Additional scripting capabilities

This manual documents only the HoTMetaL PRO scripting extensions; you should also familiarize yourself with:

• The full scripting capabilities of the scripting language(s) that you use--in particular, the set of objects that these languages support.
• The Microsoft Scripting Run-time Library, a set of objects that extend the capabilities of JScript and VBScript. For example, for security reasons, these languages do not support reading and writing of files. This capability can be obtained from the FileSystemObject, which supports properties and methods for file system access. Here is a sample that shows how to copy a file using the CopyFile method:

  var fso = new ActiveXObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject");
  fso.CopyFile(paramFile,newParamFile);

  These objects are available if you have Internet Explorer 4 or 5 on your PC.

  For more information, see http://msdn.microsoft.com/scripting and follow the links, or search for Scripting Run-Time Reference.

• The Windows Scripting Host enables you to run Windows programs from a macro. This comes with Windows 98 and can be downloaded from http://msdn.microsoft.com/scripting/windowshost, where you will also find more documentation.

  Here's an example in JScript showing how to start a telnet session from HoTMetaL PRO. Using VBScript would be similar.

  <MACRO name="Telnet" lang="JScript">
    var WSHShell = new ActiveXObject("WScript.Shell");
    WSHShell.Run("telnet");
  </MACRO>

  Note that the program name that is given as an argument to Run() must be a short file name (one that follows the DOS `8.3' convention; the file extension can often be omitted).

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