Does QGIS have something like the MS Office macro recorder?

Question

I would like to use python console in QGIS to automate tasks. Is there something like a macro recorder in MS Office to get the python commands?

Answer 1

In cases such as this you may find it easier to take your python code outwith the Quantum console and set up an IDE to write and run your code from. This blog post outlines downloading and configuring Aptana Studio for use with pyqgis.

Such a configuration will allow you to save your commands and scripts as python .py files and to run them whenever you need, in addtion to taking advantage of other python features in a better development environment.

Answer 2

Unfortunately, there isn't something like that for now. The closest I could think of is this ticket from the QGIS issue tracker regarding Macro Recording.

The general idea is that QGIS would send the the Python code for each action (or just the more common ones) that it preforms. Code could be sent to file or console so that people could copy and paste it into a script and run it later. Of course you wouldn't do this all the time only when a certain trigger is set in the Python console or a config screen.

For example, say the user opens a table from a PostGIS database and sets its style to fill solid red. QGIS would output the needed Python code to open the table, add it to the map canvas and change its color.

MapInfo? does this with MapBasic? and I know it was handy for me to learn how to use the MapBasic? APIs when I first started by just watching what it generated.

I'm not sure how hard this would be or even if anyone else thinks it's worth having but could be handy for people to learn the QGIS python API and help with writing scripts.

Twas opened about two years ago but unfortunately, nobody seems to be working on it right now.