Grab text from a program

[Frozenyam]

Is there a way to grab text from MSN? I've treid everything I can think of. I'm looking to be able to auto run MSN at a specific time for a short period of time, where I can then send messages to MSN, have my script read key words from it and run other programs. But I'm unable to find a way to retreive text from MSN. I always get blank space. It'd be greately appreciative if someone could help. Edited August 8, 2005 by Frozenyam

[LxP]

Link!

[Frozenyam]

Link!

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I just read that one... I didn't much like the answer. Not much can be done though. I was thinking of running PixelChecksum to try and have it at least notice that something has happened. I can probably use that to open a VPN connection or something and allow me to remote desktop. A lot more work than I was planning, especially since implementing that into my script would be... troublesome to say the least.

[LxP]

I agree that this sort of thing is harder than it should be, but basically the authors of most IM programs don't consider this sort of functionality.

I've found that it's generally a choice of appearance over automatability for most software -- a program that's visually more intuitive is generally much more of a pain to try to automate.

If this is really important to you then you could take my suggestion to try out another program that supports the MSN protocol such as Trillian (which natively supports what you're trying to do) or Miranda IM (which I believe uses standard text controls). I personally use Gaim for my messaging needs but it doesn't use standard controls or appear to natively offer what you want.

[Frozenyam]

I agree that this sort of thing is harder than it should be, but basically the authors of most IM programs don't consider this sort of functionality.

I've found that it's generally a choice of appearance over automatability for most software -- a program that's visually more intuitive is generally much more of a pain to try to automate.

If this is really important to you then you could take my suggestion to try out another program that supports the MSN protocol such as Trillian (which natively supports what you're trying to do) or Miranda IM (which I believe uses standard text controls). I personally use Gaim for my messaging needs but it doesn't use standard controls or appear to natively offer what you want.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

It WAS important to me... and then I realised how much work it would be. So I gave up

Now I'm just trying to think of something else I want to automate. I have my entire Windows install automated... it deletes all the crap I normally have to do by hand, as well as alter all the registry keys