Introduction

Javauto is an automation language, unique due to its ability to perform mouse clicks, simulate keyboard input, and perform pixel searches.

It compiles to executable code that runs on the JVM (Java Virtual Machine), so any program you write will be cross platform.

Keep reading for install instructions and code examples.

This getting started guide covers the first steps of learning Javauto. Check out the learn by example section for more topics and tutorials.

Linux, Windows and Mac Installation

In order to run and compile Javauto code you must have the most current JDK installed. If you have an older version of the JDK installed we advise updating to the newest version.

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Download the latest source release: Latest release (1.1.0)

Finally, to make sure it installed correctly run:

$ java -jar javauto.jar

You should see some output like:

Usage: javauto  
Options:
	-v	--verbose		compile in verbose mode
	-g	--generate		generate .java and .class files
	-gj	--generate-java		generate .java files
	-gc	--generate-class	generate .class files

Now it's installed.

Hello World

First you need to open a text editor that handles normal text. This could be Notepad, Notepad++, gedit, vim, emacs, nano, or whichever editor you would like to use -- as long as the editor saves in plain text format and not rich text format.

This Hello World program is going to be a little bit different from those of other languages. We're going to launch a message box, control the mouse, and print to the command line.

Either copy and paste or type the following into your text editor. Feel free to modify it and see what happens!

Go ahead and save this as hello.javauto

msgBox("Hello world, press okay.", "Hello World"); // show message
mouseMove(0,0); // move the mouse to 0, 0
print("All finished!"); // print to the command line

Now compile it using this command

$ java -jar javauto.jar hello.javauto

If you want to see all the steps the compiler is taking, you can run it with the verbose flag. This is especially useful when determining what has caused an error.

$ java -jar javauto.jar -v hello.javauto

Now that you have compiled your program, there will be a file called hello.jar, you can run this file either by double clicking it or invoking it from the command line:

$ java -jar hello.jar

Using the Helper

Download the latest source release: Latest release (1.0.0)

To launch the helper run $ java -jar javauto-helper.jar

This should launch a window that looks like this:

The Mouse Coordinates field is self explanatory, and the other fields will be covered in greater depth later on.

Sometimes it's useful to freeze the helper to keep the mouse coordinates that are on the screen, to do this press F8 while the cursor is in the mouse coordinates text field.

Colors

When working with colors you will usually want the integer value, however you can convert from an R,G,B format to a single integer format using rgbGetInt( int r, int g, int b ).

For instance, in the screenshot above, if you were to perform a pixel search for a pixel matching the one that the cursor is over you could do it in either of the two ways below.

int[] result = pixelSearch(-1317151);

int color = rgbGetInt(235, 230, 225);
int[] result = pixelSearch(color);

Or, if you know the coordinates of a pixel but need its color, you can use pixelGetColor( int x, int y)

For more on pixel searching, look at the documentation for pixelSearch


Key Integer Values

The helper can also be useful for determining the integer value of a key on the keyboard.

In the screenshot below, I pressed a while the cursor was inside the Pressed Key field.

This means that keyPress(65) is equivalent to keyPress("a").

This is helpful when you want to simulate the key press of a non standard key, such as Page Down or Insert.

Take a look at this special keys page for more on simulating non-standard key presses.

Simulating Mouse and Keyboard Input

The two most common functions we will use to control the mouse are mouseClick and mouseMove. We can also use functions such as mouseClickDrag, mouseUp, mouseDown, mouseScrollDown, or mouseScrollUp to control the mouse.

For keyboard input we will often use send and keyCombo. keyPress, keyUp, and keyDown are also available.

setSpeed is used to control how fast mouse and keyboard events occur.

Manipulating the Mouse

For the purposes of this example use the helper to find the coordinates of an object to click on.

In this case, the coordinates of the blue arrow to the left are ( 837, 287 ).

If we want a script that will click on this arrow we can try something like this:

mouseClick("left", 837, 287); // click the left mouse button at (837, 287)

Conversely, if we want to right click on the arrow we would use this:

mouseClick("right", 837, 287); // click the right mouse button at (837, 287)

If we just want to move the mouse cursor over this blue arrow we can try something like this:

mouseMove(837, 287); // move the mouse to (837, 287)

Note that we can set the speed that the mouse moves from point to point with setSpeed. The default speed is 95%. To get the current speed you can use getSpeed, so print(getSpeed()); by itself will output 0.95

If the speed is set to 100% (setSpeed(1.0)) mouse movements will take place instantly.

Simulating Keyboard Input

Simulating keyboard input is very simple, the below example will work exactly as if you're typing on your keyboard.

send("This command will type all this text and press enter{ENTER}"); // type some stuff and press enter

For this example we will create a blank text file and open it in our default editor so that you can easily see the keyboard input in action.

However, a text input field does not have to be in focus to use these commands; it is as if you are sitting at your computer pressing keys.

Go ahead and try running this example:

fileCreate("blanktext.txt"); // create a new text file
open("blanktext.txt"); // open our text file with the default program
sleep(1500);

send("This looks like it is being typed really really fast!"); // simulate some typing
send("{ENTER}"); // press enter
send("{TAB}This is an indented line.{ENTER}"); // press tab and then type some stuff

setSpeed(.75); // set the typing (and mouse movement) speed to 75%
send("This is being typed at 75% speed."); // type some more text

Running this example will reveal two important things to know about sending keyboard input:  the speed can be increased or decreased with setSpeed and there are strings such as "{ENTER}" that represent special keys.

Look at this list of special keys for more.

Now let's say we want to save this file. On many editors this can be done by pressing Ctrl + s.

We're going to use the keyCombo function for this one. We need to create a string array(String[]) where each indice is one of the keys in the combination. Based on the list of special keys we know that we can represent the Ctrl key with the string "{CTRL}". So we can define our key array as:

String[] keys = {"{CTRL}", "s"};

Then we can send this combination:

keyCombo(keys); // hold down CTRL, press s, release CTRL

Or if we want to do it with one line:

keyCombo( new String[] {"{CTRL}", "s"} );

Similarly, if we want to send Ctrl + Alt + Delete, we could use this:

keyCombo( new String[] {"{CTRL}", "{ALT}", "{DELETE}"} );

(keyCombo takes an array of any size)