Howdy,
Previously I’ve made videos on how our brain works differently when we explain things to other people.
Well I’ve been blown away by how much more of my work I’ve been able to automate because of conversations I’ve had with my son (when I was training him to edit our vidoes)
Just like with debugging, you don’t have to be talking to an expert.
When you explain what you’re doing your brain “works differently.”
One of the best things the person you’re talking to can do to help is to question your assumptions.
Surprisingly I find it can help if the person is less knowledgeable about what you do.
They are more likely to, unwittingly, question your assumptions (because they don’t “know better”).
So my advice is to find somebody that’s willing to listen to you and explain your process to them.
Ask them for ideas on things to automate (just not how to do it).
When they propose something, don’t explain “why their suggestion isn’t possible.”
Think about what you would have to do in order to make it possible.
Remember to question your assumptions
Of course you could also just join an AHK Hero call and have a bunch of people throw ideas out to you…
Now on with the show…
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Identifying Path of #Included File
During an AHK Hero call Connie asked if we could “detect” where a given file had been Included from.
It was a pretty interesting challenge which we discussed in this video.
Identifying the #included path
Backing Up Your Post
Have you ever been filling out a form / writing something in a browser and “lost” all the content of what you’ve written❓
That’s what Hero member Harry challenged us with. Isaias came up with an interesting solution with AutoHotkey, and I offered a JavaScript version at the end with a Bookmarklet.
Auto Backing-up Forum post
Why Shared Scripts Break
During an AHK Hero call we walked through this list of the Common Reasons why your AHK scripts might break when shared with others (or ran on a 2nd computer).
You can watch our discussion here.
Why Scripts Break when Shared
Benefits of Setting your Working Directory
While developing AHK Script Maker, Hero member Connie found an issue where AutomateMyTask would not run.
It failed to run because the script relied on relative paths but we failed to set the Working Directory with SetWorkingDir.
Check out the full discussion in this video.
Benefit of Set Working Directory and Relative Paths
Keep Computers up to date with Action1
For one of our clients we’re constantly pushing updated versions of our tools to their 9 computers.
Originally we had to remote in to each computer and transfer the files, however Isaias knew there had to be a “better way”.
After some research and testing we settled on Action1.
Learn more about this (mostly) free tool in this video.
Remotely control computers with Action1
Improving People’s Lives: Story #70
I was on a consultation call with AJ (the client we’re working on the 2nd keyboard tool for) when he mentioned how he needs to use a new hotkey 3 times in order to remember it.
After our call I sent him our HotKeyString lookup tool which can make it very easy to find those created HotStrings / Hotkeys.
What we’re reading
- Win11 is changing pictures in Phone Link
- How to add more USB ports to your Android phone
- Stop plugging in Peripherals to the wrong USB ports
- Windows 11 has an emergency shutdown option
- 8 Excel tips from master presenter Leila Gharani
AI News that you Need to Know
- Deploy apps live in minutes with Google’s AI Studio
- Google maps’ biggest updates ever❗
- Ask Claude about your upcoming meetings
Screen sharing and Highlighting with CoPilot
⚡️Productivity tips:
Great Windows Hotkeys, do you know them all❓
Amazing Windows Shortcuts You Aren’t Using
A spot of Humor:
If you’ve ever shot a pistol you know how ludicrous this is!
Lethal Weapon – “Target Practice”
What we utomated this week with AutoHotkey #110
In this week’s video, I walk you through a bunch of client projects and tools we cranked out with AutoHotkey – everything from creating a secondary keyboard that actually works on different hardware setups to wrestling with Google Sheets API (which was a fun adventure!).
We tackled some really cool automation challenges like capturing video content from the internet and building distributable programs that solve real-world problems.
It’s amazing how much tedious work you can eliminate when you get creative with AutoHotkey!
What we Autoamted with AutoHotkey #110
Clients say…
I am so thankful for all you are doing to help us in this conversion and our mission to produce a solid product. — Stephanie Holland
AHK Hero
AHK Hero Consider joining the AHK Hero club! Members receive 25% off courses, consultations, tutoring, done for you project work, etc. Currently we have over 487 hours of recordings teaching AutoHotkey that is exclusive to AHK Hero members❗
During this Friday’s call we’re planning to discuss:
- Help AHK Hero Members with their Questions & Code
- Regular Expressions: Differences between AHK and RegEx101
- Using Edit field to Filter a list
- Change Search to “Fuzzy” match via RegEx
- Adding Check for Update to Ahk Script Maker
- Using a Ternary to easily apply changes based on logic (instead of using an “if”)
- Changing show 50 on YouTube- rethinking our UIA script
- Changing our Licenses to be a 1-time check instead of checking on start every time
- Comparing strings, case sensitivity, how to handle when in map, etc.
- Using SendTo for passing multiple files to a script
They also have access to exclusive & pre-released content and a 3 hours a week where we help people with their AHK issues (the Saturday calls are geared towards people new to AutoHotkey.)
️ Quotable quotes
- The secret to getting things done is to get started; The secret to getting started is to divide your task into small pieces with “quick wins”. — Joe Glines
- Never give up, never surrender, and always go for the win. — Charlie Kirk
- Work hard, Be honest, Be kind — Buckin’ Billy Ray Smith
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Joe, Isaias, Irfan and staff
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P.S. You really should get another set of eyes on your processes.
You’ll be amazed at how much more can be automated!
