Automise is a Windows automation tool for system administrators and IT professionals that reduces the need for writing script to empower anyone to automate Windows. Automate with Automise to free yourself from repetitive tasks and provide faster, more reliable and consistent results. With Automise it's easy to create and maintain an automation project with drag-and-drop in its graphical interface. Once finished, anyone can run a project with a single click, keystroke or automatically on a schedule and save time with the power to run tasks automatically.
Updates in 4.0
IDE Changes
The new IDE allows multiple projects to be opened for editing (as opposed to Automise 3 which only allows a single project to be opened at a time). To complement this feature the new IDE includes docking which will allow you to re-arrange the tabs to your taste. A number of other improvements have been made throughout the IDE to improve the experience of creating and maintaining your Automise projects. These improvements include:
Improvements To Variable Manipulation
Automise 4 allows you to cut, copy and paste variables. Multiple variables can be cut, copied or pasted in a single operation when using the Variable Editor Dialog. When editing variables from the Project Tree, you can only cut and copy single variables at a time, however you can copy a group (containing multiple variables from the tree) and paste multiple variables at once using the project tree.
Variable Renaming Support
In Automise 4 when you rename a variable, all references to the old variable name will be updated, to save you digging through your project in an attempt to find where you used your variable.
Remove Unused Project Variables
Automise 4 will allow you to remove any project variables that are not referenced throughout your project.
Core Changes
A number of changes went into the Automise Core for version 4. These changes will affect both the Automise IDE and ATCMD.
Unicode Support
Automise is now compiled with a Unicode aware compiler. This was a big change which now allows Automise to support Unicode formats. You may notice that some of the text file actions now include options to specify the encoding to be used when creating the file, this was previously not possible with Automise.
Variable Types
In previous versions of Automise all variables were implemented as variants, which are a flexible type that allow you to store value of various types. In most cases variants are sufficient, but in some cases they are not so practical. For instance if you wanted to store a string "03" in a variant, you need to wrap the value in quotes otherwise the value will be interpreted as a number and next time the value is retrieved, Automise will get 3 (rather than 03). In Automise 4 you can specify a type for a variable for those cases where you want a specific data type to be used.
When a typed variable is created, you also have the option to also provide a format string. This can be used to ensure that whenever a specific variable is retrieved it will be in the desired format. Say you had a variable of type integer that you always wanted to padded to 4 digits, setting the format string to %.4d would allow this.
Local Variables
Automise 4 introduces local variables which allow you to create a variable for temporary use. Local variables are ideal for situations where you only need a variable to store data for a small operation of a few actions. The Action Group action has an additional property page that allows you to define local variables. Any variables you define for a particular Action Group can only be referenced by the child actions of the action group. Local Variables are designed for temporary use only and cannot be persisted or used as environment variables.
New Actions
The following new actions are included for the initial release of Automise 4:
- FTPS Actions - Perform FTPS operations
- EC2 Actions - Manage EC2 instances from Automise
- Secure ZIP Actions - Archive files using 256-bit AES encryption
- Hyper V Actions - Manage your Hyper V virtual machines
- SSH Actions - Run SSH Commands
- WBAdmin Actions - Perform advanced backup and recovery operations
- FTP Mirror Action - Mirror files and directory structure from local directory to FTP server or vice versa. Also provides the option to overwrite files that exist in both source and destination based on file size, file date and file CRC (where FTP server supports CRC)
- Exit Loop Action - Exit out of a loop action before the loop condition is satisfied
- XML Node Exists Action - Check whether a node exists in an XML document
- Improvements to CD/Burning/Imaging Actions - Changes to CD Burning/ ISO actions to provide full Unicode support
About VSoft Technologies
VSoft Technologies is passionate about software - especially about creating something that is easy to use, very powerful, and which their customers just love. The company has been in business since 1996, and in that time has developed two great automation products based on the same proven technology. If you are a software developer, FinalBuilder will help you get that product onto the market by automating your build processes. For other IT Professionals, Automise can free you from repetitive tasks and make them faster and more reliable through the power of visual Windows automation.
