System aXs Advanced Access Strings

This is for the more advanced users amongst you.

The Acc string in System aXs can be used to launch web sites, documents and applications as well as giving you direct access to the ShellExecute command.

But you can do a lot more than that by using batch files.

A batch file is a text file with the .bat extension that can be used to perform a sequence of tasks.

It can also handle any Run strings that you might be struggling to covert to System aXs.

Once you've created a bat file, you can use the 'Browse for Document' feature to add it as your Acc line for an entry.

We'll work through an example...

First we need to create a new bat file.

Run System aXs and use the button in the Data tab to open up your working directory and to see your data files.

Now this bit is optional, but creating a new folder in which to store all your bat files will keep things tidy.

Right-Click in the window to bring up the pop-up menu and then select New, Folder and rename it to Batch.

Now go inside the new batch folder and right-click New / Text file.

And rename it to something that describes its operation - in this case desktop.bat

Note that you will be warned about changing the file type - Just select [Yes] to complete the renaming.

Now we have an empty batch file.

Right-click on it and select Edit from the pop-up menu.

And here it is in notepad with a couple of lines added...

The main command in this example is 'control desktop'.

The last command should always be 'exit' as this will close the command prompt that will appear momentarily.

Once your text has been saved, you can test the batch file by opening it.

This example will open up the Display Properties dialogue of your computer.

Now we know that it's working, we need to point to it.

Here we've created a new entry called 'Display' and right-clicked on the 'Acc' input field to get the pop-up menu.

Then we select the 'Browse for Document' option and have found our desktop.bat file which we [Open]

The complete Acc string can be seen as Hint text below when we hover over the entry.

Finally - It can be accessed using the button on the Find tab.

Have fun experimenting, but remember that the batch file is a very powerful tool and can do a lot of damage in the wrong hands.

I would avoid file based commands such as Del or Format !