# Automated filling-in of external Windows application fields ...?

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/automated-filling-in-of-external-windows-application-fields/144770>\
**Category:** Ruby\
**Created:** [August 1, 2008, 10:06pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/automated-filling-in-of-external-windows-application-fields/144770 "2008-08-01T22:06:58Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Axel\_E](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/a/7c8e57/32.png) [@Axel\_E](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Axel_E)\
**Post date:** [August 1, 2008, 10:06pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/automated-filling-in-of-external-windows-application-fields/144770/1 "2008-08-01T22:06:58Z")

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Dear all,

I have around 50 files which I need to open in an external (Windows)  
program, one after the other.  
As each of them is about 100 MB larger, I’d like to automate the  
process.  
The external application contains some data which are needed for the  
processing which I cannot  
reproduce in another easy way.  
I am not really familiar with coding in Windows, and I unfortunately do  
not know which GUI  
was used to produce the external application I am using – it seems that  
it was developed quite some time ago, in Delphi,  
for Win95/NT, but still runs nicely on my Windows Vista Ultimate 32 bit  
machine.  
Is there a way, using Ruby, to get names of textfields and or other  
widgets of a GUI application on Windows ?  
Could you provide an example on how to scrape Windows applications …?

Thank you very much,

Best regards,

Axel

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Axel\_E](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/a/7c8e57/32.png) [@Axel\_E](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Axel_E)\
**Post date:** [August 1, 2008, 10:47pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/automated-filling-in-of-external-windows-application-fields/144770/2 "2008-08-01T22:47:22Z")

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Axel E. wrote:

> Dear all,
> 
> I have around 50 files which I need to open in an external (Windows) program, one after the other.  
> As each of them is about 100 MB larger, I’d like to automate the process.  
> The external application contains some data which are needed for the processing which I cannot  
> reproduce in another easy way.

Look at AutoItX, and google around for using the COM interface with  
Win32OLE for scripting via Ruby.

–  
James B.

[www.happycamperstudios.com](http://www.happycamperstudios.com) - Wicked Cool Coding  
[www.jamesbritt.com](http://www.jamesbritt.com) - Playing with Better Toys  
[www.ruby-doc.org](http://www.ruby-doc.org) - Ruby Help & Documentation  
[www.rubystuff.com](http://www.rubystuff.com) - The Ruby Store for Ruby Stuff

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Axel\_E](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/a/7c8e57/32.png) [@Axel\_E](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Axel_E)\
**Post date:** [August 2, 2008, 8:40am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/automated-filling-in-of-external-windows-application-fields/144770/3 "2008-08-02T08:40:53Z")

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On Aug 1, 2008, at 1:45 PM, James B. wrote:

> [www.ruby-doc.org](http://www.ruby-doc.org) - Ruby Help & Documentation  
> [www.rubystuff.com](http://www.rubystuff.com) - The Ruby Store for Ruby Stuff

You might also consider using JRuby with Java’s Robot class. I used it  
to automate GUI integration/story testing against Monkeybars, but it  
wasn’t well suited for a test environment per se. However, it’ll do  
just about everything that AutoIt can do. So it really comes down to  
which has a better API for your needs. I haven’t used AutoIt with Ruby  
before, but Robot is a really easy class to use.

JRuby:  
[http://jruby.codehaus.org/](http://jruby.codehaus.org/)  
Robot class (built into Java):

> **[JDK 20 Documentation - Home](https://docs.oracle.com/en/java/javase/20/)**
>
> The documentation for JDK 20 includes developer guides, API documentation, and release notes.