Reading the Screen

[kevilay2017]

Hey guys,

I haven't used autoit in a pretty long while. I was never all that great at it before. I am looking to understand the programming a bit more. Most of the scripts i've written have been mostly mouse clicks, delays, some very simple GUI. I want to make something a little more intuitive. I want to be able to "look" for things on the screen. I was trying to use a getpixelcolour but Im not sure thats what I want to do. I was just hoping for some general advice or if there is a guide that covers what im trying to do that would be awesome. Id like to be able for example to see and recognize a pattern in a known spot on the screen. Like an icon on a desktop. So I can find and click on the icon rather then it having to be in a precise spot. (Just an example I know you can use run commands)

 

Thanks for your time!

Kevin

[Nine]

I do not think you are going with the right approach unless you search for pixels in a game related automation.  The right way to search for an icon on a desktop is to parse its properties, not its image.  You never know if the user has decided to change the appearance with another icon.   Until you clarify your goal, I guess it is the best answer I can give you.

[kevilay2017]

I understand what your saying. I think possibly I am looking at it in the wrong approach. I am a automation programmer for a living (robots, plcs, ect). However I have almost 0 PC programming experience. I am actually looking to try to automate some of my automation programming. I have alot of repeat patterns and based on things "poping up" or buttons that showup on the screen I would have different reactions. I was able to do some of what I want without any feedback, but you can see how that could be problematic quickly.

[careca]

Quick and dirty is imagesearch.

Take a screenshot and crop to a portion of the icon, it will find and click.

Other than that, i guess you could overcomplicate it, and check for changes in the screen, read a post a long time ago about that,

it would take frequent screenshots and compare to the previous one for differences, then you could grab the result and act on it.

If i remember right, it was a post about surveilance cameras, the OP wanted to know if there was a way to make a script for movement detection on the camera feed.

[Nine]

11 hours ago, kevilay2017 said:

based on things "poping up" or buttons that showup on the screen I would have different reactions

Not much clearer.  What are those things and buttons ?  Are they appearing inside an application ?  Are they Windows components ?  Can you get their properties using au3info tool ?

[water]

@Nine and @careca

Please have a look at this thread and you will understand why this thread (or even the user) will get locked in the near future

[Danp2]

@water I was wondering if they were the same person when he first posted.

[Jos]

@water,

Maybe...  or Maybe not..  but I go for the latter one at this moment,

So we let this thread run until it goes against our well know Forum Rules.

Jos

[kevilay2017]

2 hours ago, water said:

@Nine and @careca

Please have a look at this thread and you will understand why this thread (or even the user) will get locked in the near future

Wow this thread was very similar. I want to be clear I am not doing any game automation. The softwares I used are RSLogix 5000 & siemens TIA portal. I am not doing anything against their TOS by automating their platform. I am looking to automate some of the repeating processes I do every day. Automatically generating fault logic and stuff. Small little scripts to write parts of a program. THey are windows applications so maybe I can pull information out of them. I have written some typing and mouse click stuff and it works pretty good, but sometimes a random popup or other small things can really screw it up.  I think the issue im seeing is there not actually popups but just changes within their automation suite. So its not like I can just look for a window. Im sure there are ways to do it. I just have very very little experience. I will try to put some screenshots together for you guys.

 

Thanks,
Kevin

 

FYI I am not the same poster as above.

[water]

Have you run the AutoIt Window Info tool as suggested by Nine? Move the cross hairs to an icon or whatever you want to click and check if the Control tab of the tool shows any information.
This would then be used for ControlClick.

Control* functions are much more reliable compared to pixel based functions.

[kevilay2017]

Ok, I will look into doing this. I am not familiar with how to do this. However I will watch some videos using the control click function.