Hi Kate, Sure, for your exams, learn what they teach (PS); it's what we all did (who are in the field). Then learn some other languages because you're curious, there's some other reason to, whatever. Then end up programming in the environment which is easiest. As for what you end up scripting in, well, VBS has been popular only because it's the easiest, not for any other reason. If you feel like you are just as comfortable writing anything in c#, PS, anything else, go for it! My only reservation is somewhat of a selfish one: whenever anyone writes a script in vbs, it's usually published unencrypted, and everyone can learn from it. Anyone publishing a script written in .net usually just publishes the .exe (it would be nice if we had a library of say vb.net scripts to examine). You'll eventually come to the conclusion that you're learning to program, not languages (which are largely secondary). hth, Chip
_____ From: Katherine Moss [mailto:katherine.m...@gordon.edu] Sent: Monday, April 23, 2012 10:07 PM To: gw-scripting@gwmicro.com Subject: RE: Names of Hot Keys My main concern is in which order I should be learning these languages in though. I am in the middle of C# at the moment, though school is more important to me right now, and considering my open source project aimed for a start-date this summer will be written in C#, I'm trying to figure out which is more important; VBS or PowerShell. I should probably focus on PowerShell after C# though because of my needing to know it for my Microsoft Certification exams also hopefully happening this summer. So I'm really trying to figure out which is the "correct" language for WE scripting, and the feedback I seem to be getting is that it's best supported by those running from WSH and not through the .NET framework. Is this correct? Rick over there seems to be doing all right via .NET, so my thought is that it should be stressed a bit more, that's all. From: Chip Orange [mailto:lists3...@comcast.net] Sent: Monday, April 23, 2012 8:26 PM To: gw-scripting@gwmicro.com Subject: RE: Names of Hot Keys Hi Kate, Yes, I did have to use the MS Word DOM (the portion which deals with the VBA IDE, which is really distinct from the portion which handles Word document formatting/creation). Well, I wouldn't agree VBScript is being phased out, and I wouldn't agree that PowerShell is better just because it's newer. I mostly think language preference is a very personal item, which we they backup with the facts which fit our position. My position is that on the one project where I had to work with PowerShell I absolutely *hated* it! Aside from that, if it had been the defacto language which everyone was using (and had been using for years), and which had been selected by GW for their "default" scripting language, then I would have made an effort to deal with it. But, as it's not an active scripting language, and so doesn't interface as well with WE, and because I think more people either know VB/VBScript, or will find a procedural language easier to learn than one like PS, I decided to work with VBScript. It also happened that I had been assigned to programming projects for many years which involved the Word/VBA environment, so I was both familiar with VBA (pretty much VBScript), and I was familiar with the VBA IDE, and so I thought it would be fairly easy to adapt it to a VBScript editor which was aware of all the WE root level objects. If you are a fan of PowerShell though, I wouldn't mind seeing you show me some really nifty script done in PS? That's the kind of good-natured competition W.E. could really benefit from, if you'd like to take up the challenge to show us what PS can do as a WE app development tool? Then perhaps write a follow-on wiki article explaining it? Good luck, Chip _____ From: Katherine Moss [mailto:katherine.m...@gordon.edu] Sent: Monday, April 23, 2012 1:11 AM To: gw-scripting@gwmicro.com Subject: RE: Names of Hot Keys Just curious, but did you use Office's DOM for that? And I still don't understand, considering PowerShell is newer, why still so much focus on a scripting language that's being phased out and less recommended by microsoft? From: Chip Orange [mailto:lists3...@comcast.net] Sent: Sunday, April 22, 2012 8:51 PM To: gw-scripting@gwmicro.com Subject: RE: Names of Hot Keys Oh, and I forgot perhaps it's most important convenience feature: it emulates all the root-level objects of WindowEyes so that you don't have to do anything, and it is aware of all of their properties and methods, and will give you intellisense and syntax checking for them. I did have a quick google, and there are evidently very nice VBScript editors out there (not for free though), (Doug found one called VBSEdit for $75 which is very well thought of), but I could not find any way in VBSEdit to have it be aware of the WE root-level objects so that a scripter could just work with them as our apps do. Chip _____ From: Chip Orange [mailto:lists3...