This is what I have been looking for. It greatly helps automate multiple mouse-and-keyboard procedures I have to go through day in and day out. My life has improved greatly by such a wonderful program.

Nice.
Personally I am using CryptIT - a nice little tool I wrote for personal use:
http://jerbia.googlepages.com

Many of the problems that people have with this come from not reading the Help file (as always, and as I talked about in comment #17). The Options pane associated with each entry should be named Object Search Options. "Wait for repeats count" (sic) is the number of times it should try to find the UI object if the initial search fails; this mode doesn't seem very useful since a fast computer will probably cycle almost instantly. "Wait for time" is how long to search for the UI object; this is NOT a delay! "Unlimited wait" will continue searching for the UI object until it becomes available; enables user input even when blocked in global Options (necessary, to allow macro execution termination if the object doesn't become available). "Exact match" will look for an exact match for the requested UI object; useful to keep from selecting the wrong UI object when it can't find the requested one. As for the global Options, decreasing "Delay after each step" to speed up execution, may decrease macro reliability. If you're new to MouseRobot, you may want to uncheck "Block user input" until you've verified that your macros are functioning correctly (blocking user input during macro playback is otherwise generally a good idea).

#29, ColPeters, there is a pause feature, although the implementation is odd. In a Keyboard field, put {WAIT n}, where n is the number of seconds to pause (the braces are required). Don't have a convenient text field? Simply create an entry for almost anything, change its type to Keyboard if it's created as Mouse. As for the size of the macros, that's mostly from the screen-region captures, which I like because they make it very easy to read and edit the macros.

I'm a little amused that people gave my comment #19 thumbs-down. It's a description of how to overcome a limitation (and an unnecessary one, at that) in MouseRobot. But then, I don't pay any attention to the thumbs-up / thumbs-down ratings, because people use them so senselessly.

Mouse and Key Recorder is better than AutoIt, and MouseRobot.
MouseRobot cannot record actions, so the user has to manually select each step.

Mouse and Key Recorder generates a script based on actions and can use relative or absolute positioning. I was able to get it to automatically attach and e-mail a file.

VERY interesting program.
This "Object tracking" business is in my (very limited) experience a first for a macro prog, the couple of others I've tried just can't handle window moving & resizing. Other progs are more versatile and powerfull in other ways but for me this prog will take care of a few important & time consuming tasks.

One drawback I found was that it was very difficult to create a pause in execution so that I could examine an output window before contining the task and shutting the subject program down. In fact it took me the best part of an hour and the only method I found that worked was clunky but well...it works.

Another thing I noticed was that even a fairly simple task produced a quite large 'macro' file (~500kB) though I guess that's not a problem for most people in this day of huge disks. I guess that's the price you pay for Mouse Robot to be able to find it's "Object" wherever it is. I will definitely be using this program.

Thanks !

#3 (Laptop CoolNESS) - Do you have a link to this product you found on sourceforge?  I don't find anything by that name. 

I would like to say this is a great little program and it is fast and very easy to use, you just click on the + for a new action or +... for a series of actions and the you got your first step and the button or icon will be surrounded with a red square and you click the Ctrl button to select that action, you can set it for two clicks for icons opr one click for buttons and you can leave them all set at 5000 mls and when you run it after you have completed all the steps for the acyion you want to do it will be very fast. if you create an action to go to a web site it will open your browser and got to the site you set very quickly with out waiting for Iexplorer to open it will open all most instantly and just as fast it will open the web site you set. Thank you GAOTD this is a good one and I love it.

Thank,s Gaotd.

I find it terribly complicated to register ,I tried it twice Now i will give it away as too much time of a time waster & is it worth it

Well, I like it. I am a trainee web-site builder (with a penchant for organization, and who will soon go into business for himself), and I will say it's a pain in the butt for me navigating to the folders where the files are stored, time wise. With this program, after I skimmed through the help file, I hit the "add multiple actions" button, and 'programmed' the macro to go down to the folder where my stuff is (8 levels), open two documents to edit, and to load one of them to Firefox. After a little bit of editing in the program, I can double click the script icon on my desktop, and a few seconds later my work area is ready to go.

