Macro Recording and Automating Windows with Macro Scheduler – Tips & News
This is something that comes up often, so I thought I’d mention it here. Every so often we get asked how to put a date into a filename. Say you want to rename or save a file with the date in the filename formatted to reportsYYYYMMDD.txt e.g.: reports20061801.txt Well the simplest way to do this […]
I’ve added some scripts to the Scripts & Tips forum: A script to Monitor Startup Programs. Useful for detecting rogue apps like spyware etc Is Drive Ready. A function to determine whether the drive is ready or not. Automatically Create a System Restore Point. Useful at the start of a script that installs software or […]
Cosmo asked in his comment on How to Start Writing an Automation Script how he could set the position of a desktop shortcut. This is an interesting question that hasn’t come up before and it took me a while to realise how it could be done. You may wonder why you’d even want to do […]
These are my tips for getting started with writing an automation script. While I’m, writing this with our Windows Automation tool, Macro Scheduler, in mind, these tips will be appropriate whichever automation tool you are using. The most important thing before attempting to write a routine to automate a software process is to be familiar […]
As mentioned in my last post, the easiest, most reliable way to automate an application is via keyboard shortcuts. But I’ve found that many people are so used to using the mouse that they don’t even realise you can use the keyboard to move around Windows applications. Some things I take for granted are completely […]
One of the best ways to learn to use a software product fully is to try to automate it. Testers and automators have to learn the software’s interface really well, possibly better than the people who wrote it. Ok, the developers know the algorithms better than anyone else, but it is the person automating it […]
Someone recently asked if we could add a new feauture to AutoLogon that would allow several macros to be scheduled one after the other without logging off in between. At present AutoLogon works at the macro level. It logs in, runs the macro and then logs out again. What if you want to schedule several […]
When we are automating Windows applications we nearly always need to be able to detect new windows and wait for windows to open and close and be ready etc. Unfortunately there are times when this is not possible. Flash applications for example are just exposed as graphics and expose no windowed controls that we can […]