Application is not scriptable?

[MaineGeek]

Hi All--

I'm new to AutoIt but VERY interested in it for a few reasons. I work for Agfa HealthCare and I'm an onsite person at a hospital. Part of job requires that I do daily checks on the 25-30 boxes we have. Some of them run Solaris and are easily scripted via a bash shell script. But for the windows boxes I was stumped. That's where I'm hoping AutoIt will come in handy.

Anyways, that isn't my real problem. My problem is Service Orders. Agfa uses proprietary (in house) software for service orders. The software itself isn't bad BUT for onsite guys like myself each daily system check is a service order. The problem is one service order could take near 5 minutes to complete. Multiple that by 20-25 and your looking at two hours of my day chewed up in service orders. The thing is, the service orders I would like to script will be the same day in and day out. So I figured, "hey AutoIt would be great for that".

Well, it seems autoit... or at least the tool that comes with AutoIt called Windows Info does no even recognize the Service Order software window. Has anyone seen this before? I haven't actually tried scripting it yet since without "Window Infos" info it may be very difficult. I'm not sure what the software is compiled in but they seem to be a java shop if that helps. Any thoughts?

[enaiman]

Unfortunately (from my experience) Java is not a "friendly" software if you intend to use AutoIt because always (or almost) you can't identify any controls on apps window and this is making the task very difficult.

What you can do: see if the Service Order window is identified by AutoIt (if you can detect somehow when THAT window is open), if you can do it that would be a big step forward.

You won't like what it follows but IMHO there is not other way to do it.

Get every control (checkbox, input ...) coordinates and use mouse clicks / TABs to select the control you need and use "Send" to send data to those controls.

It is a huge work and not 100% sure but it will work. You can use also PixelGetColour to identify controls/changes ...

You have a great deal of work and all I can do is to wish you good luck. Anytime you're stuck or need help, feel free to ask and you will get alot of answers

[MaineGeek]

Yeah I was afraid of that.

Will AutoIt be able to identify the text of a pulldown with a long list of text? For ex like equipment / serial numbers (or problem codes, resolution codes, etc)? If it can't do that in a java app then I'm not sure I want to script down to scroll bar clicks and equip. id. They could add equipment at any point.

[Sokko]

With Java you are flying blind all the way. Jon (one of the developers and the creator of AutoIt) recently described a Java application window as "a total black box". I'm sure someone will find a way eventually, but it might be pretty far down the line.

Edited June 12, 2007 by Sokko

[enaiman]

Will AutoIt be able to identify the text of a pulldown with a long list of text? For ex like equipment / serial numbers (or problem codes, resolution codes, etc)?

My guess would be No because you can't identify the controls.

You can try to use TABs for selecting the combo and down arrow to get to the item ... it is not so "elegant" but it is your choice after all. It might work ... better spend 2 hours trying something ... if it works - BINGO ... if not ... at least you tried.

[zfisherdrums]

First, welcome to the forums!

You mentioned that the software in use is proprietary and in-house. If that is the case, how would you describe your relationship with the developers? If you've got a friend/acquaintance in that group, you might inquire if the software exposes an API, COM/ActiveX, or some other scriptable interface. It may be possible that the functionality you need is already baked in. Working through the GUI can be more brittle than working through one of these.

In lieu of that, try looking here. Look under the Testing Tools Tab at the Function Tools. There are a few frameworks that suggest that they can act against a JAVA-GUI. I've never had occasion to use any and I would imagine that they require a little more traditional development work (ie, just north of scripting).

It may be possible that AutoIt meets your needs flying "blind". Just know that you're at the mercy of any future GUI changes. If you do have that friend in the development group, you might be able to stay in front of the wave. I hope this helps in some way. Regardless, please let us know about your progress!

Zach...