When I was asked to do KnowBrainer in 2014, or thereabouts, the existing version was limited to pure DVC scripting. I took up the offer because I strongly supported what Lunis did (and still does) in terms of giving the application free to disabled users and I contributed my time at minimal cost.

What I did at the time was added WinWrap Basic with lots of additions and extensions (a lot of development work) and included not only COM library access (like Advanced Scripting) but also .NET library access and scripting as well as leaving the option for DVC scripting. Reasons for WinWrap include that execution of scripts was much faster than Dragon Advanced scripting/SAX Basic (and still is even after Dragon added WinWrap Basic) and it opened up the world of .NET scripting. Furthermore, you can simply "Shell" executables as you have mentioned so it is a very flexible scripting option.

Now you can have whatever opinion you like about WinWrap Basic & .NET scripting but it is far from "arcane" and more or less compatible with VBScript, VBA and other VB-based scripting languages and relatively "simple" to understand the language. In other words the exact opposite of arcane and compatible with scripting languages used by millions worldwide. If it doesn’t suit you (VB) then why don’t you use NatLink with its rich variation of options including Vocola, dragonfly, python… 

I am sorry to hear you are having issues with lock-ups but it's not something I see when I run the last version that I was involved before I decided to quit developing KB for various reasons last year. Remedies I would suggest include limiting the number of commands, start from scratch with no commands and just add the commands that you need with "Import Commands". If you want to know how to do this then contact me off forum at support@pcbyvoice.com, I will do what I can to help you. I am not responsible for the commands that KB contains other, than a few keybd_event & mouse_event and a few other commands lunis asked me to write for him, as that is Lunis's department. Please also consider using the hardcoded command I included with KB called "Close Dragon and KnowBrainer" to keep the products in sync.

Edit: I should also add that I added the sidebar concept to allow users to see which commands were available for which applications/window as a common problem with many users was remembering the names of commands when there are so many.

I did not mean to dismiss the scripting engine so curtly. In all honesty I'm just not familiar with or comfortable with BASIC, and the first time I tried exploring the scripting help documentation you have it was not very "beginner friendly" (double checking now, it looks like significant improvements have been made to the documentation, though it could probably still use some work). Besides that, my "arcane" remark was more targeted at the specific issue/thread I linked of "how can I ShellExecute something with spaces in its path". Even one of this site's top tier members couldn't help. Though it's also possible that was a bug with KBPro 2017 (I'm now using 2020); I haven't tried again since

Which part of my message are you referring to when you say "locking up"? I'm not sure locking up is quite the right word for it. It's more like, under some circumstances (EX: when changing dictation sources or otherwise reloading the user profile), commands like "backspace <number>" will stop working. It doesn't seem to affect all commands, rather primarily affecting those with some form of variable in the name. If you would like, I can try to describe more specific reproduction steps.

“Talk is cheap. Show me the code.” ~ Linus Torvalds

"It is good to have empathy.  But it is not essential.  What is essential is that one displays empathy, however one musters it." ~ ax (in a post on this very forums)

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