What calculates the Pixelchecksum? The CPU or the graphics card?

[chadj]

Hello AutoIt forum!

I work in the insurance industry and our office just upgraded to a paperless system. In the past, I have successfully used AutoIt for simple automation tasks. With this amateur background, I have an idea that should save my company a lot of money and earn me a very big raise if I can write a program that can collect information from sources like the internet, PDF, Excel spreadsheet, etc and then interact with 3 different software to update the information as appropriate. 

Based on my limited prior experience, I will be using pixelchecksum extensively to locate stuff and confirm actions have occurred. For example, to just get the program started, the icon on the desktop has a pixelchecksum value that can be calculated; once I know the icon's pixelchecksum value, I can repetitively search the desktop to find it no matter the desktop size or how many icons are on the desktop. We have 30+ people and I'm trying to think ahead to make this idiot proof.

I need help choosing the best laptop and, if I successfully complete this task, how to best equip the machines running the program. Are the pixelchecksums calculated using the main CPU or the graphics card? I need to know whether to buy an Intel i7 CPU with integrated graphics or should I buy an Intel i5 with Nvidia GTX 1060.

I haven't used the FastFind function but it might be useful and I would also like to know if the FastFind function uses the CPU or GPU. 

I'm guessing everything runs through the CPU but I searched the forums and I found this question has never been asked or answered.

Cheers,

ChadJ

[water]

I wouldn't rely on Pixel* functions when writing an application for my company.
As your boss I wouldn't allow such a script to be used in my company.
I would expect such an application to be as relyable as possible.

AutoIt comes with a lot of functions or UDFs to automate web sites, Excel and Controls of your companies software.

Planning is the key for a reliable application.
If you could provide more information about the sources and your companies software we might be able to help

 

[junkew]

In general we call this idea robotics. If you are not knowing more at the moment then pixelchecksum and want to buy a machine for just that you are most likely not on the right track.

Some directions if you want to build this with au3 scripts

• Excel udf
• Winhttp udf
• Faq31

And in some bank insurance companies its even prohibited to do this on production systems

[jchd]

This is yet another instance of the XY problem.

[chadj]

I found that people before me have created UDFs for the internet, Excel, etc and this is what has inspired me to attempt a more ambitious project. I can use their help files and examples to learn to extract information from public information websites, populate form fields in our software or a website, etc.

Regarding the input that I am likely not on the right track and am doing it wrong and how not to do it moving forward, etc: I'm the only person at my company with (limited) coding experience so there isn't a more experienced magician to tell me I did my trick the wrong way while they're watching a bunny hop out of my hat. Maybe it won't impress a C++ babe reviewing my code/script, but I already figured out how to complete 2 tasks start to finish and now I'm feeling clever enough to figure out whatever. AutoIt might not be the #1 best platform/language/etc for this but it seems capable enough and I've seen people here are pretty helpful fixing errors or providing examples/solutions. 

This is not noob fumbling through XY problem wasting your time. I asked if the AutoIt program executes my solution in the CPU or GPU because the info isn't provided in the help files or forum post history and I'm trying to be thoughtful and efficient with my money by picking optimal hardware. All the computers I have access to do not have discrete GPUs so I cannot easily find my own answer by running a test program on different machines and comparing the results. 

 

[jchd]

20 minutes ago, chadj said:

This is not noob fumbling through XY problem wasting your time.

Don't feel offended that way. The point is that you're running in the pixelsearch lane while there are most probably much more convenient ways to achieve the goal that we (I at least) suspect you're after and in a much, much safer way. I can't be 100% positive but I'd bet that you'll find that any 10-year old, low-end PC, will run the final solution successfully.

Mention of the XY problem is not for ridiculing people; it's just a prototype for expressing that someone is aiming at a really wrong target by not focusing on the actual task, but looking instead at the only convoluted/inapropriate solution he can see, mostly by some lack of experience.

Lack of experience is never a problem, unless people are unwilling to learn from sound advices/sources others provide.

Edited January 28, 2018 by jchd

[JLogan3o13]

@chadj as jchd pointed out, and as the others in this thread are trying to explain, this is a case of wanting to help you - with the limited coding experience you admit to having - create the best product. This forum is dedicated to helping people of all skill levels create and improve their scripts; we are not here to berate you for being new (we were all on day 1 at one point).

At the same time, you need to keep an open mind rather than being completely fixated on only one avenue to accomplish your task. You admit to having just begun coding, but have chosen a difficult and, realistically, horribly unreliable method of accomplishing anything as your first foray into scripting. I would suggest taking one task that you need to accomplish, explaining it in detail, and then allowing the members of this forum to direct you in the best way to reach your goals. Please be explicit in your detail; something like this:

Quote

I want to have users log into a website and download info

is going to lead to us having to pull teeth the get the information to help you. Alternatively, an explanation such as this:

Quote

I have users that need to log into an internal website and download info:

• We use IE exclusively in my company
• The internal website requires a login
• Once logged in the user needs to enter their name, the date, and the number of transactions they completed that day, and then click OK
• This action takes them to another page that has a box with data they need to copy out and paste into a shared Excel document.

is going to go a long way toward helping us help you

We look forward to an explanation of what you are trying to do, and what we can do to assist you in your venture. Please be prepared, too, to read the help files or examples you're provided with - knowing WHY things do what they do is the foundation of being able to script bigger, more impressive (and more lucrative for you) scripts in the future.

[junkew]

@chadj just provide more information with examples what you try to accomplish. AutoIt is an excellent language for what you want no reason to switch. Just to get things stable in 99% of the cases pixel or gdi functions are not the right choice.

As you gave an example for the icons of the desktop you can reach them with control* functions or more difficult with uia functions. Reading and writing excel is easiest with objcreate function or excel udf that wraps that functionality. Pdf files depends if pdf is protected if it is you need tesseract ocr functions.