Would this be the right place to ask about "macro automation" software?

6    14 Oct 2015 00:13 by u/PaperForPlastic

I'm trying to streamline my workflow. I downloaded Tinytask and at first it seemed like it would work.. and it does, just not quite the way I want it to.

For anyone who might not know, Tinytask basically records your mouse and keyboard and saves it as playable automation. Like I said, it works, it's just... it's time-based, so a task that, for whatever reason, takes longer than it did when recording the initial actions will completely break your automation. Also, everything has to be in the same place every time, or your mouse will just click on blank space.

Are there any smarter automation programs that recognize objects (not just where the mouse was when recording) and when a task requires more (or less) time? Also, one that works in the BG... you can't actually do anything while Tinytask is running (because it's just playing back your literal actions and anything you do interrupts it).


Example: I want to export a multi-page PDF to my desktop... I then want that PDF renamed and split in to single files (Yes, I know I can export as singles files.. takes too long), then the first 9 files renamed using 2 digits (01, 02, etc) [Without having to have files and windows in the EXACT position every time, and without taking over my machine while it works]


Is this even possible? I have a feeling I might be asking for too much.

5 comments

2

I'll ask the automation team at work what tools they use to test UIs. Will comment later.

1

Don't use the mouse. Install Cygwin.

Example: pdfseparate, part of the poppler-utils, will split your PDF into single files or extract specified pages.

You can automate anything on the command line, and have it run in the background, interactively, non-interactively, parameterized. You can even combine what you have automated to automate using your automations.

http://www.tldp.org/LDP/abs/html/