I have a .ahk script file with 3 hotkeys.
Each hotkey takes a few seconds to complete.
What happens when I run hotkey a and then hotkey b before a is finished is that a is interrupted and the script continues with b.
Basically I want a and b to run concurrently.
Can I achieve this ?
True Multi-Threading in a single script does not exist (yet) in AutoHotkey.
While there are some ways to try and create "fake" multithreading, the best solution at the present is to have each hotkey run their own separate ahk script files using the Run command.
Hope this was helpful; if you would like an example of what this kind of code would look like, lmk and I can go ahead and create one.
When I need two functions to operate simultaneously I make multiple scripts that interact with each other. Unfortunately Autohotkey doesn't support multi-threading so that's the only way to do it.
Some ideas:
You can pass variables between scripts using msgbox and/or GUIs.
You can also use msgbox as a "wait until" if you need one function to
wait for the other to complete a part of automation.
I sometimes use that to make two scripts "play tag" to utilize all
the down time that exists during load times on websites. In other
words, I make two bots that interact with separate websites...
automating one while the other one is waiting for its page to load.
I have also utilized a "control panel" type of setup where I make a
master script that controls subroutines (other scripts) via GUIs. You
can then use the buttons to trigger Run commands and provide kill
buttons for each subroutine. This will give it the feeling of a full
application if you do it all through controlsend to a hidden gui. The
master script can then keep track of all the variables that need to
be exchanged between subroutines with msgbox like I mentioned before.
But I think at that point you might want to just incorporate another
more powerful language like python or Java.
Related
here I write my first question as programming beginner starting with python.
I have a small script that executes a loop, which function is to download a list from the server, compare it with other lists and see if something has happened. Usually the answer is NO, but sometimes something happens. When the answer becomes YES, I would like this script at this point to be able to "launch the second program", a similar script that from here takes care of the instructions to handle the specific event signaled while the " main program "continues to interrogate the server and compare the answers (that's the only thing he has to do).
considering that you can run it with two clicks from the desktop specifying only one variable (that comes from the first script), I thought it was easy to "trigger" the execution of a python file in a new window or something like that ...can anybody tell me how I can make it start at the request of the first script avoiding that the first script remains blocked waiting for answers and continues to execute its cycle?
I first need to offer the disclaimer that I am barely a novice when it comes to scripting or coding, so I might be doing this all wrong in the first place. I'm running into an issue with a script I had written in powershell a while ago that is used on several hundred computers in my company daily to automate starting a certain app that everyone uses. So far everyone else hasn't had an issue except one machine.
Normally when I run the script, it starts the services and cli for the program which opens in a new window. Then the script, still open behind that, sends all of the key commands to that cli window, pauses for a brief line of user input after which it closes that cli window, does a few other clean up tasks and closes out itself.
The only difference on this one machine that's not working is the script won't pass the keystrokes to the cli window. If I put them in manually including the normal user input, it finishes the rest of the script just fine, but the cli window is just not receiving the keystroke input from the main script.
The only part of the script that send the keystrokes to the cli window is a few lines of this:
[System.Windows.Forms.SendKeys]::SendWait("Text{Enter}")
I have tried using the sleep command before and in between the key commands to make sure it's not going through the keystrokes to early. I've checked and windows had gone through an Update two days ago, but we would've heard about this issue right then if that was it. I'm at a loss for what the issue could be and would apreciate and help, tips, or direction to help figure this one out.
Is the console window the active window when the keys are sent? The documentation for the class you are calling indicates that it sends the keys to the active window. Not only that, but the documentation also seems to indicate that there are some issues that developers have run into when using that class to sends keys. I would try using the autoit powershell module instead. Autoit is its own scripting language which specializes in automating windows processes and being capable of automating interactions with windows forms, but also comes bundled with its own powershell module that I think is exactly what you need, so I would download the portable "zip" package, extract the powershell module from "Autoitx", and that should help you accomplish what you need
PowerShell automation especially when using SendKeys can / is glitchy due to many varying reasons. Can you use SendKeys sure, but you have to know the environment it will be run in and the needed performance details. Hence your futzing/guessing with Sleep.
