Task Scheduler

Purpose:

This program is designed to run as a background process and start up programs at set times. It is scriptable so that the programs being started can be lightly automated with keypress information.

Programming:

Each day of the week is on a separate tab, and each day has an associated data grid. The data grids are sectioned as follows:

EXE Name:

Full path and program name and command line parameters passed in.

(e.g. c:\windows\notepad.exe myfile.txt)

Window Text:

The exact window title of the program you want to run. This is used to see if the program is already running. If it is, it won't be started up.

(e.g. NotePad)

Hour:

What hour (0 - 23) to start the program.

Min:

What min (0 - 59) to start the program.

You can prevent the auto-loading of any given program by setting either the hour or minute to an illegal value (e.g. 72 minutes, 25 hours, etc.) Otherwise the total reading is in 24 hour format; i.e. hour = 20 min = 30 is 8:30 pm.

Script:

A user controlled set of keypresses to execute automatically after a program starts can be specified here. See "Script Detail / Notes" below.

Program Startup:

Programs that are started by this program are given a 3 second "head start" to allow them to initialize prior to any script keypresses being sent.

Programs that are already started up will STILL get scripts sent to them. The Window Title is used to locate these already running programs.

Changing Data:

Data changes can be made at any time; when done just click the SAVE DATA button on the GENERAL tab. To erase an entry, simply delete the EXE NAME portion of it.

As above, you can leave an entry intact but force it to not execute by setting the hour or min settings to an illegal value (e.g. 25 hours, 87 minutes, etc.)

Keypress Script Details / Notes

Scripts use essentially the same syntax as the "sendkeys" function from Microsoft's VBA, using either literal keypresses or "bracket" codes as in the following tables. In addition the use of the SHIFT, ALT, and CTRL keys is supported. Each keystroke typically is separated with ( ; ) semicolons:

e.g. {TAB};{TAB};{%H)

(Press tab twice then press ALT-H.)

The semicolon also is where any delays take place as specified by the "script delay" spin box on the GENERAL tab. You can set this to anything from 0 - 3000 millisconds between keystrokes. Therefore if the above example was set to using 300 mSecs between keystrokes, this is what gets done:

(Press Tab, wait 300 mSce, press Tab, wait 300 mSec, Press ALT-H)

Note that you shouldn't try sending a semicolon as a literal in a string. The only place the semicolon should be used is AS THE DELIMITER/DELAY.

Note that it is not an absolute that the semicolon is used, nor is is absolute that it is used strictly between keystrokes. The semicolon is used to signal a delay. However, in actual practice you will want to separate the majority of keystrokes this way as you don't want to overrun the keyboard buffer.

An example of this is calling DOS and renaming a file as a scheduled item. The EXE Name might be

c:\command.com

and the script may look like

ren; ;xyz.txt; ;zulu.txt.

This would allow multiple keys between delays yet still not flood the buffer.

Code Tables: