitting (all refined parameters are part of the same least squares matrix, even on separate datasets).

The the trick is to display one plot at a time maximized on the screen, FIT, then display a new file (toggling either using ~ (or CNTRL TAB) if you want to keep the screen unsized), then fit; and continually do this.

• For the above example, a following macro would do the job. It would be repeated (or called) for the number of files you would like to fit. In the case of the example in the XFIT distribution, 20 times.:

  Press ALT
  Wait>0.1
  Send Character/Text>t
  Wait>0.1
  Release ALT
  Wait>0.1
  Send Character/Text>m
  Wait>0.1
  Press Up
  Wait>3   (set this to the max time you know that fitting the pattern takes.
           In this case, it is set to 3 seconds for a Pentium 90.
  Press Enter
  Wait>0.1
  Press Enter  (The two Enters take into account that the refinement may or
                may not have converged by this time).
  Wait>0.1
  Press ALT
  Wait>0.10
  Send Character/Text>y
  Wait>0.10
  Release ALT
  Wait>0.1
  Press CTRL
  Wait>0.1
  Press Tab
  Release CTRL
  Wait>0.1

• This above macro for Macro Scheduler would then be copied and pasted to match the number of files in a PRJ/Project file you wish to automatically fit (in the following example, 20 times). Click here for the Macro Scheduler doobry2.scp macro file used to automatically fit the 20 powder patterns in this example

• One Macro Editor (not the only one) that does a good job is the shareware Macro Scheduler. It allows you to record macros (including mouse moves), and edit the macros in a text interface (which is a lot quicker)
  • http://www.mjtnet.com/
  • If you want to explore for other possible software packages, check out the various shareware repositories (Winfile, tucows, garbo, etc)
• On an example XFIT project file, record a macro, then edit it to you satisfaction that it then does the job.
• Save this macro/recorder file then let the good times role. Following is an example of the "Macro Scheduler" interface which includes a Macro called "doobry2" ready to let the good times role.

• 

Example of using the above macro on an XFIT Project.

(in the following example, the above basic macro text was repeated 20 times to match 20 files to be fitted in the project) Click here for the Macro Scheduler doobry2.scp macro file used to automatically fit the 20 powder patterns in this example

• Using the save1.prj file provided with the XFIT distribution in the c:\koalarie\xfit-tut\energyd\silicon directory. Load this file and use View, Same X Views, followed by zooming to get the major silicon peak as the only peak on the individual plot screens.

• 

• Maximize one of the plots.

• 

• Run the keystroke player with and make sure the relevent macro is present, click on the XFIT screen and type the "Hot-Key" you use to activate the Macro (in my case, [CNTRL] G).

• The macro/keystroke player should then fit all the patterns one after the other.

• 

• It is important to view the results as XFIT uses a Marqardt Algorithm, which can get into false minima, which should be obvious from visual inspection of the results. XFIT makes this simple by being able to have all/some of the fitted spectra on the one window.

• Don't forget to save the Project file after you do the automated fitting.