Runs the program, application, or document specified. If a document is specified, the application associated with the document will be used to open it. Commonly used to start an application or open a document. This action has built in conveniences such as waiting for the application to be ready for input (finished loading) before moving on to the next step. The properties dialog box has a built in Start menu for easy selection of the application.
Declaration
<AMRUN FILE="text" DEFAULTFOLDER="text" PROCESSIDVARIABLE="text" WAITFORINPUT="YES/NO" WAITFOREND="YES/NO" OUTPUTVARIABLE="text" OUTPUTFILE="text" OVERWRITEOUTPUTFILE="YES/NO" TERMINATEAFTERTIMEOUT="YES/NO" TERMINATEAFTERTIMEOUTLENGTH="number" TERMINATEAFTERTIMEOUTSCALE="test (options)" RESULTVARIABLE="text" WINDOWSTARTUP="text (options)" SINGLEINSTANCE="YES/NO" DOS="YES/NO" RESULTDATASET="text" />
Example
Run Adobe Photoshop:
<AMRUN FILE=""C:\Program Files (x86)\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop CS3\Photoshop.exe" " PROCESSIDVARIABLE="processID" WINDOWTITLEVARIABLE="theTitle" WINDOWSTARTUP="minimized" SINGLEINSTANCE="YES" RESULTDATASET="theDataset" />
See Also
Change Printer,Empty Recycle Bin, End Process, Get Process Information, Get Volume Information, Log Event, Print, Registry, Set Date and Time
|
Property |
Type |
Required |
Default |
Markup |
Description |
|
Run |
Text |
Yes |
(Empty) |
a)FILE="C:\WINNT\system32 \NOTEPAD.EXE" b)FILE="NOTEPAD.EXE" |
The command line to run. This parameter should specify the full path and file name to the EXE, COM, BAT, or CMD file you want to run. To specify a document, use Browse or Start menu emulator and select the document. The properly formatted command line including the associated application for the document will be automatically built. NOTE: For easy navigation, click Start. |
|
Run only if another instance is not running |
Yes/No |
No |
No |
SINGLEINSTANCE="YES" |
If set to YES, specifies that the program specified on the Run parameter should not be run if another instance of it is already running on the current system. If another instance is running when this option is enabled, the step will be ignored and it will not generate an error. If set to NO (default), the specified program will run despite other running instances. |
|
Initial Window State
|
Text (options) |
No |
Normal |
WINDOWSTARTUP="minimized" |
The state that the application's window should be set to at startup. The available options are:
|
|
Startup Folder |
Text |
No |
(Folder of the program specified in Run) |
DEFAULTFOLDER= "C:\Program Files\Network Automation\AutoMate 8\" |
Certain applications require a startup folder. This option is not required and is available primarily for legacy (older) applications. When not specified, the folder that the application resides in is used. |
|
Property |
Type |
Required |
Default |
Markup |
Description |
|
Do not wait |
Yes/No |
No |
No |
WAITFORINPUT="NO" |
If set to YES, the step will not wait until the application is finished loading. Selecting this option could result in the task moving to the next line too early which would cause any interactive steps to be sent into nothing. This parameter is set to NO by default. If the Wait until application completes parameter is set to YES then this parameter is ignored. |
|
Wait until application is ready for input |
Yes/No |
No |
Yes |
WAITFORINPUT="NO" |
If set to YES (default), the step will wait until the application is finished loading and is ready to receive input. Setting this parameter to NO could result in the task moving to the next line too early which would cause any interactivity steps to be sent into nothing (because the application would not be loaded yet). If the Wait until application completes parameter is set to YES then this parameter is ignored. NOTE: DOS applications, batch files, and certain console applications may not function correctly with this parameter set to YES because such applications do not support standard Windows event messaging that enables this kind of integration. For these applications, you may need to use a Pause action or other method of waiting for the application to be ready for input. |
|
Wait until application completes |
Yes/No |
No |
No |
WAITFOREND="YES" |
If set to YES, the step should wait until after the application has either closed itself (in the case of batch files, scripts, or console applications) or is closed by the user (in the case of Windows applications). |
|
Populate variable with return code |
Text |
No |
(Empty) |
RETURNCODEVARIABLE="code" |
