BA-AUTO
=======

About
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BA-AUTO is a simple input event automation utility for the Windows
operating system. BA-AUTO can record a sequence of input events to a
file, as well as play back a sequence of input events read from a file.

History
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I recall 2006 as a pivotal year when I ingrained my determination to
progress my programming skill. In particular, some time between December
10, 2006, and January 1, 2007, I made a personal commitment to
self-actualize a general-purpose input event automation utility.

I had discovered a programming language called AutoIt in the second half
of 2006 which featured a BASIC dialect that allowed me develop Windows
GUI applications. At the time, I had very little programming experience
-- some Windows BATCH scripting, TI-BASIC, and possibly tidbits of
Javascript, Perl, and PHP experience; AutoIt provided me a way top
develop applications which looked as behaved like modern programs, so I
was naturally eager to learn.

However, being a young teenager, self-taught script kiddie, and
essentially a code monkey n00b, I would frequently ask for assistance
on online forums and message board. My quite obvious inexperience was
apparent to the more veteran programmers, who would graciously guide or
fiercely flame me in my eyes.

One day near the end of 2006 I had an idea for a general-purpose input
event automation utility (which I named "BA-AUTO" after my then online
pseudonym "BA-LA"). I posted several help requests (most within a 2-day
period) on the main AutoIt forum regarding various issues I encountered
while attempting to develop BA-AUTO. My troubles ranged from how to
detect events to understanding the concept of arrays; it was apparent
that I was grossly inexperienced.

One of the veteran programmers sent me a private message, after noticing
my frequent forum posts request solutions to trivial programming tasks,
urging me to give up on my BA-AUTO program. "It's just not going to
happen," I recall the private message stating. Although now I understand
that the veteran programmer was not trying to be mean-spirited, at the
time I felt very angry at the notion: it irked me that someone would say
I could not achieve what I wanted.

However, the veteran programmer was correct: I required a linked-list in
order to dynamically store input events as I had originally envisioned
for looping -- and I was no way near the programming skill level to
grasp the concept of a linked-list (I could barely understand static
arrays at the time). So after about a year of development, I only had a
clunky mouse event automation program and a clunky keyboard event
automation program, neither of which fully performed as the
general-purpose input event automation utility I had originally
envisioned.

Despite not completing BA-AUTO by the end of 2007, I promised myself
that I would some day prove that veteran programmer wrong and complete
BA-AUTO as a valid general-purpose input event automation utility. In
April, 2017, I remembered my promise to myself and -- now that I have
more than adequate programming experience and skill -- completed BA-AUTO
to my satisfaction on April 17, 2017.

Licensing
---------

BA-AUTO is released under the BSD 2-clause "Simplified" License.

See the file LICENSE for copying conditions.

Contact
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William Breathitt Gray <[email protected]>