From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from mailman by lists.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.33) id 1CDAs3-0004z2-U7 for qemu-devel@nongnu.org; Thu, 30 Sep 2004 20:01:59 -0400 Received: from exim by lists.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.33) id 1CDAs3-0004yn-6g for qemu-devel@nongnu.org; Thu, 30 Sep 2004 20:01:59 -0400 Received: from [199.232.76.173] (helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.33) id 1CDAs3-0004yk-3R for qemu-devel@nongnu.org; Thu, 30 Sep 2004 20:01:59 -0400 Received: from [216.254.0.203] (helo=mail3.speakeasy.net) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (TLSv1:DES-CBC3-SHA:168) (Exim 4.34) id 1CDAlU-0005mC-Qk for qemu-devel@nongnu.org; Thu, 30 Sep 2004 19:55:13 -0400 Received: from dsl081-088-222.lax1.dsl.speakeasy.net (HELO [192.168.111.2]) ([64.81.88.222]) (envelope-sender ) by mail3.speakeasy.net (qmail-ldap-1.03) with SMTP for ; 30 Sep 2004 23:55:09 -0000 From: "John R. Hogerhuis" Content-Type: text/plain Message-Id: <1096588555.10585.42.camel@aragorn> Mime-Version: 1.0 Date: Thu, 30 Sep 2004 16:55:55 -0700 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Subject: [Qemu-devel] QEMU feature idea: simple macros/scripting Reply-To: jhoger@pobox.com, qemu-devel@nongnu.org List-Id: qemu-devel.nongnu.org List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , To: qemu-devel@nongnu.org I have a suggestion for a feature for QEMU: Macros/Scripting. For the most part, on my machines Windows is a very manual labor intensive peripheral. I haven't moved to an open source accounting package yet, so I use Quickbooks. I use it to keep track of invoices and consulting hours. But every time I print an invoice between evolution and the virtual machine, copy name/address information between the two systems and print an invoice to file, ftp that file back over to Linux, convert it to pdf, and mail to my customer. I think if Windows under QEMU were scriptable, that I could take several steps out of my workflow (I imagine there are other ways I could automate it as well). So I think the FTP server addition for exchanging files, in concert with some way to actually record/playback typing at the keyboard and clicking the mouse would allow me to use Windows as a peripheral. Similarly for Windows only hardware (no Linux driver), one could utilize such a Mother of All Kludges. This would also be a real boon to testers since they could easily script out clicks and keypresses (so long as they can figure out a way to record "evidence" of a successful test... file showing up on disk, or maybe you allow screen captures at key points to be added to the script and viewed by a person to determine if the test was successful). You would probably want a way to stretch and shrink the amount of time it takes to run different parts of the script, since just playing back often won't work, but sometimes it does. I don't think VmWare does anything like this, so I believe it would be unique to QEMU. Probably too early to add this high level feature, stability and speed first as always, but something to cogitate on for the future. -- John.