super simple language?

[dbarton]

I write tons of batch files to do small chores on my pc.. some of these ask me for input, or send me a message.
These work just fine, but the text boxes just look too old fashioned to have anyone else use these.

Is there basically a very simple language thats not much more than just a a version of batch files, that uses proper windows boxes to send messages and get input?

Autohotkeys kinda does some of this, but...

[Ehtyar]

Try AutoIt. It's a much cleaner language than AutoHotKey and provides equivalent functionality.

Ehtyar.

[brotherS]

I write tons of batch files to do small chores on my pc.. some of these ask me for input, or send me a message.
These work just fine, but the text boxes just look too old fashioned to have anyone else use these.

Is there basically a very simple language thats not much more than just a a version of batch files, that uses proper windows boxes to send messages and get input?

Autohotkeys kinda does some of this, but...

-dbarton (March 21, 2008, 07:48 PM)

Yes, AutoHotkey, no but https://www.donation...dex.php?topic=1167.0

[dbarton]

I got pretty far with Autohotkeys overnight and wrote a few small utiliities.
Now you tell me about Autoit.

Can you tell me why it's better? Not sure what you mean by cleaner...

[Ehtyar]

It's a bit of a programming term, sorry for not explaining myself. Basically, because AHK was originally very limited and basic, language design wasn't taken as seriously as it ought to have been, which is to say they didn't keep in mind things like future features or extensibility when they created it, thus ending up with a language that is not as uniform as it could be. In AutoIt's case however they took it a bit more serious and have ended up with a language that is much neater and easier to read and write. Also, if you're not adverse to having a slightly more complicated language to deal with, I would recommend Perl over both of these, though you have far more overhead if you want to compile your scripts to executables at any point, but then Perl scripts are cross-platform compatible unlike AHK or AutoIt.

Hope this helps, Ehtyar.

[dbarton]

It does help.

So far Autohotkeys seems to have an pretty good set of source code that I've found to be able to very quickly get up to speed so quickly. Nice to bang out a few tiny utils overnight.

Do you know of any Perl sites that are as easy to get me up to speed super fast?

[Ehtyar]

Your best resource as a Perl beginner is the Perl windows wiki, particularly the Installing For The First Time section. Just ask if there's any info you'd like you can't get from it.

Ehtyar.

P.S. I would recommend Perl 5.8, and not 5.10 as support for 5.10 on windows is not as great as support for 5.8.

[steeladept]

It's a bit of a programming term, sorry for not explaining myself. Basically, because AHK was originally very limited and basic, language design wasn't taken as seriously as it ought to have been, which is to say they didn't keep in mind things like future features or extensibility when they created it, thus ending up with a language that is not as uniform as it could be. In AutoIt's case however they took it a bit more serious and have ended up with a language that is much neater and easier to read and write. Also, if you're not adverse to having a slightly more complicated language to deal with, I would recommend Perl over both of these, though you have far more overhead if you want to compile your scripts to executables at any point, but then Perl scripts are cross-platform compatible unlike AHK or AutoIt.

Hope this helps, Ehtyar.

-Ehtyar (March 22, 2008, 04:37 PM)

Uh, maybe I missed something, but the two are the same basically.  AutoIt was first, and the developers had a disagreement which led to AutoHotKey as a fork.  Much of the code (especially prior to AutoIt3) is completely compatible with each other from my understanding.  So I REALLY don't understand what you mean.

Oh, I will say this from what I saw at their support forums (I tried both).  AutoIt is much more fanatical in a bad way.  They seem to hold much more of a grudge against AHK users than the other way around.  Maybe it is just me, but that really turned me off AutoIt more than anything with the code.