Workspace “commands” howto
Thursday, March 30th, 2006The new Workspace panel introduced a new set of features.
One of them is the new “execute command”, which is rather different from the “user toolset” of the SEPY main menu.
Once you’ve created a new command, using “add->New Command” contextual menu within the workspace panel you will see a dialog like this (click to enlarge image):
How it works:
- name : how this item will be shown in the project tree
- command: the shell command name wich sepy will invoke (usually an .exe of .bat program)
- arguments: which arguments to be passed to the command
- start in: before invoking that command, sepy will change the current directory to the one given here (usually the same folder of the .exe file)
- run in: where display the command results (current document, new console, no console)
NB: Both “arguments” and “start in” textfields accept special arguments:
%(P)s: Directory path of the active project
%(p)s: Path of the active project
%(F)s: Directory Path of the active document
%(f)s: Path of the active document
%(ask:NAME:DEFAULT): Prompt before running command
Added in RC20:
%(ask:NAME:BROWSE_FILE): Prompt a file browse when command is run
%(ask:NAME:BROWSE_DIR): Prompt a directory browse when command is run
The last special argument is particular useful when you need to pass different arguments every time you want to run that command. In fact you will be prompted to insert the arguments before the command will be executed.
An example of what you will see, after defining in the argument field a string like this:
-V %(ask:extra arguments:simple) “%(ask:source:BROWSE_FILE)” “%(ask:destination:BROWSE_FILE)”
P.S. I’ve also put together a couple of real life examples on how to use the new run command.
1. Run from the workspace panel: http://www.sephiroth.it/_temp/captivate/as2api/
2. Run from the user tools: http://www.sephiroth.it/_temp/captivate/swfmill/

In the latest build I’ve added 2 new features.
The second addition can be found at the bottom of “Insert menu”.