Programs for automating routine operations. Automation of tasks regularly performed on a PC

Hello to all!
I wanted an invite to Habr ( thanks to user Nast for the invite), and finally this fact became the engine for writing an article, which is based on a history of personal experience in the field of automation of tasks related to PCs.
I am an automator, I love that most tasks (software, hardware) are performed automatically without the intervention of me or other people.

Target:

1. Tell and, possibly, teach how to optimize work on a PC.
2. Anyone who was looking for such information will have the knowledge to start and develop a task optimizer in himself.
3. Give an additional opportunity to overcome laziness, and do something really useful for yourself and others.
4. Show an example of how to make a program that automatically executes the recorded sequence of actions for your convenience.
5. To prove that automation is not boring, but as a result it is useful and even very interesting.

Causes:

Firstly. I often face the fact that most users do not know how to organize their working hours, specifically on a PC. It's funny to watch when a user is distracted, from really expensive paid work, to small software (sometimes hardware) actions, and then, indignantly looks at the boss, who, in the current month, has reduced the academic failure premium relative to previous results.

Secondly. Before, I often had routine tasks that I made to be automatically executed using different software products. But no matter how many software options exist, there are always functions that are not so easy to execute in one package. And I had to use several automation programs in the complex along with programs for the standard purpose of office or not quite office work.

Thirdly. The time has come when a real routine task appeared. It was connected with the fact that it was necessary to extract text, tables, images from a PDF file, with copy protection installed on it, recognition by any software, printing, and something else. In general, the author of the file set the maximum protection in some (I don't remember) program for creating PDF files. And another important point, there are 202 pages in the file, the background is blue, and the text is sometimes yellow, sometimes blue. And the most important thing is that the time frame for receiving the finished text is only 3 days. I sometimes suffer from laziness, therefore, I immediately threw away all physical labor, and also, I did not look for a team of a dozen fans to manually type text from a picture. As always, I turned to software products for automating tasks. After spending one hour writing the correct algorithm, you can do more pleasant actions for half a day.

But not everything is as simple as it seems at first glance. I have already said above that one program can do a maximum of 99.9% of the required work. So I began to search on the Internet and use in turn the most fashionable, in terms of ratings and reviews, automation programs, of course, provided that, firstly, they could perform the functions I needed in the GUI environment, and not in the console, and secondly, they are free. By the way, we are talking about Win-applications. I will not recommend which application is better or worse - you can try it yourself, according to your goals and habits for convenience. In principle, I can automate on BASIC better than any program special for this business, but I did not want to install Visual Studio - this is a waste of time and space on the hard disk. Moreover, you need a program that already has all the options for controlling a PC, where you just need to select all the necessary actions in the list and change several parameters for yourself. And for a typical user this is exactly what is required, there is no need to learn programming languages, everything must already be created in advance and work.

So that's it. I opted for the xStarter program (at that time v.1.9.2). Approached 90%. I will not praise, I will only say that the application really has a very convenient environment for the wide implementation of the automation algorithm. The only bad thing is that some functions are not configurable, for example, the screenshot function loses quality due to compression - it is not suitable for text recognition. And I also did not like that there is no separate window that would show the coordinates of the mouse cursor; I had to download the “Mouse Pointer Locator” gadget for the sidebar in Vista OS. And, of course, the third - not very important for an advanced user, but in some controversial issues necessary - this is a reference to the functionality of the application. It feels like the help file is from the old version, and there is only part of the functionality in the description.

At the time of this writing, I checked the new version of xStarter v.1.9.3 - the help file is now complete, there are scopes for determining the start and end points of the cursor on the screen, and the quality of the screen shot has improved markedly, now you can also recognize the text. Well done guys! I will be happy to wait for new releases of this program, where I will get even more functionality.

And I implemented the PDF file recognition algorithm (with Protection) very simply:

1. PDF file in full screen
2. Screenshot of “Print Screen”
3. Paste into “Photoshop”
4. Cycle up to 202nd page
5. Macro in Photoshop: crop, save
6. Picture folder in “Fine Reader”

Handmade:

• Manually, text analysis and error correction.
• Saving to "Word"
• Editing a DOC file

Using the time of individual tasks:

• Creation of an automation algorithm - 25-30 min.
• Algorithm setting - 30-60 min.
• Recognition and editing of text - 4-5 hours

Total time use:

• With automation (1 person only edits the text, the rest is automatic) - 5-7 hours.
• Without automation (1 person does everything manually) - 3-5 days.

Practical example: (not about what was written just above!)

I will show you not just an example of the "Hello World" type, I will show you how to create a bot (that is, an automation algorithm) for the game "Friends Factory" on the site vkontakte.ru

I was attracted by this game precisely because it allows you to wind up virtual money using a bot, despite the fact that the game works in a browser and is a Flash object. I have no competence in flash-technologies, therefore, specially formed requests for controlling the game without a browser (if they exist at all?), I immediately threw aside, my bot will use only the mouse cursor specifically for the game, and a few more functions for control browser, screenshot, variables, loops, and nothing else.

The bot consists of 2 tasks:

1. Friends Factory - Buy (Firefox) is the main bot algorithm. "Firefox" is simply a designation of the browser with which the algorithm will work. Can be adjusted to suit any.
2. "Read_Compare_ff" - an additional algorithm for checking the image for the fact of its change.

The bot's algorithm does the following:

1. Finds a browser window with a running game and opens it full screen.
2. Next, the 2nd task is launched, which takes a screenshot of the area of ​​the screen, exactly in the place where the figure with the amount of money in the game is located.
3. Now the bot should hover over the cursor and click on the "Nursery" then "All" and buy the first pet that comes across.
4. When the pet is purchased, the amount of money decreases - this will be checked by our 2nd task under item 2.
5. If there are no pets at all in the Vse kennel (often happens), then repeat step 3 endlessly.
6. After the purchase, the bot, after a while, checks (clause 2) the fact of the sale of the pet - that is, an increase in the amount of money.
7. If the pet is sold, then the bot repeats step 3, if not sold, then the bot presses the "Nursery" button, to update the game result, an infinite number of times.

This is a general description of the operation of the algorithm, which I made for my own purposes, and I use it even now. The first was a bot to visit the game every 2 hours, but it gave much less profit in the game than the second one. It is good to leave the bot running while away from the PC.

And finally ...

Pros of automation:

1. Increased productivity of work with a PC (primarily for repetitive tasks).
2. There is more time for rest or other activities.
3. Overcoming the threshold of initial laziness, that is, the intention to create an algorithm to facilitate one's own existence.
4. Usefulness for personal purposes.
5. Additional knowledge of technology is only beneficial.

Cons of automation:

1. People do not want to learn and develop, they are satisfied with doing what they have been doing for decades. Laziness prevails!
2. People are afraid to get the job done faster, because the boss will immediately fill up with more additional work. Again, laziness is more than premium!
3. People are taught from school to work, not earn!

Outcome:
I want this article to help at least someone develop in the field of process automation. And so that everyone who is indirectly related to this article, expressed their, subjective, opinion about the information read. Well, and of course I will already I am very grateful for the invitation to the lava of Habrap users;)

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It happens that working at the computer turns into a monotonous execution of the same actions, into a cycle in which you have to use the mouse and keyboard, performing the same movements on the screen and pressing the same buttons. This tedious job can be automated with the free Ghost Automizer program. Ghost Automizer is a program for recording and automating user actions. The utility remembers the user's actions and repeats them, saving him from routine and saving his time. We recorded the actions of the mouse with the keyboard and started executing the resulting algorithm in a loop - very convenient.

Recording mouse and keyboard actions

Click the "Record Actions" button and Ghost Automizer will begin to record your mouse and keyboard actions in detail. To complete the recording of actions, the user is required to press the F12 button. The program of actions obtained in this way can be edited and saved to disk in order to use the recorded actions in the future. The application settings allow you to save pauses when recording actions, enable / disable keyboard recording, select the recording mode of the accuracy of the mouse pointer movement (precise, rough and best way), use the delayed start of playback of recorded actions. To make it easier to control Ghost Automizer, you can assign hotkeys to execute previously saved workflows. Additional program settings allow you to automatically start executing recorded actions when you start Ghost Automizer from Explorer and automatically close the utility at the end of the sequence of actions, minimize it to the system tray or taskbar.

Screenshots of Ghost Automizer

Size: 879 KB
Price: Free
Purpose: task scheduler

nnCron is a very unusual task scheduler. Unlike most of the considered competitors, this program does not have a traditional working window of the application. The scheduler is controlled from the context menu invoked by right-clicking on the application icon in the system tray.

It should be noted right away that the ability to launch programs at a specified time, which is traditional for all schedulers, is far from the only function of nnCron.

Stopping at the launch of applications on a schedule, it is worth noting the possibility of launching programs as services. You can configure the launch of tasks on behalf of any user in the system.

nnCron can monitor and restart overdue tasks and reminders, shutdown or hibernate the computer. Of course, the reverse operation is also available - you can wake up the system in order to start a task.

The scheduler allows you to flexibly manage the state of application windows. You can hide, close, kill, minimize, maximize and hide in the system tray windows specified in the scheduler settings. In addition, it is allowed to change the size and location of windows, change their transparency mode.

nnCron can add arbitrary application icons to the system tray, as well as remove them from there. You can also display any messages on the screen and in the log file, including requests to perform the actions specified in the settings.

The scheduler is able to work with the clipboard, registry, as well as emulate keyboard input and mouse operations.

Dial-up users can use the ability to automatically dial to the provider, as well as forced termination of the telephone connection.

But this is far from all the capabilities of the scheduler. If you really want to, you can make nnCron beep through the system speaker with a specified duration and frequency, play audio files, synchronize the system time, assign a specified priority to processes, and interrupt their work. The scheduler has options for tracking files, windows, processes, mouse movements, computer idle time, keyboard shortcuts, the appearance of a disk in the drive, the presence of a host on the network, changing a remote resource via the HTTP protocol, the amount of free disk space and the load of RAM.

The program can automatically start after fatal errors. nnCron allows using VBScript and JScript languages, as well as regular expressions in tasks. The scheduler can execute arbitrary programs in the Forth language (SP-Forth), extend its capabilities through plug-ins.

The nnCron distribution includes two utilities intended exclusively for programmers.

WinSpy allows you to find out the current coordinates of the mouse, find out the class of the object over which the mouse is located, get information about the coordinates of the main and child windows.

Console is a tool for interactive communication with nnCron for those who know the Forth language. You can also remotely administer nnCron using the console.

The program understands the cron format (UNIX) and is controlled using text files. Developers see only advantages in this way of storing settings.

For example, tasks will not be lost in the event of a forced reinstallation of the system. However, a similar solution can be viewed from the other side. Managing the program graphically is much easier than having to learn the syntax of text-based configuration files. At the same time, no one forbids developers to write settings not to the registry, but to the same text files.

The wide use of the high-level language Forth in configuring nnCron speaks even more about the orientation of the product towards advanced users. The program does not have Wizards, Helpers and other tools that make it easier to master, initial setup. Russian-language help and other documentation are downloaded separately from the main program module.

Official site:
Size: 5207 KB
Price: Free
Purpose: Automation of everyday tasks

During the creation of any software product aimed at an unprepared user, developers are faced with the task of implementing the maximum number of useful functions in combination with ensuring ease of use. And if, as a bonus, the distribution kit also turns out to be compact, then the program is simply doomed to success.

Many programs for process automation have a significant drawback - the complexity of mastering. You are tired of routine operations, you just want to automate some of them. Why study high-level languages ​​for this, independently compose intricate scripts? Of course, if you are a system administrator of a large enterprise, then such knowledge has long occupied the gray matter of the brain. But most of the users of personal computers have other working specialties, often not associated with high technologies. And they are unlikely to take on weighty tomes of descriptions of multi-tiered algorithms just for the sake of something running on their own computer.

xStarter compares favorably with many programs considered in the framework of process automation in that, having the broadest possibilities, the program is mastered without any titanic efforts. The reason for this is a well-organized user experience combined with a large number of sample tasks, based on which you can automate your own, unique operations.

The working window of the application consists of a side panel, which contains many examples of typical automation tasks, and a main area containing all the information and settings for the current task. Tasks launched for execution have a green check mark next to the main icon. All available xStarter actions are divided into several groups. Each item in the list has its own icon. All this suggests that the developers have ensured the maximum visibility of all operations, simplifying the visual perception of the information issued by the software product. A quick glance at the list of actions is enough to understand what the active task is about.

All tasks can be grouped according to arbitrary criteria; the program implements a true tree structure. The list of task properties is grouped in four tabs - schedule and information, actions, additionally, task log.

The choice of the schedule is carried out from three main points and one additional (complex). Any task can be performed once, after some time and periodically. You just enter the required times and the schedule is set up.

When setting up actions, first of all, you need to create a new list item. This opens a new window, where the list of available operations is presented in the form of a tree structure. Each group and each element of the list have their own unique icons, text descriptions. When setting up custom actions, you practically do not need to strain, delve into the intricacies of the processes themselves. For example, you want to open a web page regularly. To do this, just select the "Internet" group, then select the "Open web page" item. You enter her address. The setup is complete. The rest of the automation examples are not much more complex than the one described above.

Additional settings allow you to manually specify the priority of the launched processes, specify the exact conditions for launching. You can also launch applications on behalf of any of the users in the system, change the values ​​of the Windows environment variables.

And finally, in the window of the last tab, a report on the work done is displayed. If desired, you can disable the logging of all events.

What operations can xStarter automate? The complete list of program features is too long to blindly quote official information. Still, it is worth noting some of the tasks available for automation. First of all, this is any execution of any file operations. Flexible backup settings make it possible to assert about good data safety. The program can track changes to files and directories, synchronize them, record and run Windows macros.

xStarter allows you to work with e-mail and files using the FTP and HTTP protocols. And finally, the backbone of all schedulers - you can run any program on a schedule.

The program is free for us, Russian-speaking users.

Greetings to all, dear readers of the blog site. Today it will not be an entirely ordinary article, because today we will not talk about, but about one very interesting program that allows you to automate some processes on a computer. The program has very powerful functionality, which it is not possible to tell about within the framework of one article, therefore, only the main features will be considered, which, to be honest, an ordinary user should be enough "headlong".

I think many people know about the standard Windows task scheduler, most people do not like it (like me) for its rather meager functionality and inconvenient interface. But recently, surfing the Internet looking for an alternative to the standard scheduler, I came across a utility called "xStarter". Moreover, the possibilities of this program pleasantly surprised me and even amazed me, here are just a few of them:

• You can automate the execution of file operations
• Can track changes to files and directories
• It is possible to create your own macros and run them
• It is possible to run programs on a schedule
• You can force the computer to turn off after a while or by event (for example, after the termination of a program)

Plus, the program is completely free and is constantly updated, which is also good news. And what's most interesting, to automate tasks on a computer you do not need any programming skills, although for this you need to carefully study the interface, which we will now do.

A small digression - I just want to clarify the situation in order to avoid confusion. You need to understand the difference between Task Scheduler and Task Scheduler. In the first case, the program allows you to organize a convenient list of tasks for the current day, something like a diary or notebook. But the second case is exactly what we are talking about today. But back to our rams.

So, first you need to download and install xStarter, you can do it from here, and you need to download exactly the version called "xStarter", the rest will not work for us. I do not consider it necessary to describe the installation process here, because everything is simple there. After starting the program, a window will open in which on the left we can observe the "Sections / Tasks" field - here, theoretically, you can create unlimited tasks and set the sequence of their execution.

In order to create a task, you need to open the context menu with the right mouse button and select the "New task" item in it, or select the icon with the same name just above the top, after which several tabs should appear next to (on the right).

We are only interested in three tabs - the first of which is called "Schedule and Information". Here we can give a name to our newly created task, and also choose how to launch this very task for execution. And there are several options here:

• By time
• By event
• Complex format

By time - just select the time and date, or specify the time interval after which the task will be launched. You can also make the task run every X hours.

The second option is triggering on an event. All the most "killer" functionality of the program is concentrated here. A huge number of options are available to us, ranging from launching xStarter itself (launching a program is also an event), and ending with ejecting / loading a CD from an optical drive.

Well, the last, third option, offers us everything the same as in the first paragraph, with the only difference that you can choose not only the time, but also a specific day of the week and month (only on this day of the week, month and time - the task will be executed).

Any task has a list of actions; a task consists of a certain sequence of actions. The actions themselves can be either several or even one. There are a lot of actions in the program, here are just a few of them:

• Start / stop programs
• Display your own messages on the screen
• Window manipulation in Windows
• Shutdown / hibernation
• Copy / move / delete / sync files (or directories)
• You can organize text alerts in case of changing / deleting files or folders
• Creation of macros - recording sequences of keyboard clicks, movements and mouse clicks. The macros recorded in this way can imitate your behavior at the computer.

Such a variety of actions allows you to create tasks of almost any complexity. By the way, if you want, you can use the official xStarter forum, where there is a special section with examples of how to perform a variety of tasks.

Examples of tasks in xStarter

Now I propose to move from words to deeds. Let's first try to create the simplest task, for example - shutting down the computer after a certain time... To do this, in the "Start task" field, select "By time", put a check mark on "After a while" and indicate the time interval after which, according to our idea, the computer should turn off itself.

Ok, the task has been created, the event has been specified, but we haven’t set any actions yet, and without this the task will not work. Go to the "Actions" tab, right-click and select "New Action", look for the "Power" menu item - Turn off the computer.

