I've been tasked with testing a Windows program that is essentially a collection of links to various exe files. My job is basically to click all the links to make sure they work (yay!). To makes things a bit easier on myself, I want to create a simple script that will do the clicking for me. I have a programming background (familiar with C/C++, Java), but have never scripted anything before.
Despite googling and searching around on stackoverflow, I wasn't able to find anything that explains what would be involved in creating something like this. I downloaded a program called AutoHotKey (http://www.autohotkey.com/) that seems promising, but before I dive into it I want to see what suggestions you all have.
Thanks!
Never tried autohotkey so I can't give you feedback. But I played around a bit with Sikuli which is agnostic of the UI technology used (working with image recognition). It works fine and you should be able to come up with a working prototype in a couple of hours.
HP Unified Functional Testing (http://www8.hp.com/us/en/software-solutions/unified-functional-testing-automated-testing/) provides similar functionality as Sikuli. As licensed software, it isn't free, but provides a lot more features and support than Sikuli (which is open source) does.
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I'm trying to find a modern environment similar to what I found great about QBasic but making up for the flaws. The purpose of this is to code with my 6 year old son.
I'm looking for an IDE that uses a modern language, has the ability to draw graphics and play audio, and doesn't force the User to jump around much between coding and running their application.
In QBasic you had basically two modes: Edit and Run. There were no third party libraries required for creating graphics or generating Audio tones (that I remember). You never had more than one "window" opened at a time.
Is there a modern day equivalent IDE which uses a modern language that provides what I'm looking for?
I don't want him to have to jump around between various windows, try to wrap his mind around window toolkits, understand the command line, or use OOP just to get started. My end goal is to create simple graphical games with him -- not printing text out to the console.
(Preferably cross platform or useable on Mac OSX since that's what we have at the house. Preferably Python based since that's my language of choice.)
QBasic is a great option. You can purchase an old PC from a thrift store and run QBasic on it. There is the option of QB64 which can run on both Mac and Windows. Hope this is helpful.
I'd suggest QB64, almost 100% compatible with QBasic/QuickBasic but runs on Windows.
You could maybe try Small Basic, it aimed to recreate the ease-of-use and educational purposes of the old BASIC languages build into home computers from the 1980s
The Small Basic project was initiated following this article on Salon:
Why Johnny can’t code (David Brin, 2006)
I try to use this 2 projects for primitive gui testing automation:
http://www.ptfbpro.com/
http://www.autoitscript.com/
And I can't make my choice.
Can somebody explain me: why(in 2 or 3 lines) he use one of them(or other please specify)?
I use AutoIt...
because it's free, well documented (not only) from inside of the Scite Editor and you can easily compile your script into a small executable or even create a complete GUI and there is a very good community in the forums and around here. And its Basic-Like Syntax is really easy to understand, there are functions and even a foreach-syntax, dynamic arrays and lots of additional functions from other users... There's good integration with other programming languages and from the use of so many WinAPI functions you lack of very little possibilities. It can automate IE usage without even displaying a browser window and send network packages, you can send Keystrokes like a user sitting in front of your screen and there's the AU3Record Tool which allows you to just record a Macro and replay it or save it as a script and then you can easily optimize it and edit it for your needs. Or use the AutoIt Window Info tool to see all the possible handlings for your application, you can interact with any kind of program output/display according to different algorithms you may invent.
Enough facts? ;-)
Go with Autoit3. It 's a lot more reliable, and you have a complete script language. Ptfbpro is only a tool (not free), nothing more. AUtoit3 has a lot of contributors that can help you in your process, Ptfbpro is dead.
If you want a script taht really do what you want, just go for AutoIt. Ptfbpro can't be used as a professional tool.
Autoit3 as well. You really can't beat it for being free and so easy to use.
As every programmer knows tools are important and there is no tool more important for a developer than the IDE you use to code. In the last few years the IDE-s fall into standards and it is not common to see innovation in this area. What IDE-s you can recommend as innovative and what new ideas and paradigms they introduced?
This is by far the coolest set of coding tools yet!
http://vimeo.com/36579366
I haven't used this but saw the demo video yesterday. The IDE is called code bubbles and has a unique way of showing and grouping related code together.
That said I find the intellitrace feature in Visual Studio 2010 quite innovative.
Palm's Project Ares: http://ares.palm.com/Ares/about.html
It's the IDE for the Palm webOS phones, that runs entirely as a web app. You build and run your app inside the browser, and when you're done, you deploy straight to the cloud.
I'd put my bet on Meta Programming System by Jetbrains. The concept is not new but it's the first time it has been implemented on such a huge scale with great IDE support. You create a DSL first, then write programs in that DSL and finally generate code in a target language.
I'll go for Scratch, though I wouldn't want to write a banking system using it :-)
Some cool videos of structured editor prototype that will let you directly code the AST.
This is a prototype only and I have no idea if it is still being developed.
One interesting IDE I have seen only on video is Code Bubbles. It opens code snippets as a graph of visual "bubbles". It is really interesting and definitely something I want to try.
I know this will be a difficult question, so I am not necessarily looking for a direct answer but maybe a tutorial or a point in the right direction.
What I am doing is programing a robot that will be controlled by a remote operator. We have a 3D rendering of the robot in SolidWorks. What I am looking to do is get the 3D file into VB (probably using DX9) and be able to manipulate it using code so that the remote operator will have a better idea of what the robot is doing. The operator will also have live video to look at, but that doesn't really matter for this question.
Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
Sounds like a tough idea to implement. Well, for VB you are stuck with MDX 1.1(Comes with DirectX SDK) or SlimDX (or other 3rd party Managed DirectX wrapper). The latest XNA (replacement for MDX 1.1/2.0b) is only available for C# coder. You can try some workaround but it's not recommended and you won't get much community support. These are the least you need to get your VB to display some 3d stuffs.
If you want to save some trouble, you could use ready made game engine to simplified you job. Try Ogre, and it's managed wrapper MOgre. It was one of the candidate for my project. But I ended up with SlimDX due to Ogre not supporting video very well. But since video is not your requirement, you can really consider it. Most sample would be in C# also, so you need to convert to VB.Net to use. It won't be hard.
Here comes the harder part, you need to export your model exported from SolidWorks to DirectX Format (*.x). I did a quick search in google and only found a few paid tools to do that. You might need to spend a bit on that or spend more time looking for free converter tools.
That's about it. If you have more question, post again. Good Luck
I'm not sure what the real question is but what I suspect that you are trying to do is to be able to manipulate a SW model of a robot with some sort of a manual input. Assuming that this is the correct question, there are two aspects that need to be dwelt with:
1) The Solidworks module: Once the model of the robot is working properly in SW, a program can be written in VB.Net that can manipulate the positional mates for each of the joints. Also using VB, a window can be programmed with slide bars etc. that will allow the operator to be able to "remotely" control the robot. Once this is done, there is a great opportunity to setup a table that could store the sequencial steps. When completed, the VB program could be further developed to allow the robot to "cycle" through a sequence of moves. If any obstacles are also added to the model, this would be a great tool for collission detection and training off line.
2) If the question also includes the incorporation of a physical operator pendent there are a number of potential solutions for this. It would be hoped that the robot software would provide a VB library for communicating and commanding the Robot programatically. If this is the case, then the VB code could then be developed with a "run" mode where the SW robot is controlled by the operator pendent, instead of the controls in the VB window, (as mentioned above). This would then allow the opertor to work "offline" with a virtual robot.
Hope this helps.
I realize you can script Microsoft Office apps, but I'm looking for something more general that I can apply to other apps, such as Adobe Acrobat, web browsers and other apps with no scripting ability.
I've used AutoIt but it's a bit clunky, especially when trying to debug why a script fails or stalls. Also, getting the timing of actions, such as clicking a button, or selecting a menu item correctly can be a pain.
Are there build tools that could be used for this purpose?
I recommend AutoHotKey. Its syntax is not pretty, but most of the times you don't have to concoct your own scripts, because its community is so large and well organized. Even if you do, the documentation is extensive and good and the forums will answer your questions quickly. The developer is active and responsive, which means that bugs get fixed quickly, and new features are being considered and added.
Since I began using AHK I don't imagine doing without it - it allows to make life on Windows simpler in so many ways.
You can also employ the COM interface from Python and other scripting languages. It is more complex, but you get to use a more powerful language.
I love AutoHotkey (small k...) too, but beside its odd syntax, it has the same lack of debugging tools...
Basically, that's "show msgbox alerts, send strings to file or debugview, trace". Which is OK for most cases, since you rarely write long and complex applications with these tools.
In both tools, and probably all macro softwares, "timing of actions" will be hard to get anyway, because events are asynchronous: most of the time, you don't wait a given time, but you wait for a window to appear. Hoping it is the right one!
There are other automation tools, like Ranorex (I didn't tested it), you can even use some scripting language (Lua, Python) with a library to send messages (WM_XXX) and another to call WinAPI... But tools like AutoIt and AutoHotkey have the advantage of having been extensively tested, so they can handle a large number of behaviors/issues (like waiting for clipboard data to be available, etc.).
Might be a bit much for your needs but AutoMate is very robust and easy to use. Doesn't require any scripting skills as most tasks can be constructed via drag and drop http://www.networkautomation.com/sales/scripting/