A basic example is to open your favorite web browser and a website of your choosing. All that it takes to record the task is to press the record button in the WinParrot interface. If this is a new task you need to select a save location for the information. You then begin to click on the browser icon in your taskbar, wait until it opens up, click in the address bar and enter the website that you want to visit. A click on stop ends the recording.

Now you can play back the recording whenever you want to open the web browser and visit that website again.

While it is possible to use WinParrot for simple tasks like this, it is probably more suitable for test environments and data entry jobs. Say you are working on a website and need to run some compatibility tests. Instead of having to run those tests manually, you could use the software to run the tests for you so that you can concentrate on the outcome.

The developer has posted two example videos on YouTube. Here is one of them demonstrating automatic Oracle Applications 11i and 12i data loading.

The program uses screenshots to record the tasks, which means that you need to work a bit slower than usual so that all actions get recorded by WinParrot.

The program interface displays all screenshots that it has taken and their corresponding actions. Here it is possible to move, delete or copy actions if necessary. It is furthermore possible to disable actions, handy if you only want to run a specific part of a recording and not all of it.

WinParrot is a handy program for Windows users who want to automate tasks on their operating system. Macros can be scheduled using the command line, a basic example would be the following:

'C:\winparrot\bin\winparrot.exe C:\winparrot\macro\mymacro.wpr /play'

Windows users can download the latest version of WinParrot from the developer website. New users should take a look at the excellent online help to get accustomed to the application.

Instance Controlling, that’s the official name of the first function prevents that more than x instances of a program are running on a system. If another instance of a program is started that exceeds the defined value that instance will be closed immediately. This can be extremely useful if you are working with applications that spawn other applications from time to time. I was not able to come up with an application yet that has such a behavior, maybe Internet Explorer.

An interesting aspect is that you can only pick an application that you want to add from the list of running processes which means that the application has to be running to be added to the list. The number of instances that can be run simultaneously is not limited.

Another possible use for this function would be if you happen to start programs multiple times from time to time.

The second function might prove to be better suited for a lot of users. It is a list of applications that the user wants to run all the time on his computer. It scans the processes constantly and if it detects that a process has been terminated that is in the list it will restart the application.

Control Running Programs requires the .net framework 2.0 or higher but does not seem to have any other limitations.