combining 3 eprime files into 1 file - or a work around???

[yohans]

Hi,
I have 3 separate eprime 1.2 files that each have a different
cognitive task inside of them. I now want to give participants all 3
tasks in one session and to have them properly counterbalanced.
Ideally, I could copy and paste these 3 files together so they could
all be set up to run at the start (instead of bringing up and running
a new eprime script for each task). Doing so would also allow me to
add a script that would enable the counterbalancing to be easily
engaged at the very start of the experiment (e.g. the experimenter
could press "1" for counterbalancing order 1 (e.g. task A -> B -> C),
"2" for counterbalancing order 2 (e.g. task B -> A -> C), etc.).
Having the program set up in a such a way would minimize error,
experimenter-participant interaction, wasted time, and make it more
simple for my research assistants to run.
However, it is not possible to copy and past one eprime 1.2 file
into another one. So one highly time consuming option is to slowly
remake 2 of the tasks inside the eprime file of the 3rd task. Then
they will all be in the same file and it would be easy to write a
counterbalancing script.
Is there an easier way around this that does not involve my
research assistants having to pull up each eprime file separately?
Can you make a master eprime file that calls up (or loads) other
eprime files at different junctures? In other words, the main eprime
script would call up the eprime file for task A at time 1, then the
eprime file for task B at time 2, etc.
Or any other work-around ideas?
Thanks for any help!!
Best, Anson Whitmer

[David McFarlane]

Anson,

Just so you know, PST Web Support likes to take these sorts of
questions at http://support.pstnet.com/e%2Dprime/support/login.asp
. They promise response times of 24-48 hours to all requests, so you
might do better there than here. Although in this case I don't think
that they will give you as full or useful an answer as I would have
(as I have already addressed this issue in the discussion groups),
but PST thinks that I am not doing anybody (least of all PST) any
favors by my activities on the message boards, so I will leave this
to them. And if you feel charitable you may then post the answer
back here for the sake of others.

-- David McFarlane, Professional Faultfinder

[Michael Erickson]

On Tue, Oct 27, 2009 at 2:03 PM, David McFarlane <mcfa...@msu.edu> wrote:

Just so you know, PST Web Support likes to take these sorts of
questions at http://support.pstnet.com/e%2Dprime/support/login.asp
.  They promise response times of 24-48 hours to all requests, so you
might do better there than here.  Although in this case I don't think
that they will give you as full or useful an answer as I would have
(as I have already addressed this issue in the discussion groups),
but PST thinks that I am not doing anybody (least of all PST) any
favors by my activities on the message boards, so I will leave this
to them.  And if you feel charitable you may then post the answer
back here for the sake of others.

Anson --

The answer depends on whether one is using ePrime 1.x or 2.x.  Since you have 1.x, then you should be able to find and use e-kick to glue scripts together.  If you had 2.x, then you should to be able to do something else, but I don't know what it is, because I am hanging back with 1.x on XP machines.

There was some conversation about it previously:

http://groups.google.com/group/e-prime/browse_thread/thread/b8ba31d80dafd3dd/a091cb3b56c81ac1

Perhaps that conversation was what irked PST.  David, I think that most (and definitely some) users really appreciate your answers.  I am not necessarily a fan of any one company's products.  I want to find the best solutions for my lab wherever they may be.  If PST makes a decision that trades off between their interests and mine, I want to know about it and I'd like to discuss it with knowledgeable and interested parties.

Michael

[yohans]

Thanks guys. David, I have seen your other posts over the years when
searching for solutions to other problems and I have always
appreciated them. Do you mind directing me to one of those previous
discussions? I did look before posting my question but I don't think
I was using the key-words. I will also post this on the official
website. Thanks! A

[yohans]

p.s. I will look in the eprime kick because I have 1.x. However, I'm
not sure if it will work because I not only want to combine the tasks
into one file but I also then want to be able to edit that combined
file (e.g. adding scripts, additional instructions, etc).

[David McFarlane]

Anson,

Sorry to do this to you, but I really am curious to know PST Web
Support's take on this, and for all I know they have a better answer
than mine. So please go to PST Web Support, post their full answer
back here on the E-Prime List, and if they left anything out then I
will add my own comments. Thanks.

OK, it's way past 5p here in Michigan and I really do have to bike home now...

