The list of supported commands in RoutineBot

 

Introduction - Functions Overview

You will find below the list of commands available in RoutineBot with description telling what the command do and how the command can help you. To access these commands you should run RoutineBot, select there Script tab, and click "Add action" button.

  • Please note: starting version 1.2 the commands are actually functions, so they return some values. Typically, it is 0 if the function failed and 1 if everything was ok.
Group Command Description How can it help?
Applications and Processes      
  Execute Runs any external application with parameters. Use this command to execute some external programs. Pass the name of file you want to open as a parameter. Sure, you can manage script to select "Start - Program - Your program name", but using execute command is more reliable way.
  ShellExecute The function will use program associated with file extension to open it. No need to find the program to execute the file, RoutineBot will use program associated by defaul.
  KillProcess Closes application. This command closes application. Use it to make your scripts more reliable, for instance, some application, if not closed, might block the further execution of your script. In this case KillProcess command will ensure that the process was closed.
  FindWindows The functions helps to find window(s), by some text in the caption or in the process name. If you deal with more than one window, check also commands from Lists group. Use it to find appropriate window, then use other commands from "Application and Process" to work with windows handle.
  SendMessage The function will do SendMessage function to some window found with FindWindows function. For instance, it is possible to send commands Activate, Close, Minimize, Maximize, Normalize.
  WindowActive Pass window handle to the function, the result will be 1 if the window is active, 0 if not. Use it to make sure the window you are working with is active.
  WindowVisible Close to WindowActive, returns visibility state. Sometime window might be active, but not visible, this function will let to check visible state.
Mouse      
  MouseFocuse Focuses mouse on specific image. Parameters are Try Interval and Time out.

Note: when adding command you can specify left or right mouse click.		 One of the most powerful command. It searches for some picture on the screen, if found, the command will focus your mouse pointer on the center of this image.

What if image will not be found? It depends on your parameters - try interval and time out interval. It is good idea to use some timeout and try intervals. As sometime it takes computer time to execute your commands and show results on the screen.
  MouseClick, MouseDoubleClick This command emulates mouse click on the current cursor position.

Note: when adding command you can specify left or right mouse click.		 Use this command after MouseFocuse command to click on the objects you focused on. For instance. to click the button or click the list on the web-site.
  ClickButton Click on the button. Pass button's caption as a parameter. If you have a button on in your application and it has some caption, then it is the best way to click this button. Sure, you can focus on it with MouseFocuse and then click on it, but ClickButton will work faster.
  MouseUp and MouseDown Emulates the MouseDown event and MouseUp event. Actually, MouseClick in Windows is MouseDown + MouseUp.

Note: when adding command you can specify left or right mouse click.		 Sometime there is need to press and don't release mouse button. In this case these command will help.
  MouseScrollUp and MouseScrollDown These two command emulates the mouse scrolling on the page. The parameter is the number of steps to scroll. Sometime it is necessary to fill some data on the top of the page, then scroll down and then click "Submit" button. That is the way you can automate the scroll down task. Sure, you can focus the mouse on the down arrow, but scrolling in this way is more reliable.
  MouseMove Moves the mouse to the screen coordinates. This command moves the mouse to the screen coordinates, where X=0 is the left and Y=0 is the top.
  MouseMoveRel Moves mouse relatively. This is very useful command. Use it with MouseFocuse command. First, you focus on some object on the screen, for instance, it is label above the text box, then you move a little your mouse down (so it will point on the text box), then you click and enter necessary text. This command is very useful, as sometime it is not possible to focus on the object by it's image template, but there are a lot of other objects that helps to focus on this object and then move mouse relatively.
  MouseX and MouseY functions These two functions will return integer value of the current mouse X and Y coordinate Use functions to have an integer values of coordinates. It is a function only, if you need to move mouse to somewhere, you will need to use MouseMove or MouseMoveRel functions.
Text      
  EnterKeys Pass to this command any text sting that you want to enter. Actually, you can click any key using this command.

Check more information about supported keys.

 The most useful keys:
  • EnterKeys('^v'); - will emulate the Control + V command, e.g. paste text or picture from the clipboard.
  • EnterKeys('~') - will emulate "enter" key.
  • EnterKeys('%{PRTSC}'); - emulates Alt + PrintScreen key.

