I want to write something that will run apps in succession.

For example, you'd click on the app icon, and it would start up one application, have questions alert the user to add a file to do something in that program, run that program & finish. Then open up another program to take that file and prompt the user to do something else with it, and so on.

Basically I have a friend who needs an auto, completely easy interface to accomplish certain tasks that require multiple application steps to perform.

I don't have any programming experience but want to learn if needbe.

Thanks!

-sbc

Greetings!

Depending on what combination of Operating System & applications you're thinking about, you have two options;

1) Macro Recorder
Lots of applications will "Recored" you doing a sequence of events within a GUI. The list of applications available for this will strictly depend on what Operating System you're running. This might help automate something like "Rip & Burn a DVD".

2) Shell scripting; Command-Line interface stuff (if the apps support it)
Shell's like bash, ksh, or just plain sh have a built in scripting language. Basically you would stuff a bunch of commands into a file and make it executable. However, depending on what Operating System you're running, some or all of those shells may not be available. Which leads me to;

3) PERL programming.
An "interpreted" rather than "compiled" programming language.

I'm really thinking you want Option number one.

Good Luck!

P.S: If this helps, click the "Thanks" button on the bottom right-hand corner of my post.

1 members found this post helpful.

I am running Ubuntu 10.04. I will search for some Macro Recording programs..that's so cool!!! Any you recommend? If not, no problem I will search

I was a big fan of JW_Record_Playback. Give it a shot.

Have fun!

Actually, Perl is compiled-on-the-fly http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perl (Implementation section), so it's a lot(!) faster than a true interpreted lang like shell, but not quite as fast as a 'pure' compiled lang like C.
Hope that's clear as mud

@chrism01
Thanks for the clarification. I was trying to point out the distinctions between languages that most people classify as "scripting, versus other "programming" languages (like C, C++, FORTRAN, etc).
(Hence my abuse of double-quotes).

The last question I have is will these "recorder" programs work if one process needs to finish on one program, then when it finishes, another program can open and start another process, and so on and so forth. (ie: does it know to wait until one program finishes its process before taking that file and starting another process with the new file?).

Thats all

Thanks again!

It "records" your actions. So hit the record button, do everything you have to do (including any waiting, etc). Then hit stop.

You'll get a better feel for what it's capable of if you would just visit the site and watch the video they have right on the front page....