[liwenna]

Whereas I am also curious to PST's response, I'd also like to point to
an effort within this group to make a script that automatically opens
and fills in startup info. The whole process can be found in this
thread: http://groups.google.com/group/e-prime/browse_thread/thread/cb15625eb22e39f3/ceee06480c89e9b7?#ceee06480c89e9b7

I am actually using the script now in a project and with some
additional tweaks added after the end of above thread it works out
just fine.
- tweaking the script to one's own needs will be a bit of a hassle at
first, but autoit's coding really isn't much harder than e-prime's
is.
- the sleep parameters should be sufficiently slow (I use 500 and 1000
ms), in order to not make the script run faster than the computer runs
(resulting in chaos). My testcomputer, for instance, switches between
screens when e-run initiates, which costs a bit of time.
- when everything is tweaked ok, autoit provides a litle program that
morphs your .au3 file into an 'real' .exe file, with a customized icon
and all that.... just neat.
- the only thing left is that your subjects do need to be instructed
to simply not touch any buttons while the program is switching between
tasks (and filling out the start-up parameters). Goes well with my
subjects so far.

- I use the script for questionnaire's and did not have a thorough
look into it's effect on timing, I 'd advise to not use it for any
critical timing tasks.

Best regards,

liwenna

[yohans]

the response from PST

"Hi Anson,

E-Prime does not have the capability to start multiple experiments
directly (e.g., multiple individual ES or EBS files). You would need
to have the first experiment terminate, then load and run the second
experiment manually, and so on. It is possible, however, to run a
sequence of experiments by either combining your experiments into a
single ES file (quite difficult and tedious in E-Prime 1.x) or, if you
are comfortable with programming or know someone who is, using the E-
Run command line switches described on page 112 of the E-Prime
Reference Guide to create an external application that can launch the
EBS files in succession without any intervention on your part. Note,
however, that this procedure is beyond the scope of E-Prime web
support.

If you are considering upgrading to E-Prime 2.0, note that it does
contain a copy/paste function that will allow you to quickly combine
tasks by moving objects from one experiment to another (i.e., multiple
instances of E-Studio can be open at a time). Please see
http://www.pstnet.com/eprime.cfm for more information.

Please let me know if you have any further questions.

Sincerely,
Matt Lenhart
Technical Consultant"

[David McFarlane]

Anson,

Thank you for posting back with Web Support's response, a fair answer
as far as it goes. I would have mentioned "AutoIt" as the key search
term if you wanted to explore the "external application" approach
that Matt mentions, and liwenna has already kindly supplied the link
to that discussion.

Matt also left out one little-known detail, although this hardly does
you any good. You *can* copy E-Objects between files in EP1,
although the process is very tedious, because you can only open one
file at a time. It goes like this (as documented in my own personal FAQ):

Open the source file and use View > Browser to open the object
browser pane. Select the desired object in the browser, and use
Edit > Copy. Now open the destination file and use Edit > Paste. If
the copied object has the same name as an object already in the
destination, then the pasted object gets automatically renamed with a
number at the end (EP2 implements a more robust conflict resolution
system for copying objects).

That's all I can add.

-- David McFarlane, Professional Faultfinder

[Michiel Spape]

Hi David & Anson,
I didn't know that, thanks for the suggestion! Anyway, as I'm sure you know, but out there on the list, maybe a few don't - you CAN open multiple .es files (E-Prime 1, tested again here with 1.1.sp3) at the same time. Just go to explorer, select two or more .es files (using shift and/or ctrl click) and press the enter button on your keyboard. I assume it's not possible in some versions of E-Prime, and to be honest, it rarely helped anyone before, but with this nifty copy-paste feature, it can be a powerful trick indeed.
Best,
Mich

Michiel Spapé
Research Fellow
Perception & Action group
University of Nottingham
School of Psychology

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[David McFarlane]

Michiel,

OMG, that is so cool! Just now tested this with
EP1.2 under Vista -- in all my years of using
E-Prime I never knew or thought of this, I wish I
had known this trick years ago! Not even Matt
Lenhart at PST seems to know about this.

Just to fill in another detail about this trick,
once you have a number of EP1 windows open, any
new .es will load into the topmost ES window, so
you can control which .es file loads into which ES window.

Thanks a bunch!

-- David McFarlane, Professional Faultfinder

[yohans]

I just wanted to thank everyone for all the replies and ideas!