New Actions


Check If Host Exists Action

Query a DNS server to determine if a host exists.

SecureZIP Actions

Perform archive operations using the SecureZIP Command Line Interface (CLI).

Hyper V Actions

Control virtual machines hosted on a Microsoft Hyper V Server with the new Hyper V actions.

SSH Actions

With the new SSH actions, you can connect to an SSH server and execute standard SSH commands.

XML Node Exists

Check if the node specified by an XPath exists in an XML document.

Core Improvements

Unicode Support

Automise is now compiled with a unicode aware compiler. The native internal string type is UTF16, and all actions that work with files respect the original files encoding. The user interface also supports unicode. Note that while Automise may support unicode, many of the tools it calls do not.

Variable Types

In Automise 3 and earlier, all Automise variables are implemented as variants - a variable that can store values of various types. Variants are very useful in many cases, but are not without their problems. For example, if you want to store a string "03" in a variant, you will have to put the double quotes around the 03, otherwise we have no idea it's not a number. Automise 4 allows you to choose a variable type from the following:

  • Variant
  • String
  • Integer
  • Float
  • Boolean
  • DateTime

When you specify a variable type, that is how the variable will be treated. Typed variables also allow you to specify a format string, which will be used when the variable is evaluated in an expression.

Local Variables

In addition to the existing variable scopes (environment, application,user, project) and action list parameters, Automise 4 now offers a local variable scope. The Action Group Action has a new property page that allows you to define the local variables. Local variables are only visible to child actions of the action group. Since groups can be nested, this provides the ability to override variables locally, and define variables for temporary use.

IDE Redesign

Open Multiple Projects

Unlike previous version of Automise where only one project could be open in the IDE at any one time, Automise 4 allows multiple projects to be open.

Dockable

The new IDE also support docking so you can lay out the IDE to suite your taste.

Variable Reference Renaming

When you rename a variable in Automise, it will find references to that variable and rename those also.