I had tried other types of macro programs before, but have not used them because I don't have time to learn how to do the things that this program offers to do for me in the main interface. Sure, this would not be the best for art purposes, but for mindless tasks routinely done, it rocks.

I would give this two thumbs up if I had the chance. I might even buy it for the other two computers in my house, to show my support for the company who built this.

Thanks, GAOTD. This is the most useful program for me thus far.

--My opinion, of course. I am only showing my support and appreciation, not attacking anybody.--

I was going to get this until i read all the reviews. I think this site is fantastic though for giving us a chance to own software for free. What finally made my mind up not to get this was reading baldedthoth's review, so keep up the good work.

Ste

For number 3, because they are fools with nothing else to do. The only reviews I really pay attention too are the ones like bladetoth does, anyone who takes the time to do a review the way it is done on the link shows that at least he/she knows enough to at least try it before making a comment. The same for the other reviews, the one liners I ignore. That said based on the review I will leave this one alone.

Downloaded and installed ok on Win XP. Follow the readme -- it's not the standard method.
The demo movie on their website makes this look quite intriguing. I have been using other programs for macros, including MacroMaker, which is free, but which stores its macros in the registry -- making me quite nervous. Otherwise I like it quite a bit.

The fact that MouseRobot does not depend on screen location looks like a big plus.

Not sure if I should download it or not.
Hmmm....

I think that there may be some confusion over the Mouse and Keyboard events. Where it can, MouseRobot figures out which is which. For example, if you're capturing mouse menu-clicks, and enter some text into a dialog box and capture that, it will be captured as keyboard input.

When editing the macro, individual entries can be moved up or down. You can select multiple entries via Ctrl-select. You can copy or cut them, but they can only be pasted at the end. If this isn't the correct order, cut and paste the preceding entries. This mechanism can be used to handle multiple insertions--use the multiple-append mechanism, then the multiple-entry cut-and-paste of the preceding entries to position the new entries.

well 1 reason for the thumbs down might be people doing what I did. I was trying to read the bad reviews to see what people were saying and thought that the link over the thumbs down might take me to the bad reviews only. Instead it cast my vote without confirmation when I have not even tested the program.

Please at least make an attempt to read the documentation, study the program, and use your brain to try to figure out what it does and how it works, before posting completely incorrect comments. Yes, MouseRobot does function differently than other macro recorders, which has its good and bad points, and won't be suitable for all applications. The separation of capturing and execution is unusual, and does make defining macros more tedious, but more precise and easier to edit. The screen-region captures are great.

#7, JerryB, if your Windows Taskbar is set to Auto-Hide, simply press the Windows (Start) key during capture (you don't have to record the key, it merely displays the taskbar; MouseRobot activates "hidden" windows during playback).

#9, lince07, there is a video on the website. GOTD conveniently provides a link to the webpage which describes the current giveaway, I assume people have the brains to check out the giveaway before downloading it.

#14, Larry Laffer, you don't go back and forth, inserting steps. Mouse Robot will record a sequence of steps (i.e., each time you press Ctrl while recording mode is on). As for Ctrl-O, for your example, using the mouse and the menus is easier. Ctrl is used for capturing; however, the keyboard documentation indicates that a Ctrl tag can be specified in key sequences when you edit the macro. The documentation also indicates that you can prompt for input at execution time (these options are described in the Help under Interface, Property editor). This isn't going to be a great application for free-drawing, since it doesn't record mouse movements, but it can and will record mouse events by relative position within a window. For example, to draw a line, you click and hold the mouse button, press Ctrl, which WILL capture the click position, drag the mouse to draw the line, press Ctrl again, which will capture the end position. When you've finished recording the macro, edit it, changing the start of line Click (default) to Press, the end of line Click to Release. I tried a quick test with MSPaint, and the File Open dialog box appeared to hang, but after the macro completed and I got Paint to respond, the file had opened; it may be because the File Open dialog is very slow on my system because of all the files in My Pictures, or there may be an incompatibility with MSPaint (someone noted a problem with IE7, which I haven't tested this on yet). Opening Paint and drawing a line worked fine.