@comcast.net] Sent: Saturday, April 21, 2012 10:28 PM To: 'gw-scripting@gwmicro.com' Subject: RE: Names of Hot Keys Hi Rick, I absolutely understand about the *huge* benefits derived from working in an integrated development environment, instead of just a text editor. It makes scripting *so* much easier. That's why, for anyone who doesn't know, I have written an app named "Office VBA and VBS Editor". If you own a copy of MS Word (not the starter edition), this app allows you to use the Word VBA integrated development environment to edit/develop your VBS scripts. It's primary benefit is that it provides you with intelli-sense functionality; it also has an object viewer, and will check all your code for correct syntax, and use of any undeclared variables or mis-spelled properties or methods. It also allows you to declare your variables/parameters with types, so that it can check for incompatible usage, and provide the intelli-sense for your variables which are objects. Rick, I was just wondering as I typed this: does the express version of visual studio give you a development environment to work in, and if so, is VBScript one of the visual studio supported languages? (perhaps it could be setup the way I've setup the Word VBA to define what's needed to support WindowEyes VBScripts?; just a thought). Chip _____ From: RicksPlace [mailto:ofbgm...@mi.rr.com] Sent: Friday, April 20, 2012 6:31 AM To: gw-scripting@gwmicro.com Subject: Re: Names of Hot Keys Hi Chip: I have not gotten that far yet. I have registered a couple of hot keys and they work but I am not at all sure they were registered with the Hot Key Manager in that respect. There is no code in my app to handle modification of keys but that doesnt mean it cant be done. I used control-windows-alt-C to print information about the window under the cursor, it's parent chain with details of each of those objects. I used control-windows-alt-M for the same but starting from the window under the Mouse location. I have the VS project set up so I can have seperat classes defined under a Folder tree structure, Solution Explorer, if you are familiar with it. This way I can group functions and subs and other code blocks under folders like AppCode, Utilities, Forms, Reports, AppData DAL etc... This is the primary reason I liked working in a VS Environment along with complete access to all the .net tools built into the VS Platform. Also, it allows GOTO statements that, if used correctly, eliminate all those nested IF statements prevalent in VBS Scripts. It Also has a ton of built in navigation hot keys, code folding, intellisense and much more. I know working in VBS is where it is at for the powerful statements built by GW but working large scripts, perhaps 10,000 lines might be unwieldly in a common Text Editor without some type of class structure, code folding and intellisense. You are likely familiar with how important these features are from working in Word. I am not sure how they work there but they are the best tools I have found so far for any major development projects and now scripting. Whether I will be able to use the tools available to the VBS scripts I'm not sure yet, hope so, but I was uncomfortable working in VBS and a simple text editor. Scripting anything to do with VWD, SMS, Visual Studio or other MS Applications look like they are going to be large projects if I can do them at all. That's why I want a development environment where I can modularize and isolate modules, classes and other objects and have them all put together at compkile time. I just dont know how, if, this will work out but so far so good. Besides, this whole process may be moote if we get full support for UIA and WPF but that's another story... Rick USA ----- Original Message ----- From: Chip <mailto:lists3...@comcast.net> Orange To: gw-scripting@gwmicro.com Sent: Thursday, April 19, 2012 9:44 PM Subject: RE: Names of Hot Keys Hey Rick, Have a look at my HotWind app (very short); it allows the user to choose any of control, alt, shift, windows, insert, and application. Window-Eyes seems to accept any combination of these, although I don't think I've tested anything with more than 3 modifiers at once. Also, don't forget you can really have capslock as another modifier, just not distinct from insert (but in might help in some of the combinations you're planning <grin>). Since any user can change any hotkey (assuming we're all using the hotkey manager), I don't worry too much about choosing the perfect hotkey selections right out of the box; I do count on users setting things up to suit themselves. The more I think about it, the more I think the hotkey manager is the most valuable toolkit object we have! (although, the error handler is running a close second). Chip _____ From: RicksPlace [mailto:ofbgm...@mi.rr.com] Sent: Tuesday, April 17, 2012 8:15 AM To: gw-scripting@gwmicro.com Subject: Names of Hot Keys Hi: In the docs I saw it mentioned that the names of the keys to use with a script ie... control-shift-x were detailed in the windoweyes dialog. I am thinking of using control-windows-alt-whatever to keep my hot keys seperat from all other hot keys but consistent. Is the correct window eyes word "windows" in this senario and can I use a 4 key combination to trigger an action or is that too many keys for a Hot Key? I couldnt find the WindowEyes Dialog that lists the names of the keys that are available or if there is a limit on the number of keys in a "hot key" combination.. Rick USA