Check more information about supported keys.
  SetKbdLayout / GetKbdLayot Functions will set or read keyboard layout. If there are more than one layouts on the computer, say English and German, it is necessary to make sure that you are entering the text with script using right layout.
Lists      
  ListSize Use this function to get the number of items in the list. Pass list variable name as a parameter. Functions, such as FindWindows might return not a single item, but a list. ListSize will return the size of this list.
  ListItem Use this function to access certain item from the list. Pass list variable name and index of item that you want to read. Functions, such as FindWindows might return not a single item, but a list. ListItem will return certain item from the list.
Data      
  FileExists The function will return 1 if passed parameter is a valid name of file, which exists. 0 - if the file doesn't exist. Example:

if FileExists('C:\tmp\tmp.ini')=1
then begin
msgbox('Exists')
end
else msgbox('Does not exists');
  IncludeIniFile Use this function to declare variables with some predefined values. Useful when a lot of variable parameters need to be passed to script. Here is example. We have tmp.ini file in C:\tmp directory, the content of the file is just one line "a=The test text from ini", in this way we declare the variable a. Now, we will test it in script like this:
   IncludeIniFile('C:\tmp\tmp.ini');
   msgbox(a);
the result of script execution will be the message "The test text from ini"
  GetFileContent The function will return the text content of the file.

Use this function together with FileExists function.

Examples:

  • a:=GetFileContent('C:\tmp\somefile.txt'); // the a now contains the content of the file
  • CopyToClipBoard(GetFileContent('C:\tmp\somefile.txt')); // will get the content of the file, it is possible now to use clipboard value to paste values into the web-form or somewhere else.
  WriteText The function will write a certain text to certain file

The function has three parameters:

  • File name to write
  • The text to write
  • Append (1) or rewrite file (0)

Example:

  • WriteText('C:\test.txt','text',1); // will append 'text' string to the file C:\test.txt
  CopyToClipBoard The command is useful, if you need to copy the value of some variable to the clipboard.

The function is good to use together with GetFileContent function when you need to insert some text into the text field on the web-form.

The are two ways to use this function:

  • CopyToClipBoard(i); // the function will copy the value of variable i to the clipboard
  • CopyToClipBoard('test'); //the function will copy the text string to the clipboard

This command will get the content of the file and copy it to the clipboard:

  • CopyToClipBoard(GetFileContent('C:\tmp\somefile.txt'));
Screen      
  TakeSnapShot The command will take the screenshot. The first parameter is the name of screenshot file that RoutineBot should create. The second parameter determines if there should be the screenshot of all screen or only of active window.
Debug and information      
  LogMessage Pass the message to log and the program will write it into its log Can use this function for some internal debugging
  MsgBox The function will show a standard window dialog with text or variable value

Examples:

  • MsgBox('Message Text');
  • MsgBox(a); // will show the message with a variable value
  ShowHint This function will show specified text in a hint near products' icon in the tray. Use it to inform yourself or quality engineer about the process stage during testing or routine tasks automation.

Examples:

  • ShowHint('Test Message1','Info'); // will show test "Test Message1" as a hint with title "Info".
  LineN The function returns the line, which is executed in script now. Use LineN function for debugging purposes when needed.
Script execution      
  Wait Script just waits for a necessary time. Pass wait interval in milliseconds. Sometime it is a good idea to wait... until application will run or web-page will be fully loaded. Sometime RoutineBot might click too fast so that some web-site might not be fast enough to update data.

A better alternative to Wait is MouseFocus command, think about MouseFocus command in this case as about "WaitForImage" command. In will not just wait specified time, but will search for some image to appear. If found, it will continue running script.
  SetWarningsOn Specify whether RoutineBot should automatically process possible warning messages. Sometime there might be some unexpected problem. For instance, one of your applications will close with access violation message. RoutineBot has an ability to close these messages automatically.
  Show and Hide commands Show or Hide for script executer program. When you just debug your script don't use these commands, in this way you will see how script is executing, what images it is looking in ImageFocus command. When your script is ready use "Hide" command in the first list of the script.
Internet      
  Download The download command will download file from http or ftp server or from any web-site. Pass URL as a first parameter and file to save results as a second parameter. Use during testing of web-applications, for instance, to check results of some online request.
Help      
  Help This command will open the dialog with all script commands You might use this dialog for testing purposes or for your information.