You can if you want to check the box next to "Force closing applications" to speed up the process. Everything, now you can be calm, at the set time the computer will turn itself off.

There are often situations when it is necessary for the computer to shutdown itself, but at the same time so that the results of the work of all applications running at the time of shutdown are preserved. It's easy to do, in fact, this method is not much different from the previous one. We do everything the same as before, only this time, in the action selection window, select the "Stop computer" item and uncheck the first item (stop method). Then we press "ok". As a result of this task, the computer will go into sleep mode, but it will shut down completely, and the next time you start it, all applications will remain in the same place they were before shutdown. Those. it turns out that the computer saves the image on, and the next time it is turned on, it simply loads this image back into memory. But I do not recommend working in the OS for a long time after such a boot - it is better to immediately save all unsaved and reboot "normally", otherwise system errors may occur (after a few minutes my computer freezes, although it may have nothing to do with it).

For example, I would use the above method like this: leave the computer on overnight, and he went to bed, but having previously estimated how long the movie should be downloaded (for example).

Be sure to click the "apply" button at the end - when you click it, the task will automatically start executing. You can stop it, again through the context menu, by right-clicking on the task.

With xStarter you can prevent the launch of any application(for example games), this is done like this: a task is created again, the event is "start / stop process", in the process name you specify the actual process of your application - if it is not in the list, just start and minimize your application, then the process should appear.

Then we create another action, this will be a text notification in the window - we write our title (window title) and the message itself.

When I started the game, it turned out like this:

Here is another use case for xStarter, with its help you can copy / move files from one folder to another, moreover it will not require any participation from you... Let's create a separate task with event triggering, the task will be launched by pressing certain keys.

Well, for convenience, you can create a text notification about a successfully completed task.

In general, the program is quite interesting, of course, not all functions were considered, but I hope that I was able to acquaint you with some of its capabilities, and then you can get information on the forum, the link to which was a little higher in the text.

I forgot to say that for the "Windows Windows" event, you will need to first install a special plugin called xStartHooks... And finally, any task in xStarter can be compile into a separate.exe file, the performance of which does not depend on the presence of the program itself.

xStarter automates day-to-day scheduling or system event tasks.

Key Benefits

Reduce your working hours by 35%.

By creating macros for your daily tasks, you save yourself from the routine. And the computer can execute these macros using xStarter even in your absence according to the schedule.

Take care of the safety of your data.

If it takes almost no effort to automatically back up your documents and emails, then why not?

Replacement for Windows Scheduler.

The advanced xStarter scheduler will allow you to more precisely set the moment of the program launch or task execution. Tasks can be launched at exactly the specified time, periodically, or in a complex format. When xStarter is running in NT service mode, it is possible to launch tasks even if there are no active users.

Tracking changes to files and directories.

As soon as a new file appears in the specified directory, the xStarter program will inform you about it or perform any action. In the same way, xStarter tracks changes and deletions of files and directories, including changes in subdirectories.

Actions on the Internet.

Sending and receiving e-mail, working with files via FTP and HTTP - this is just a short list of what you can automate when working on the Internet. For example: receive daily reports and save them to the specified directory; send notifications about completed tasks without user assistance; download log and other files, etc.

Windows macros.

You can record macros while working in any program and with any object in the Microsoft Windows environment using xStarter. Each macro is a file that contains a sequence of recorded movements and mouse clicks, keystrokes of the keyboard. This file can be played at any time according to the schedule or hotkey, as if these actions are performed by you.

Remote control.

With xStarter Web Pilot it becomes possible to launch tasks on remote computers, view tasks and their logs, disable / enable.

Compilation of tasks.

From xStarter tasks, you can create .exe files and transfer tasks between computers. When starting tasks, users can fill in some parameters specific to a given user or computer.

Firebird / Interbase.

A special version of xStarter Job Scheduler for Firebird / Interbase allows you to perform specific tasks for specified database servers. With this version, you can execute SQL scripts, backup / restore databases, etc.

Automation of tasks without programming skills.

Each xStarter task consists of a set of actions. Actions are aimed at performing various functions, here are just a few of them:

• launching programs;
• displaying messages on the screen;
• Internet connection;
• synchronization of directories;
• operations with windows;
• operations with text and log files;
• disconnecting and connecting network directories;
• etc.

Tasks can be executed according to a schedule, hotkeys, or system events.

System requirements

Intel Pentium or compatible processor
Windows NT4 / 2000 / XP / 2003 / Vista