AutoIt
| File:Autoitlogo.gif | |
| Developer(s) | Jonathan Bennett & AutoIt Team |
|---|---|
| Stable release | |
| Operating system | Microsoft Windows |
| Type | Automation GUI Utility |
| License | Freeware |
| Website | www.autoitscript.com/autoit3/ |
AutoIt is a freeware Microsoft Windows automation language. In its earliest release, the software was primarily intended to create automation scripts (sometimes called macros) for Microsoft Windows programs. Such scripts proved useful for "hands-free" completion of highly repetitive tasks, such as rolling out a large number of PCs with identical installation instructions.
With later releases, AutoIt evolved to include enhancements in both programming language design and overall functionality. This expanded the uses for Autoit, thus justifying comparison with other more established "general purpose" programming languages and scripting tools.
There are a few omissions in the AutoIt programming language that more experienced programmers may find limiting. AutoIt lacks (or has only limited support for) such features as: Namespaces; object-oriented programming; abstract data types; reference types; classes; and advanced graphics functions. Many of the omissions are by design.
AutoIt's version 3.1.0 source code is available for download from the AutoIt archive, but source code for later version will not be released. The code was developed by a small team with the help of worldwide contributors. AutoIt has extensive third-party support, including help files, examples, support forums, mailing list, editor files, and third-party utilities.
With the release of AutoIt version 3, the syntax of the programming language was restructured to be more like the BASIC family of languages. A script can be compiled into a compressed, stand-alone executable which can then be run on computers that do not have the AutoIt interpreter installed.
Moreover, new features include the ability to:
- Communicate via the TCP and UDP protocols.
- Use COM (component object modelling) objects.
- Call functions in Win32 DLLs.
- Run console applications and access the standard streams.
- Include files in the compiled file to be extracted when run
- Make GUI interfaces, create message and input boxes.
- Play sounds, pause, resume, stop, seek, get the current position of the sound and get the length of the sound
- Perform complicated mathematical calculations
- Automate sending user input and keystrokes to applications, as well as individual controls within an application.
- Unicode support starting in version 3.2.4.0
It is available for download along with other beta releases.
Example
Hello World: (semicolon used for inline comments)
; display a message dialog
MsgBox(0,"Example","Hello World!")
AutoIt community
The forums can be found at http://www.autoitscript.com/forum/ There are many sub-forums where AutoIt users can submit finished scripts or User Defined Functions, ask for support, report bugs, submit ideas and also talk with Developers.
Other uses
AutoIt is intended as a general purpose scripting and automation language thus its users always find new ways to make use of it. One popular and unexpected use of AutoIt is for "botting" in online games. Botting allows the user to run a script which automates some repetitive action in the game - usually so the script user can advance in the game more quickly. Use of AutoIt in this way is frowned upon by some in the AutoIt community as it can generate bad publicity, but many scripts can still found in the official autoit forums.