Slashdot Mirror

What automation tool is best for you depends, of course, a lot on what you need to do.

I've used Winbatch for years now. For basic stuff it is straightforward and easy to learn. But it still has the capabilities of performing sophisticated and complicated automated work.

With the right licence you can deploy compiled scripts to as many computers you like. I have dozens of scripts I use in this manner every day.

Not everyone thinks we're special...
http://techsupt.winbatch.com/webcgi/webbatch.exe?techsupt/nffunsupt.web+Aliens+They~are~made~of~meat.txt

Reminds me of this story

Winbatch would EASILY handle exactly what you are looking for. http://www.winbatch.com/

You can compile to .EXE, do all manner of network, database, and desktop automation. And yes, you can play with the serial ports and much more.

Best of all, there is an extensive tech support database and a lively user community, with active and remarkably prompt involvement from the principal architects of the language.

I speak only as a satisfied customer, but this is really the type of shareware that makes you want to register it. I've done some remarkable things with it.

[...] without needing some weird limiting technology to unlock the content.

I had a fairly simple idea for getting around the ereader (or indeed just about any other kind of) ebook encryption, using the analog hole:

Essentially, write a small script (using something like WinBatch on Windows) to automate paging through the book - with a nice clear large black font and white background - and take a screenshot for each page, saving as page001.bmp (or whatever). Then use an OCR program (eg. JOCR) to interpret the images into plain text.

I just say:
http://techsupt.winbatch.com/webcgi/webbatch.exe?t echsupt/tfleft.web+Academic~Jokes+8th~grade~educat ion,~could~you~pass.txt

Any further questions?

Plus, there are a zillion forum postings so odds are if you're trying to figure out how to do something odd, someone else has taken a stab at it.

Or you could just use Perl.

How do I convert them to jpegs (to then make a movie) using a mouse?

http://www.winbatch.com/
http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/automator/

I'm very interested to know which are the best automation programs and macro programs for Windows and for Linux.

Is Macro Express, mentioned in the Slashdot article, the best?

For Windows automation, I've used the free AutoIt, which is amazingly complete and well-developed. AutoIt comes with an autocompletion IDE that automatically displays function usage information. The version that includes the IDE installs easily. AutoIt also has a compiler, which is also free.


I used WinBatch several years ago, but I had a huge amount of trouble getting technical support for it.

Microsoft has released several scripting languages, but my experience is that they are poorly documented.

In the Windows environment there are a host of different OS-specific needs which are best served by Windows-specific scripting programs.

Two which come to mind are KiXtart which I use to do clever things in our users' login scripts and Winbatch.

Phil

The first thing I learned to program with in Windows was WinBatch. It's great for learning concepts like variable and loops and such, plus you can easily make fun little scripts to open and close programs, move windows around the screen, or make little applications to do repetitive tasks.

The basic language costs about a hundred bucks. The compiler is a bit more expensive, but if she's using it on her own she shouldn't really need it.

I know you're joking, but try WilsonWindowWare's (remember them from the old days?!) WinBatch. If you can get around the pricetag for the compiler ($99, not too bad), you'll find a really cool utility...