macro to SET UP customized crop?

Hi ...
I have created a preset to crop using certain dimensions.
So, if I want to crop a thing of these dimensions from a larger image,
I select the crop tool, pull down the Presets menu,
scroll down [and down [...]], click on my preset, and click [OK].
I then have the crop tool's bounding box (or whatever it's called)
on the image, and I can move it around, then click the check mark,
and it does it.

Now I want to streamline this -- I use that (and one other) preset
much more frequently than any others.

Is there a way to define a macro that just selects the crop tool
and then selects that preset, and then I can take it from there?
And then I could bind that macro to a button ...

I tried recording it, then editing the actual location
(but leaving the *dimensions*) out of the call to the crop function,
but I got an error when I tried to run it.
(Not surprised, really, just worth a shot.)

JustMe wrote:
[snip]
> Is there a way to define a macro that just selects the crop
> tool and then selects that preset, and then I can take it
> from there?
[snip]

No. The difficulty lies in the fact that the Python functions invoke 
a complete application of a tool. We cannot code part of a Crop. As 
you might guess, this comes up fairly often. You will find partial 
solutions with a search of the Scripting newsgroup.

Corel tried to address this in PSP 10 by having the Crop tool come 
up with the previous bounding box active. While useful in your 
situation, it caused more grief than relief for many people, so 
Corel listened and made that feature a Preferences choice in one of 
the patches.
-- 
Fred Hiltz,  fhiltz at yahoo dot com 

JustMe <zcukpkn02@sneakemail.com> wrote in news:47aead13$1_2@cnews:
> 
> Hi ...
> I have created a preset to crop using certain dimensions.
> So, if I want to crop a thing of these dimensions from a larger image,
> I select the crop tool, pull down the Presets menu,
> scroll down [and down [...]], click on my preset, and click [OK].
> I then have the crop tool's bounding box (or whatever it's called)
> on the image, and I can move it around, then click the check mark,
> and it does it.
> 
> Now I want to streamline this -- I use that (and one other) preset
> much more frequently than any others.
> 
> Is there a way to define a macro that just selects the crop tool
> and then selects that preset, and then I can take it from there?
> And then I could bind that macro to a button ...
> 
> I tried recording it, then editing the actual location
> (but leaving the *dimensions*) out of the call to the crop function,
> but I got an error when I tried to run it.
> (Not surprised, really, just worth a shot.)
As Fred says, not with the Crop tool, but you can do it with a script 
that uses the Edit Selection mode.  Suz Shook wrote such a script to do 
a crop in 4x6 aspect ratio, using 267x200 pixels as the size of the 
initial selection.  You can modify it by replacing those numbers near 
the top of the script with the pixel dimensions you want.  Read the 
instructions near the top of the script also.  I have attached it here.  
When you run the script and have moved your box into posision and then 
run the script again to perform the crop, you get a message asking if 
you want to proceed.  If you don't want that message you can also 
comment that part out of the script.
Regards,
JoeB

JoeB wrote:
> (. . .) you can do it with a script 
> that uses the Edit Selection mode.  Suz Shook wrote such a script (. . .)

Wow!  THAT'S impressive!  Thanks.

JustMe <zcukpkn02@sneakemail.com> wrote in news:47b15258$1_3@cnews:

> 
> JoeB wrote:
>> (. . .) you can do it with a script 
>> that uses the Edit Selection mode.  Suz Shook wrote such a script (.
>> . .) 
> 
> Wow!  THAT'S impressive!  Thanks.

Suz does good work!  I have this script on a button on a toolbar and use it 
regularly, because of course you can resise just using the handles or 
otherwise change the shape and edit the selection.  It's a very handy 
script.

Regards,

JoeB