Anasoft Autowork User's Guide

5.4.7 Editing Network Instructions  Contents  5.4.9 Editing Control Instructions

5.4.8 Editing System Operation Instructions

back to 5.4 Editing the Instructions of a Macro

Introduction

Command Line Commands

Sleep

Introduction

You can or will be able to perform some Windows System management operations, such as:

     Command Line Commands
     Shut Down / Restart / Log Off Computer
     Sleep
     Beep / Play Sound
     Notice Message
     Get Text
 

Now Command Line Commands and Sleep have already been available. Other operations will be available in coming editions.

Command Line Commands

Running a Command Line Commands is same as running something at the "Run..." dialog at your Windows Start menu. Since most basic and major Windows programs can be started directly in this way, some of them even provide various running options to realize some important functions directly, this instructions is very useful, especially for experienced Windows users.

Major purposes of a command line commands are:

1) Opening a program, file or folder.

2) Opening a specified file by a specified program.

3) Visiting ftp, http or similar web addresses, or start creating an outbound email by inputting an email address such as "mailto:service@speedy7.com".

One thing to be remembered is, if you are about to input a long path with blank space(s) in it, you are advised to surround the long path in pairs of double quote symbols, or Autowork may not recognize it.

Sleep

An experienced macro writer should be able to use Sleep instruction in a proper way. Some macro may not run properly when your instructions run one after another without any time interval, you may need to insert Sleep between these actions, so Windows can have time to produce result for the previous action, and have environment ready to run the next one.

Sleep is the time interval between two actions. When you click open a program, such as Notepad, and try to insert some text in it, after you have clicked the Notepad icon to open it, you may not be able to insert text into it instantly, you should wait for some time for the Notepad program to open completely before you can edit text in the edit area of this program. This is a typical situation when Sleep should be used.

The maximum interval for an Autowork Sleep is near 241 hours - 240:59:59.999. In fact usually a sleep of several seconds or even just several hundred micro seconds has been enough in most cases.