#16, Josh ®, the Wait option on each step is how long MouseRobot waits for the interface to respond (as I interpret it); Options, Delay after each step, is how long MouseRobot delays before executing the next step. Because of the way MouseRobot apparently checks the UI during execution, it may be slower than macro recorders which don't.

I don't normally use macro recorders; I haven't spent much time with this, so I don't know everything that it can and can't do and how many bugs it has, but please make an effort to understand the giveaway before posting a bunch of negative comments, simply because you haven't bothered.

Hello all! Today's 15-Minute Review is up! Check it out!

http://www.bladedthoth.com/reviews/15mrs/mouserobot-v1-4-0-219/

I have installed and tried this program, creating a function for launching a program (clicking a window, entering 'username' and 'password', and pressing 'enter'), as I had previously done with AutoHotKey:

Pros:
- The screen capture of each step, for better visualization, is a very nice implementation;
- The created script actually works (I had problems lately with a new one created through AutoScriptWriter - recorder -, after changing a password in the launching process of my program).

Cons:
- Even when setting each step at 0 ms, execution time of the whole sequence is much faster with AutoHotkey;
- In Autohotkey, the scripts can be converted into executables (.exe), therefore you do not need the actual program to be launched, for your scripts to function (for example, putting a link to the .exe file in the computer Startmenu, which automatically launchs my program, enters username and password, at computer startup, without any user intervention - this has saved me the cost of buying a SmartCard for automating that same function, which the actual program requested me).

In future versions of the program, to allow more automated processes, the developpers should add the option to convert the scripts (.mrf files) into executables.

Ok, I down'd and installed[and activated for that matter]this in a jiff, so I figure I should try it out.

Thus, I decide to record a simple task(not as simple as #13's, you got bookmarks for that, y'know? :) ): go to start menu; hit "run"; punch in "mspaint"; hit "OK"; open up a jpg file; draw a line; save and exit. Simple? So you'd think!


First thing I didn't like: the way I had to manually go to the Mouse Robot window, insert new step, go back to whatever I was recording, insert, then repeat, because if you have to record a macro with more than 20 steps this could be very frustrating.

However, I moved past that, I made it to click on start, go to run, write mspaint, and click ok. Next step: open up a file. Well, woopsie-doo! It doesn't support simple key combinations like "Ctrl+O"(it does support Function keys, LOCK keys and such, but the lack of a basic key-combo can be the party-pooper). Ok, I say to myself, I'll just make it go to File and Open, instead.

I did so, and at the Open dialog, I stood in front of a dilemma: "If I open up a folder with 50+ images and I manually browse trough it, the open macro will not work, due to the fact that it depends on the location in the dialog. On the other hand, if I manually write the file name and then click open, I won't be able to do batch editing". Bummer, eh? Well, I decided that it wasn't worth thinking what to do for a simple test, so I just wrote in the name and made it open.

Ok, now to draw a line... uh-oh! Dilemma number 2: You can't make it to actually "draw" the pointer from point X to point Y. And since I wanted a curve line, I had to use the curve button instead of the pencil one. Cool, now to make it draw... What the hell? it won't click in the middle of the drawing area! Why? Because it doesn't rely on absolute position.

Ok, the heck with that, I'll just make it open then close the file. I did that, and when I try to run the macro, it manages to open Paint and go to the File menu but it fails to hit "Open"!

So, after those 15 minutes it was supposed to take an experienced Windows user to learn how to use Mouse Robot, I decided to uninstall it due to it's incapacity to do what it claimed to be able to do!

My vote? Thumbs down!

