Autoit for Windows is great tool for GUI task automation.
I used it for facilitating repetitive “every day” tasks. I used for opening tools, for filling in data. These are normally needed when mounting encrypted files, synchronizing folders or calendars and when opening your project notes.
Autoit is BASIC type of scripting language, and getting started is easy because of the great help file with ready-to-run examples. In addition to controlling windows, one can also create complex GUI application and compile it into an executable.
For example, with one line of code, one can open a message box with text:
MsgBox(0, “AutoIt Example”, “This is line 1” & @CRLF & “This is line 2” & @CRLF & “This is line 3”)
The outcome looks like this
And a more complex GUI application presenting available GUI controls for programming is included in example file “SampleControls.au3”. (Figure below).
The installation includes example “.au3” files, and SciTe editor which helps the programming by syntac highlightning and command shortcuts. (Other editor can be used as well). For a screenshort, see figure below.
There is build-in support for ini-files, and there is some basic (RC4) support for encryption functions. However, for storing passwords in ini-files, one could consider to use User Community provided additional open source packages which provides more encryption functions.
ini file could look like this:
[Passwords]
password_keepass = "C91E1E89AC4DB710A3E219E284137521757D6AED4AD72C21"
[Config]
revision=”1.0″
[Old values]
my_old_message_of_the_day=”I did not fail the test, i just found 100 ways to do it wrong”