Running scripts

Each script on the CoScripter website consists of a sequence of instructions. These scripts are designed to be easily readable, and if you like, you can simply follow the instructions yourself.

However, we also provide a extension for the Firefox web browser that can run scripts for you. Start by installing the CoScripter Firefox extension following the directions on the download page.

Loading a script into CoScripter

After installing the extension, each script page on the CoScripter website will have an additional button labeled "Open in Sidebar":

Clicking on this button causes the script you are reading to open in the CoScripter sidebar, which appears on the left side of your Firefox window.

You can click the Step button () to perform just one step at a time, or click the Run button () to run the entire script. The New button () lets you create a new script, and the Wiki button () takes you to the current script in the CoScripter wiki.

Stepping through a script

The first time you load a script into the CoScripter sidebar, you will probably want to step through it one step at a time, in order to see what it will do. For example, try loading this tutorial script into your sidebar: Getting started with CoScripter (open that link in a new window, then press the "Open in sidebar" button on that page).

Once the script is loaded in the sidebar, you can step through it using the Step button at the top of the sidebar. Press this button once, and the first instruction will execute (go to "http://www.google.com/"). Notice that the second step (click the "Images" link) is now highlighted in green in the sidebar.

If you look over on the web page, the Images link is now highlighted in green as well, showing you what CoScripter will do when you execute the next step:

Now you can click the Step button () again to execute the second step. CoScripter will automatically click on the "Images" link for you and advance to the third step. You can continue stepping until the script is finished.

Waiting for your input

If the current step has the word "you" in it, CoScripter assumes that it's intended for a human and will not execute it. Instead, CoScripter highlights the script step in red, instead of green, and stops, waiting for you to do something. When you're ready to continue, click the Run or the Step button, and CoScripter will move on to the next step.

If the current step has the word "your" in it, CoScripter assumes it's referring to an entry in your "Personal Data", in the bottom half of the sidebar. This is a nice way to make scripts that fill in different personal data for each user. See the Personal database page for more information about this feature.

Automatically running the script to completion

Sometimes you don't want to laboriously step through a script line by line, especially if you have run the script many times before and are confident that it will do the right thing. If you click the Run button (), CoScripter will automatically run the rest of the script for you, starting from the current step. The run will stop if CoScripter encounters a "you" instruction, or if it reaches the end of the script. You can also press the Stop button () to stop the script while it's running.

Skipping around in a script

If you want to replay a previous step or skip around to different parts of the script, click on a step, and it will become the current step. If you then click Step or Run, the script will start from that step. You can use this feature to skip over steps you don't want CoScripter to perform.