Specifies an already existing variable to be populated with the application-provided return code. This parameter is only available if the Wait until application completes parameter is set to YES. Not all applications use return codes, so the functionality of this action may vary depending on the application. |
|
Terminate process after |
Yes/No |
No |
No |
TERMINATEAFTERTIMEOUT="YES" |
If set to YES, the running process will be terminated within the specified amount of time. This parameter is set to NO by default. |
|
Property |
Type |
Required |
Default |
Markup |
Description |
|
Populate variable with process ID |
Text |
No |
(Empty) |
ROCESSIDVARIABLE="ID" |
If enabled, specifies an already existing variable to be populated with the application's process ID. |
|
Create and Populate Dataset |
Text |
No |
(Empty) |
RESULTDATASET="myDataset" |
If enabled, specifies the name of a dataset to be created and populated with data from the window of the application that was run. More information about the dataset that this action creates can be found below. |
|
Populate variable with window class |
Text |
No |
(Empty) |
WINDOWCLASSVARIABLE="myvar" |
If enabled, specifies an already existing variable to be populated with the window class of the application that is launched. This parameter is available only if the Wait until application is ready for input parameter is set to YES. |
|
Populate variable with window handle |
Text |
No |
(Empty) |
WINDOWHANDLEVARIABLE="handle" |
If enabled, specifies an already existing variable to be populated with the window handle of the application that is launched. This parameter is available only if the Wait until application is ready for input parameter is set to YES. |
|
Populate variable with window title |
Text |
No |
(Empty) |
WINDOWTITLEVARIABLE="title" |
If enabled, specifies an already existing variable to be populated with the window title of the application that is launched. This parameter is available only if the Wait until application is ready for input parameter is set to YES. |
|
Property |
Type |
Required |
Default |
Markup |
Description |
|
Run application as |
Yes/No |
No |
No |
DOS="YES" |
Specifies whether a standard Windows application, document or console application is being launched. The available drop-down options are:
|
|
Capture output and populate variable |
Text |
No |
(Empty) |
OUTPUTVARIABLE="theVariable" |
If enabled, specifies an already existing variable to be populated with the console output. Valid only if Run application as is set to Console application. NOTE: The Console output settings have no effect unless the Wait for application to complete option is enabled in the Wait properties. |
|
Capture output and write to file
|
Text |
No |
(Empty) |
OUTPUTFILE="C:\Temp\filename.txt |
If enabled, specifies a file to which the console output should be written. Valid only if Run application as is set to Console application. NOTE: The Console output settings have no effect unless the Wait for application to complete option is enabled in the Wait properties. |
|
Overwrite if file already exists |
Yes/No |
No |
No |
OVERWRITEOUTPUTFILE="YES" |
If set to YES, specifies that if the file being written to already exists, it will be overwritten. If set to NO (default) and the file already exists, the step will fail. |
The Description tab allows you to customize the text description of any step as it appears in the Task Builder's Steps Pane.
More on setting custom step description
The Error Causes tab allows you to select/omit specific errors that should cause a particular step to fail.
More on Error Causes properties
The On Error tab allows you to determine what the task should do if a particular step encounters an error.
More about On Error properties
A dataset is a multiple column, multiple row container object. This activity creates and populates a dataset containing a specific set of fields in addition to the standard dataset fields. The table below describes these fields (assuming the dataset name assigned was theDataset).
|
Name |
Type |
Return Value |
|
theDataset.Title |
Text |
Returns the window title. |
|
theDataset.Class |
Text |
Returns the window title class. |
|
theDataset.Handle |
Text |
Returns the window handle. |
|
theDataset.ProdcessID |
Text |
Returns the process ID. |
|
theDataset.ReturnCode |
Number |
Returns the Return Code. |
All text fields allow the use of expressions, which can be entered by surrounding the expression in percentage signs (example: %MYVARIABLE%, % Left('Text',2)%). To help construct these expressions, you can open Expression Builder from these fields by pressing F2.