There are purpose-built tools to help.
Auto HotKey
'PowerShell auto hotkey'
or the UIAutomation tool
'PowerShell automating other applications'
I am using Eclipse Kepler Service Release 2 , EPIC 0.5.46 and Strawberry Perl 5 version 18 for perl programming. For debugging I am using Eclipse debugger and PadWalker .
I have an interactive perl program that writes to files based on answers provided by the users to multiple prompts. While debugging , every time i change a single line of code I have to rerun the whole program again and provide inputs to every prompt , which is really time consuming.
Is there a way to make changes to the code in a sub routine , in the middle of debugging session such that the instruction pointer resets itself to the first line of that sub routine. This way i do not have to restart the session to recompile the new code.
Appreciate your inputs and suggestions. Thank You!!!
What you want to do can be done, and I've done it many times in Perl myself. For example, see this.
However although what you describe may work (and is a bit dangerous), the way it is generally done a bit different and safer.
First one has to assume a regular kind of command structure like a command processor, or say a web server.
In a command processor or web server, you read a command (or get a web request), perform an action, then read another command, perform another action and so on. From your description, it sounds like you have such a structure.
In my case, I have each debugger command stored as in Perl file. This is helpful not only for facilitating this task, but also for understanding, testing and changing the code.
Given this kind of program structure, instead of trying to change the program counter, you complete the command and at the level where you are about to read a new command, you make the change and then reload the file which changes the code.
The specific Perl construct to do this is called do. Don't use require or use which will load in a Perl file only if that file or module hasn't been previously loaded. In your situation, you want to reload even if it has been loaded before.
So now how do you get to be able to issue a do command? As you suggest, you could do it through a debugger. Assuming you have this overall program stucture as described above, you put the breakpoint somewhere a common point in the caller which loops over things to process, rather than try to change things in indvidual commands.
And you don't even need a debugger to do this! Many web frameworks like Ruby on Rails, have a "development" mode where they save timestamps on files that implement functionality. If the file has changed they issue the "do" command before running the request.
I'm running Console2, which I believe is just an interface to windows cmd
I have a custom batch file that does most of my dirty work for me, but there are lot of commands in it now. Is there a way I can get a tap autocomplete working for it in the windows command prompt?
For example: my script is called rob.bat and it takes in a various number of arguments
It'd like to type rob set{Tab} and then have it cycle through
setup_envvars
setup_userprefs
setup_whateverothersetupscriptsIhave
Is there a way to do this?
Console2 has no special provisions for tab completion and instead relies on the program running within it to provide such features. Picture Console2 as little more than something that runs a console program hidden somewhere, regularly polls that hidden window for changes, and forwards all input to that window; this is, in essence, what's happening.
Note that Console2 does nothing special with cmd. You can run any shell within it. As for customizing tab completion, cmd offers nothing of that sort. You may be able to change this by installing clink, which has extension points for Lua code. Another option would be PowerShell, which has customizable tab completion out of the box, either by wrapping your program in a function that provides the necessary parameters, or by writing a custom TabExpansion or TabExpansion2 function.
I have a script that runs several little programs I don't have the source code to, one of which requires filling out some fields in a GUI. I've been doing this by hand, but I'd like to have the Perl script focus the GUI window, then enter some hardcoded text into each field and close the window.
In the past I've used the Win32::GuiTest module for tasks like this. Have a look at the example scripts and documentation.
Unless there's a specific reason you're using Perl, Autoit is a Basic-like scripting language pretty much specifically designed for automating GUI tasks. It's very easy to pick up.
You can have it wait for a window to become active, send any sequence of keystrokes or tell it to specifically focus on a GUI element with a given handle, and much more. You can also package the scripts as standalone executables, which can be a nice benefit when you need it.
You might want to look into Win32::OLE. There's also a book on this topic.