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To some extent, they have. Specifically, they have built their own feature for automating creating lists (and record loading and output): Millennium Load Scheduler. And they'll be happy to sell that to you ... for tens of thousands of dollars. We too rely heavily on Expect-created lists, so we're hoping to move ahead with Scheduler despite its steep cost. As far as tools for automating other functions are concerned, I haven't seen any indication that Innovative is doing anything. But I certainly could have missed something. Matt On Wed, May 14, 2008 at 7:02 PM, Ken Irwin <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > Is their any hope for those of us who rely on our Expect-monkeys in III? > My most important Expect scripts use the create-list function, and I > hope that'll stay around for a while. But I'm sure they'll eventually go > away too. > > Has III shown any interest in building in their own macros/automation > features to do the sorts of tasks for which we rely on Expect? > > Ken > > Kyle Banerjee wrote: >> >> Last week, III announced that they are removing a number of >> circulation functions from the telnet menus in a software update that >> became generally available this month. From what I've been able to >> surmise, functions that will be removed include placing holds and >> checking things in or or out. Removing these menu options will break >> scripts that have been in use for years at institutions in our >> consortium, and lots more staff time will be required to perform >> certain tasks after some systems are upgraded. >> >> Apparently, III recently discovered that a bug involving holds was >> caused by the character-based system, but it is also related to a >> desire to port everything to Millennium. Based on the reasoning behind >> the announcement, future updates are likely result in other mission >> critical scripts breaking as other character-based functionality is >> deprecated. >> >> Just a reminder of the risks of relying on automation that depend on >> interfaces that are losing vendor support. >> >> kyle >> > > -- > Ken Irwin > Reference Librarian > Thomas Library, Wittenberg University >