Scripting Tools

The Scripting Workbench is and IDE (Integrated Development Environment), it combines all the tools used to create, edit and package automation projects.

User actions can be recorded to create macros that can be played back later on to reproduce the original sequence of actions. This mechanism helps make repetitive processes fully reproduceable while also easily controlling their important characteristics.

Once a macro is recorded it can be edited graphically in the Macro Designer, or directly using the Code View.

The toolbox is where the macro writer will find all the available various macro components. Amongst these, the user will find already existing macros, Microsoft Windows user interface elements and of course all the image processing and analysis automation commands.

The toolbox also includes a very handy filter with real-time feedback which is a big help for finding specific commands.

The Snippets feature is a tool available in code view, which allows to insert a number of commonly used constructs into an existing macro. This tool also allows you to create new snippets from the source code selection.

The pre-installed snippets include:

• Load & Save Settings

• Sinking Application & Other Events

• Try/Catch Block

• Code Command

• Image Type Checking

Programming Shortcuts allow to associate the most commonly used programming constructs with 5 hot keys, which can be configured in the Properties panel of the Scripting Workbench when "My Projects" is selected in the Macro Explorer. The predefined hot keys are the following:

• Ctrl+1: ThisApplication

• Ctrl+2: ThisApplication.ActiveImage

• Ctrl+3: ThisApplication.ActiveDocument

The Batch Processing panel allows to apply a set of macros to a selection of images, either in memory or stored on the hard drive. One macro is applied before the batch, then another one for each document (passed as a parameter) and finally a last macro is processed to conclude. The list of documents can include a mix of memory and image files, possibly coming from multiple locations with the ability to detect new files as they are added to selected folders.