A beginning beginner's question about input, output and . . .

[2QdxY4RzWzUUiLuE at potatochowder.com]

On 2021-01-16 at 15:42:44 -0500,
DonK <don81846 at comcast.net.invalid> wrote:

> Yes, Windows. Iterating open windows with the Window's API is easy the
> hard (very hard) part is sending keystrokes to those windows to Save
> them. It's very tricky because the timing is critical. 
> 
> You have to use one of those "spy" utilities to get the name and
> classid for the controls that you want to send a command to, then use
> the Window's API functions SendMessage or PostMessage to send the
> message directly to the control or just put it in the message que.
>  
> Like sending an "s" to the File menu to (S)ave. It's more complicated
> than you would think and it doesn't work very well. It's like pushing
> on a string. 

Then don't do that?  ;-)

I'm no Windows expert (nor even a user), but do those applications have
a scripting interface?  (DDE?  OLE?  COM?  Do those letters ring a bell?
The right bell?  Are those technologies current?)  What you're trying to
do sounds like working *against* those applications rather than with
them.

> For example, I've found a need to parse text documents quite a number
> of times over the years. Basic/VB is great at doing that. How's
> Python?

Python can do that.  Can you expand on "parse" and "text documents"?