What got me to try this macro recorder was :

"MouseRobot does not record mouse moves. Instead, it analyzes the interface"
The convincing “movie” tutorial at the Mouse Robot website

So I installed it on my Home Vista machine and tested it with a "GAOTD" macro which opens the today download page.
I dicovered it crashes IE7 while I was creating the macro.
But it work well with FireFox, so:


Clic FireFox icon in QuickStart
Clic url field in FireFox
Key "http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/"
Clic Go button
Clic "Proceed to Download page" button in GAOTD home page


Here I am, in the today download and comments page. Just a couple of minutes to enter and test the macro with almost nothing to type (but the url) : everything is graphical.

Then, when I click my new "GAOTD" macro button, it displays the today download page four time faster than by hand, with only one clic.
Works as well when I've changed default size and position of FF windows.

I do not criticize AutoIt or such, I've tried it several times but never come to use it : I'm either not tech enough either not patient enough.

This MouseRobot is straightforward for me, and I get it without pain to do what I ask it to do : I "buy" it.

Thanks GAOTD and automationbox !

( Hope I'll manage a way to use it with IE7 )

#8 if your drawings are bitmaps you might wanna try out FastStone Photo Resizer which is freeware and can do batch image processing.
http://www.faststone.org/FSResizerDetail.htm

This program installed without a hitch, and took me about 10 minutes to figure out the basics. The main drawback I see is that it does not "record" user actions such as mouse clicks, but requires you to add each action to its list, one step at a time. This would become tedious and slow for a complex script. I would recommend instead freeware scripting utilities with broader functionality, such as AutoHotKey or AutoIt.

I hope this is helpful.

This is the best macro program I've since since the "remember the screen position" macro programs do not work. However.....

It's not ready for prime time yet. It's missing one thing (a quick start "show me" help topic or flash video) and instead of forcing me to make another windows toolbar to clutter up things, the author should put in a tray icon which lists the 'quick access' shortcuts. Maybe I'll look at this program again in the future.

Hmmm, I downloaded and tried this program.

this program compares itself to other macro recording programs. Hmm, other ones that i have tried actually 'record' mouse and keyboard actions. this program must be programmed with "every single action- one step at a time". The programming comes in the form of selecting the type of action then performing it [one action at a very slow pace at a time]. I tried this program for about 5 minutes-> till i figured out what it was all about! no thankyou.

I actually lost my copy of "macro recorder" that i got on here before [stolen computer]. Soon, i am going to have 1,000s of drawings to [change, crop, rotate, and resize] again!!! ouch again! I need my macro recorder back [simply records actions as i go]. Macro recorder is also good for becomming a "BOT" in chat rooms. 2 "BOTS" talkin back n forth about my cool products. hehe. Gosh- I guess i will probably buy it this time.

Watch the "movie" at the Mouse Robot website for a good introduction and some initial training. I downloaded (very small and quick) and installed the software. I followed the instructions for registration but on opening it was a trial version. I closed and reopened the program and then it was registered to GAOTD. It really does look like one can learn to use it satisfactorally in just a few minutes. One problem right off though is that my Start button is set to slide off the desktop when not in use and when you try to build a macro, your desktop is "locked" and you can't bring the Start button into play. So I will have to make the Start button visible at all times at least while I build the macros.

Thank for what looks like a useful tool, GOTD. I will test it shortly and report my preliminary findings.

As usual, there are freeware alternatives to this utility. However, instead of a pure mouse click recorder, you might want to consider scripting tools that add greater capabilities, such as AutoHotKey, AutoIt, or MacroMaker.

I hope this is helpful.

Looks pretty nifty. I've actually been wanting something like this for awhile. It seems more complex than I thought it'd be, but that's not a bad thing.

Thanks.

I prefer AutoHotkey

You can do all of the same things, and much, much, much, much more.

This is exactly what I was looking for yesterday, and I found this little tool called macro plus and it's open source and free on sourceforge and it's extremely tiny, no serial no registration and it's extremely easy to use. I'd recommend that over this because this comes with a lot of bulk features that are mostly unnecessary.

Sounds interesting - why does it have 70% thumbs down?

I suppose it's a useful little program somehow but i can't really find one :P I'm not a cheater in anything. :)