Comments on: Is there a PC equivalent to AppleScript?

Question: Is there a PC equivalent to AppleScript?

hooray — Mon, 25 Sep 2006 09:16:24 -0800

Is there a Windows scripting language that is equivalent to AppleScript?

I've written an AppleScript script, that is basically an automated clicker in Safari. It uses the "do Javascript" command to evaluate a web page to decide where to click, and also does some other actions outside of Safari. I'd like to write the same kind of program on the multiple PCs that we have at work, but I don't know what the equivalent language is in Windows. Can anyone tell me where to begin looking and what good resources there are for Windows programming?

By: monju_bosatsu

monju_bosatsu — Mon, 25 Sep 2006 09:19:21 -0800

The closest thing for Windows is, I think, AutoIt or AutoHotKey.

By: subclub

subclub — Mon, 25 Sep 2006 09:25:55 -0800

If you want to automate a web browser on a Windows PC, I would strongly suggest Watir. It's a free, open source IE automation framework that uses Ruby and is very easy to work with.

By: grouse

grouse — Mon, 25 Sep 2006 09:26:39 -0800

Scripts can use COM to get programmatic access in the same way that AppleScripts use Apple events. Unfortunately, I don't think good scriptable COM interfaces are as pervasive in the Windows world.

If an application is scriptable like this, you can use any language with COM bindings (e.g. Visual Basic, Python, C#) to script it. If not, you'll need to hack something together with AutoHotKey.

By: spaceman_spiff

spaceman_spiff — Mon, 25 Sep 2006 09:42:35 -0800

You can script Firefox by writing an extension, which is primarily Javascript (and some XUL, but not much). That may or may not be what you're looking for - it's more limited than using COM bindings, but also quite a bit simpler.

By: shivohum

shivohum — Mon, 25 Sep 2006 10:38:00 -0800

For a very sophisticated full-fledged automation solution with its own scripting language, you might consider Automate.