I'm looking for a decent program to allow me to put together scripts to control other Windows applications (must run in Windows XP). Such a program should have Recording ability to record keystrokes and mouse events, control looping, hopefully allow nested looped recorded macros, etc.. It should be relatively inexpensive - if not free. And at least offer some free demo usage time so I can make sure it does what I need.

I'm trying to automate a few programs for a very repetitive task. I've done a few searches but none of the programs I've found are quite ideal. A long time ago I was searching for some other (unrelated) software and kept finding this type of program. now i want something and everything I come up with isn't convenient enough or simple enough - or it's put together by someone with no concept of software design and costs $200.

Any suggestions welcome.
Bruno

I've used Macro Magic before. Worked well. Not sure if it does nested, but it defintely meets all your other criteria.

Free for 30 days.

I dont have any personal experience with this program and not sure if its exactly what you want but I found AutoIt
http://www.hiddensoft.com/AutoIt/

You might also want to look at QA-type tools. They have a lot of macro facilities, in order that they can run tests against applications. Some are quite pricey, though.

Does anyone know if any of these tools (or others) can identify not only controls in a window, but their contents as well? I know AutoIt has a thing called WindowSpy which gets you Window and control names, but I have instances where I'd like to get the contents of a pop-up (combobox) menu and dump to a text file. That way I know how many items exist inside it for executing loops, etc. I'd also know the names of all the items in case I wanted to use them to label some output...

Also, I can't seem to find out if AutoIt has a mode to automatically record keystrokes and mouse movements on the target application or if it all must be scripted by hand. This might be a job for both MacroMajic and AutoIt together...

Bruno

I dont know about combo boxes but regular popup dialogs in windows xp like error dialogs if you hit Ctrl+C you can then paste the text from that dialog into a text file. Great for error boxes.

At work we have used Perfect Keyboard Pro for the past 4 years. We even have one machine that runs a script that calls a perfect keyboard macro to fill out some info and then run the second script. We have used this macro since 03/01/2002. We check the box to every day via VNC, and maybe once a every month the macro will have failed due to server being down or slow.

AutoIt looks very good. MacroMagic unfortunately doesn't. I tried a few things in it and it didn't work as I expected - and I couldn't wrap my brain around how it was supposed to work. AutoIt is just a plain old interpreted language with many built in functions and commands to deal with windows and controls. It's going to be a lot more manual-reference, but I think it can do everything I need alone.

I'm going to look at at the otehr suggestions though in hopes of some integration that might save time.

Bruno

Another vote for AutoIt.
I've primaly used version 2, under which I've many scripts that have run repeatly with out fault - on the times when they have failed it been due to a user interaction. Of course I should really find a way to fix these failures - one of these days.
Version 3 brings alot more to the table, espically in terms of loops, and is a much better layout for anyone coming from any interpreted language background.

Such a program should have Recording ability to record keystrokes and mouse events

and..

AutoIt looks very good. .... AutoIt is just a plain old interpreted language...

Does it really record and play back mouse events as well?

I use a macro-capable keyboard for my macro stuff. The one I have now is sold by Fentek and does what I need. It will not allow nested macros, however, which you said you needed.

tanstaafl.

AutoIt (v3) is pretty much a BASIC-style scripting language with built-in functionality to manipulate windows, the keyboard and the mouse, in addition to some more normal stuff like files, etc. No recording ability.

I've been able to use it to do what I want. My only wish in fact would be for it to support windows messages which I don't think it does (you can only interact with a window when it is visible and you can't send a mouse event message, but only a real mouse click (requiring the window to also be active)).

For my little project I'm using control commands (target a specific window control like a button and tell it to "click"), keyboard events (send a key to current window or specific control, like edit box or list box), and mouse events (calculate and specify coordinates where clicking should occur - this requires that the destination not be obstructed). A bunch of error checking is needed to make sure the proper window is active before doing certain things (often involving waiting for that window to be active just to make sure).

Bruno

WinBatch might be out of your price range, but I've been using it for years and it has never failed me. It's very powerful and can do everything you've listed. Not sure why it wasn't mentioned yet in this thread; maybe this is the one you bashed in your post. Anyway, the language is pretty nice, and with all of the free extenders out there, it has endless capabilities.

I did see that one. I just thought that if their site was that confusing, that the program was sure to be a nightmare. Plus the blue owls really freaked me out.

Bruno

Their site does need a bit of work, and they've over-branded with that owl. As far as WinBatch itself, though, it's fairly well thought out. I would at least suggest taking a look at it. It's the best one out there out of all the ones I've tried. We used it when I was at Kaiser all the time, and we use it where I am now a lot as well. It's well worth the $100. Where it gets a bit expensive is if you want the compiler (~ $500), but IMHO, still worth it, if you're in a situation where you need it.

Well, nothing says automation quite like an owl.

I guess.

And nothing says open source quite like a penguin.

Ideally I wanted to be able to communicate with the windows and controls in the background so I wouldn't have to ghost clicks and keyboard input. Another program I tried actually used a recorder but captured all the classIDs of everything clicked on.

The program(s) I'm manipulating aren't the best designed nor implemented pieces of software either and I can't say they're standardized in a very good manner (necessitating the mouse clicks). The real test begins when I have to integrate one more program which I'm currently still waiting for in the mail...

Bruno

Ok, I need some help. I'm using the following command to pull a string from the currently selected item in a combobox.

$commandName = ControlGetText ($sendWin, "", "ComboBox1" )

Now, if I look at $commandName it's two bytes with a useless ASCII representation. Generally I get a question mark followed by a square.

I really want to see the HEX value of those two bytes. But I can't figure out how to do it with AutoIt. Any help?

Bruno

Sorry Bruno, your doing something I've not tried to do.
Can you send me enough code so I can replicate what your doing?
What does AutoIt Window Spy tell you about that combobox?

It doesn't say much about the Combobox. Doesn't show how many items it has nor their index values. I wrote the value I read from the control to the clipbard and then read the clipboard contents in an editor. Mostly useless. The numbers that came out were definitely not an index and not what I wanted.

I've resorted to doing something different instead. There's a new version of AutoIt up in the last few days which supports this type of functionality for ListView controls (getting total number of indexes and individual index numbers, etc..)

Bruno

Thanks for the heads up on the new version, due to an extreme tangent my job has recently taken I've not been keeping up with it.

I was asked for a similar solution recently. I'm curious as to how happy you are with it after all these months? Did you continue using it? Did you find something better?

As far as I can tell, AutoIt is one of the best scripting programs for Windows. Certainly one of the most sensible to me anyway. It's got easy syntax and if you know how to program (Basic, Pascal, C, C++, etc...) you can figure this out in a second.

The newest versions have the ability to construct many more UI elements so you can actually construct something that takes user input in a number of ways. It's not what I was using it for, but I really appreciated that its extra functionality did not hinder/complicate its basic functions. A lot of other programs/packages out there are a mish-mash of features and not very well implemented/thought out.

I wish it were available for Mac OS as well. Applescript is pretty cool functionally, but I can't stand its syntax.

Bruno

I'm surprised that I didn't add Macro Angel 2 to this list. It has a massive pile of features for UI automation in Windows. I only ever used the keyboard scripting, which is easy to construct and allows very detailed granularity (ie: allowing different millisecond delays between keypresses).

Apparently it's discontinued, but I think it said that when I downloaded my copy from the site. Worked for me.