Phoebus: using macros in Action, Execute Command

[Paul Sichta via Tech-talk <tech-talk@aps.anl.gov>]

Apologies: same topic as my previous posting, added phoebus in subject line.

Using phoebus, I used an action button and added an Execute Command.  My macro will not work when used in the Command line.  The macro will work in action type WritePV,  or as a PVname for an object on the display.

Example: I add to my environment before starting phoebus,  export myLS=ls

In the action command line I use       $(myLS)  

When I run the action I get an error

Cannot run program "$myLS" (in directory  blah...); error=2, No such file or directory

If I simply use    ls    in the command it works fine.

The help, about,  inspect environmental variables it shows:  myLS = ls

Is there a way to use macros from the user's environment on these Execute Commands?

In particular, I want to use a macro to be a directory path on my system

Regards,

-ps