How to slow down computer interaction (i.e. global "sleep")

[leuce]

Hello everyone

Today I tried to run a script that I wrote many, many years ago, and the script was too "fast" for the windows and menus that it tried to interact with.  Only by adding "sleep (100)" after every interaction could I make the script work.  I suspect I'd have to update my other scripts as well, but instead of adding "sleep (100)" after every instruction, is there a way to globally slow down either the entire the script's execution or (preferably) all of the interactions?

Note that I don't need this "slowing down" for debugging purposes.  I say "slow down" but I strictly speaking I should say that what I want is a slight pause after every action that interacts with menus, dialogs or windows.

Thanks

Samuel

 

[guinness]

Well do you wait for a window to exist before interacting with it? Or a control for example? I hope you don't wait on good faith by applying a generic 2 second sleep, as not all windows will load with a common time frame. If you want better advice show us your code or provide a way you would do it. Then I can show you how you should do it.

[leuce]

Well do you wait for a window to exist before interacting with it? Or a control for example? I hope you don't wait on good faith by applying a generic 2 second sleep, as not all windows will load with a common time frame. If you want better advice show us your code or provide a way you would do it. Then I can show you how you should do it.

As a matter of fact, I do not check for the existence of controls before interacting with them, primarily because not all controls can be seen by AutoIt (even though AutoIt can send keystrokes to them). An example would be a Java application -- I can send Alt+F to open the "File" menu, but I can't detect if the File menu has actually opened or not.  These days, I always add many sleeps to my scripts, but the script I had the question about was one of my first scripts that I never thought I'd find a use for again (but I did).

Unfortunately I can't remember which of my scripts prompted this question, but it's easy to write something that shows it:

Send ("!p") ; opens the Project menu
Send ("{DOWN 4}") ; go to the Recent Projects submenu
Send ("{RIGHT}") ; go to the first item on the Recent Projects submenu
Send ("{ENTER}") ; opens the first item on the Recent Projects submenu
Sleep ("200")
Send ("{ESC}") ; closes the confirmation dialog
Send ("!p") ; opens the Project menu again
Send ("p") ; opens the Project Properties dialog
; etc

On my previous computer, either the script was executed more slowly or the program that it interacted with was faster.  So I was hoping that there is a magical line of code that I can add to the start of the script to slow it down globally.

Such a function would be useful to me anyway, because I sometimes need a script to work slower, or sometimes I realise that a script could actually work faster than the sleeps in it and still accomplish its task correctly, and adding/updating/removing all the sleeps is quite a chore.

Thanks

Samuel

 

[mLipok]

Opt("SendKeyDelay", 5) ;5 milliseconds
Opt("SendKeyDownDelay", 1) ;1 millisecond

you can also look:

Opt("WinWaitDelay", 250) ;250 milliseconds
Opt("MouseClickDelay", 10) ;10 milliseconds
Opt("MouseClickDownDelay", 10) ;10 milliseconds
Opt("MouseClickDragDelay", 250) ;250 milliseconds

 

[leuce]

Thanks, mLipok, I think that's it!

[jchd]

You can also try launching a dozen instances of Prime95 as it will help the math community as well. Remember to keep fire hose near PC.