bobbiehansen

Yaa, wasn't really fully aware of the compiling process yet. Good to know. Just started to learn it through SciTE where you run it from the editor. My biggest thing is to create the program so the GUI can't be obviously visually identified as written via AutoIT. Sounds like with some cleverness it can be made to look like it was written in another program. For example- have the top have dropdowns like: File Edit View Tools Options Help. And small icons in the top that have a save icon(floppy), print icon, etc. Basically I have a bunch of simple PC programs that aren't from big companies like Microsoft or Adobe, etc but that all look roughly the same. So my assumption is that they've probably been written in the same or similar programming language that uses a starting template that can be modified for the program. I want my AutoIT programs (err, scripts) GUIs to look like pretty close to those. I'll continue to learn. Thanks for the advice.

I'm super naive on this but my thinking is that I would use AutoIt to create everything (including the UI) and then an extremely simple C (etc) program would only open and allow AutoIt to run.

Thank you for all the helpful advice and the link to the rules since I'm new here. Just to be paranoid, I'm pretty sure I hope what I'm asking isn't against the forum rules. In fact I'm trying to do the opposite- prevenent decompilation of the code. I'm not a programmer by trade, use to know Basic and Fortran a bit and can write simple Excel macros. The scripting would be part of a broader service I offer for automation. Hence my start of learning AutoIt and kudos to the community for such a neat language- I'm really enjoying it. So I'm not super up on all the different programming languages. But what I was hoping is to create a GUI that looks like the script was written in a robust and commonly used programming language so that it would give the script a bit more of a higher end look. Would it be tough to write a very simple program in C or C++ to run the AutoIt hidden in the background? Is that what was meant by "as a background server for your other application"? Then I can also truthfully tell the client that it's programmed in C for more cred and to confuse the trail.

If I develop a proprietary AutoIt script that takes me hundreds of hours and then use it for multiple clients where I leave it and the GUI on their system to use by them is there a way to protect it so that it can't be copied or changed or manipulated or the source viewed? In a similar vein- is there a way to create a GUI and structure that uses AutoIt in the background but looks like it was written in a much more expensive and hard to program language? (and is locked up to hide the fact that it wasn't written in this language) (I of course don't want to have to learn the other language)