In this lesson, we will introduce the basic concepts of commands.

A complete app is composed of various commands, each representing a unique function or the step we take to simulate manual operation.

For example, the Go to web page command represents us entering the URL of our target website and pressing the Enter key on our keyboard; the Fill textbox command represents us entering texts in a textbox and pressing the Enter key on our keyboard; the Click Element command represents us manually using the mouse to click a webpage element. If we arrange them in a certain sequence, they will work like the first app we built in Quick Lesson 1.

Hence, multiple commands are combined in a certain sequence to create a complete app (automation project).

To get you started, let's walk through all the command groups.

If commands are mainly used for judgment of logic and data comparison, such as judging whether the date is the same, judging whether the data is correct, and deciding the direction of the judgment branch, etc. Currently, the If command group includes 13 kinds of commands.

Loops commands are aimed at addressing repetitive operations, such as loop-clicking an element on a page, loop-entering a web page or different web pages, etc. Currently, the Loops command group includes 11 kinds of commands.

Wait commands are mainly used to stabilize the flow or application. By putting a wait command in the flow, one command will wait for a certain period of time to run, wait for a webpage to load its content, or wait for webpage content to display or disappear. Currently, the Wait command group includes 4 kinds of commands.

Flow commands are mainly used to call subflow for integration between different flows, including main flow and subflow. Currently, Flow only contains Run subflow and End flow.

Web commands are mainly aimed at web pages to achieve automated operations on a browser. For example, clicking or entering textboxes on a webpage or going to a web page will inevitably involve web commands on Octoparse RPA. Currently, the Wait command group includes 26 kinds of commands.

Window commands are concentrating on various windows, including software windows and desktop windows, to achieve automation. In web automation, we operate on web elements on the object - webpage, while in window automation, we operate on window elements on the object - window. Currently, the Window command group includes 19 kinds of commands.

Mouse & Keyboard commands, as the name implies, are used to simulate the actions of the mouse and keyboard. There are 6 types of commands at the moment.

The spreadsheet is a built-in spreadsheet in Octoparse RPA, differentiated from local spreadsheets(Excel and WPS) and online spreadsheets(Google Sheets). Before setting up automation with Data table commands, it is necessary to import a local Excel file into Octoparse RPA or build your own spreadsheet that can be imported into Octoparse RPA. Currently, there are 10 types of commands.

Excel commands specifically deal with Excel, such as launching Excel, reading data sheets from Excel worksheets, and writing data into Excel worksheets. Unlike Data table commands, Excel commands can affect a local Excel sheet directly. There are 20 types of Excel commands so far.

System commands mainly focus on operations in a computer system, such as obtaining files, creating folders, reading and writing files, deleting files, copying files, moving files, etc. They can also be used to call system information, such as the current time in the system. There are 14 different commands in the System command group now.

Octoparse commands are tailored to the needs of automating Octoparse for different scenarios as per your personal demand. It'll allow you to log into your Octoparse account, get task status, and get the extracted data automatically in various situations without setting up the API yourself. Octoparse command group contains 8 kinds of commands at present.

Email commands primarily refer to actions related to emails, such as sending emails, downloading files, etc. To carry out operations on an email account with Email commands, we must first log into the Email account with the Login Mailbox command to perform other actions such as sending, moving, deleting, replying to emails, etc. Email command group includes 9 different commands so far.

The Data format commands primarily attend to operations such as trimming spaces, adding prefixes/suffixes, and converting types for/to variables. Currently, there are 33 types of commands in this group.

Google Sheets commands are similar to Excel commands, which simulate humans operating on a spreadsheet as well. The difference is that Excel commands operate on Excel itself, while Google Sheets commands operate on the online Google Sheets. We'll have to obtain the credentials to access Google Sheets before using the other Google Sheets commands. 10 kinds of commands are included in this group.

GPT commands give you access to interact with Chat GPT in various ways. For example, you can use the AI-Assist command to ask Chat GPT to translate or write articles for you as per your prompt. Currently, there are 8 kinds of commands in this group.

Database commands are used to connect to a database and execute various SQL statements on the database with Octoparse RPA, such as insert, update, query, etc. Currently, there are 5 kinds of commands in this group.

Commands in others group do not fit in any of the command groups above. Their functions vary from each other. For example, Display message, Display prompt, and Pring to log, Explanatory notes are auxiliary in most use cases. Yet the Python scripts command can execute Python code on its own.