How to press control keys?

[Beddhist]

Hi,

I'm new to Actiona, but I have programmed in AutiIt. Thank you for creating this great tool.

I need my script to send an ESC. The wiki helpfully tells me to just press the key in the appropriate place, but ESC just cancels the creation of the key entry.

Can it be done? I should add that I don't understand JavaScript. When I started in IT OO wasn't a thing yet.

Thanks,
Peter.

[eureka]

If you have used AutoIT you must be in Windows.
I am largely in Ubuntu but I can switch between Ubuntu and Windows.

I create a Key object in GUI and I can add Esc to Key: field.

Can you do this?

[Beddhist]

Well, no and no.

I'm changing from AutoIt, because it needs to work on Linux, too. And like I wrote, pressing ESC just cancels the whole dialog. I guess Enter will have a similar problem.

[eureka]

I created a simple keytestrig attached to play with.
I have also on occasions called external python script (through Command) to emulate key actions.
And in Ubuntu I sometimes use xdotool as peripheral to Actiona .. in a toolchain.

I did observe that in Key object, Esc is referred to as Esc.
But in Key Condition object it is referred to as Escape.

[Beddhist]

That works, thank you for taking the trouble. I now realise that this worked all along (of course), but for the key to be registered you have to click in the text box first. Once I did that I can use all sorts of control keys.

I'm now on my way! Thanks again.

BTW, do you get any email notifications from this board? I activated all the options in the profile and subscribed to this topic, but nothing, not in spam, either.

[eureka]

BTW, do you get any email notifications from this board? I activated all the options in the profile and subscribed to this topic, but nothing, not in spam, either.

No. i rely on just polling this forum (English & French) from time to time.
Unfortunately @jmgr suffered a loss of data on forum server some time back and quite a slug of tutorials were lost. You can look back in Wayback machine for early posts.
Meanwhile I refer to the reference book: Actionscript, the Definitive Guide.
Colin Moock, 2001
O'Reilly

If you search around there are copies of this book in various sites without need to purchase book.

It goes back to days of Flash.

I also use Sublime Text for writing Actionscript2.
I installed the Actionscript2 package for syntax colouring.

[Beddhist]

Thanks for those tips. I have searched everywhere for the elusive tutorials and was wondering why I couldn't find them. Alas, the web archive has only 1 capture in 2018 and the tutorials section is empty.

[eureka]

This post from @jmgr explains the reason for lost tutorials.

viewtopic.php?f=34&t=18348

In the absence of tutorials we must build up our own local fresh library of tutorials.

I learn by going back through various threads (English and French) to pickup ideas and tips. I can enable language translation when viewing threads in the browser. Or use DeepL.com.

It helps if you understand the history of Qt objects (which comes from the Qt GUI framework).

Actiona uses Qt4 objects (although now rather dated - latest version of Qt is Qt6).

In fact if you install Qt (a lengthy process I must warn) you then have the ability to customise and compile Actiona from source.

Important links are found on this root page.

https://wiki.actiona.tools/doku.php?id=en:start

Advanced users can use JavaScript (EcmaScript) to extend its functionality.

I have referred to the O'Reilly Definitive Guide.

The program is developed in C++ and uses the Qt framework.

https://www.qt.io/

The action list can be found on the actions page.

https://wiki.actiona.tools/doku.php?id=en:actions

Multiple tools can be used in combination with Actiona to extend its features.

https://wiki.actiona.tools/doku.php?id=en:tools

Unfortunately this section is left unfinished but is probably one of the most useful of features to explore; the ability to extend functionality of Actiona by integrating with third party tools and scripts (Python, Java, PHP, Bash ...) placed in Script > Resources and accessed as local resources and run through through Command object.

Thus we might write a Python3 script hello.py and place this in Script > resources.

Then the Command object can run:

command: python3
parameters: hello.py

In other words we need not be constrained by the default list of Qt objects. We can create our own custom "plugins".

This opens up the vista of connecting a network of "microservices" with Actiona scripts as connectors between microservices.

Going further, contributions can be made by developers.

https://wiki.actiona.tools/doku.php?id=en:devel

Coding style is here:

https://wiki.actiona.tools/doku.php?id= ... ding-style


In short, regard Actiona as a shell into which you can add other scripts to extend functionality.

So far I have had no need for the image processing objects in Actiona GUI. But even here I could break out and use alternative tools such as ImageMagick, provided that they can be called through command line.

There are other techniques I have learned by trial and error. I can use Actiona to call other Actiona scripts. I can parse an Actiona script (which is XML format) and dynamically change contents on the fly.

Just regard Actiona as one tool in your toolbox to be supplemented by other companion tools.

I am using it across Windows 10 and Ubuntu 20.04.

[Beddhist]

Thank you for the detailed explanation. Perhaps this should be extracted and pinned somewhere for new users?

I'm not a programmer, have no idea about frameworks and only know Basic, Pascal and scripts. I started learning Python, but other things got in the way.

The thing that stumps me is when do I need to activate the red triangle and what exactly does it do? It seems to be needed when referencing an existing variable, but not when setting one.

I now have a few scripts working now. The only problem remaining is with the Find Image function, but that is a can of worms and I'll open a new topic for that.

Thanks,
Peter.