At the client I’m currently working for we are converting an old client-server Forms application to the latest Webforms (10g). This is because Oracle (read the SoD) is deprecating client-server Forms in 2008.
To get the “we have no support” out of the critical path of the project, it was decided to automatically convert the application to 10g, thereby not losing anything that’s in the application now (but not winning anything either).
One thing that we could not provide, was the macro facility that their terminal emulator (the forms run on AIX) gave them. So I started looking for a macro-tool. Lot’s of them out there, actually. But not many of them have a macro-recorder. Only a scripting language. Hey, if that’s what I was looking for, I would just use WSH or Python, or any other well-known scripting language. No, I was looking for something with a recorder.
It turns out that AutoHotkey, a freeware tool, was my product of recommendation. It doesn’t look that smart or fancy, but it has a lot of features, it has good documentation, it has a recorder, it can emulate a mouse(wheel), custom dialogs, compile to exe, it recognizes graphical content (for use with remote desktop software that only sends screens) and I could continue the list for quite some time.
So if you happen to be looking for automation software, and don’t have a ton of money to spend, try AutoHotkey. If you look past the ugly GUI, you can see it’s a real gem. And apart from being freeware, it’s Open Source (C++) as well.
The sample below makes your mousewheel, combined with the Windows-key, a volume-control. How cool is that?
; Win+MouseWheel forward: Turn up the volume
#WheelUp::SoundSet, +1
; Win+MouseWheel backward: Hush!
#WheelDown::SoundSet, -1