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Number   :  4568
Date     :  2003-05-11
Author   :  Garry Deane
Subject  :  Re: DOS Automatic DOS Keystroke tool
Size(KB) :  2


--- In xxcopy@yahoogroups.com, "yodaslo"  wrote:

> I am trying to automate a 
> task (print a report from DOS POS 
> Program) which takes too much time 
> to do by hand daily. I would like 
> to set it up to print the report 
> daily, so that xxcopy can back it 
> up nightly, yet keystokes have to 
> be entered to tell the program what 
> report details I want. I managed to 
> get the xxcopy part of it working once the
> report completes, but I can't get the 
> report part.
> 
> I've test a couple of programs designed to automate
> keystrokes in programs that run in DOS or a DOS window,
> but all have been extremely difficult to implement due
> to a lack of a "record keystrokes" capability for the
> DOS area. 
> 
> I've tried AutoIt, Automate5, and Fabsoft's Shortcut, 
> and one more I can't remember the name of, and although
> Shortcut would do the job, you had to enter the date of
> the report by hand in the DOS program, which defeats the
> purpose.
> 
> Anyone here using such a program to automate keystrokes
> in DOS or a DOS window?

I'm surprised that you couldn't get Autoit to work. It should do so 
in a DOS window (but not pure MS-DOS).

I have succesfully use Key-fake as a simple keyboard stuffer (see Key-
fake.zip http://sac-ftp.externet.hu/utiltask4.html). It is pretty 
basic though - you just pass it a list of characters or key codes to 
pass to the program. There's no control logic like Autoit and it 
certainly doesn't do any keystroke recording. Maybe one of the other 
utilities listed at the above site might do what you want.

I don't understand your reference to having to enter the date by hand 
in the DOS program. Do you mean that the POS program needs to have 
the date entered prior to printing the report? If this is the case, 
there are a number of utilities and/or batch techniques for getting 
the date into an environment variable. After you have done this, you 
could create your macro program key sequence dynamically by echoing 
the appropriate key codes/characters to a batch file then executing 
that.

For example, suppose the key sequence for your program to print was P 
(for print), dd-mm-yy (today's date), Enter, Q (quit). Using LMOD 
(http://home.mnet-online.de/horst.muc/) and KEY-FAKE you could do the 
following:

@echo off
echo @echo off>printit.bat
echo:|date|lmod /s/- key-fake "P" [$6]-[$5]-[$7] 13 "Q">>printit.bat
echo yourprog>>printit.bat
call printit.bat
xxcopy  

Garry



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