Howdy,

When I was ~14 I was working for my Uncle and remember using a restroom at lunch and seeing a sign when leaving that mentioned “Employees must wash their hands before returning to work”.

I told my uncle that “this place is crazy, they told me I had to wash my hands…”

He laughed and explained the sign was (mostly) for THEIR employees.

I was reminded of this happy memory during lunch the other day when I was at a local restaurant.

This time it got me thinking about AutoHotkey…

When we use a #HotIf to limit our Hotkeys / HotStrings, we’re telling AutoHotkey that the triggers are only applicable to “our employees” (specific program) thus it is more “focused” and less likely to cause confusion.

I don’t think we use #HotIfs nearly enough❗

Setting Hotkeys to global should be the exception rather than the rule…

What do you think %Name%❓

Want to see a simple example how to create powerful Context Sensitive Hotkeys or HotStrings?

Join the AHK Hero club and we can show you how easy it is!

Now on with the show…

Why we NEVER give Estimates

The vast majority of people that contact me will always ask for some sort of “price estimate”.

And I 💯% understand for the request; however, I never give one.

This video explains why we don’t (and why you should not trust someone that does)

❌ Why We NEVER Give Software Estimates (And You Shouldn’t ask for them❗)

Long Pressing a Hotkey

Speaking of Hotkeys, during an AHK Hero call a few weeks back we did some work on a function for making it easy to get code for long-pressing a Hotkey.  You can check out the video here.

Creating a Simple Function for Long Pressing Hotkeys with Modifier Keys

Tool for Remembering Hotkeys / HotStrings

In another AHK Hero call, Connie (an AHK Hero member) was letting us know about some issues he was having with our amazing AHK HotkeyString Lookup tool.

You can see the issues here but we have updated the tool to fix all of the errors that were identified.

This tool is really cool because we also added hotkeys from 61 popular programs❗

Errors with ahk hotkeystring

Improving People’s Lives: Story #73

One of our clients used to search Grok by passing query parameters to the URL.  Sadly Grok changed how it works however I did find LinkMyPrompt which shows how to do this on several AI tools.

🤯900 Days left❓

I listened, in amazement, to this 1.5 hour video discussing how Emad Mostaque thinks there are ~ 900 days left until AI “takes over”.   It was truly fascinating but you may not have an hour and a half to kill so I used AI to create this video which was ~6 minutes.

The AI Apocalypse: 900 Days till the end of the world as we know it❓

I highly recommend you one or both a listen.

📚 What we’re reading

• These programs are shortening your SSD’s lifespan
• If you use Excel, stop saying you can’t program
• Transform your Android phone into a wireless mic for your PC
• Smart Home upgrades you should make make for the holidays
• Skyrocketing prices of Ram and these 3 PC components are next

🤖 AI News that you Need to Know

• Google’s Antigravity (VS Code) deleted someone’s entire drive
• Creative uses for NotebookLM
• Introducing Runway Gen-4.5
• Google’s new AI tool is a game changer for Marketing

⚡️Productivity tips:

Have a big task❓  Break it into manageable pieces and make the first piece small and easy for a quick-win!

🤣 A spot of Humor:

Jimmy Carr gives some Sage advice on Depression

What we 🅰utomated this week with AutoHotkey #112

In this week’s video, I walk through how we’ve been using AutoHotkey to solve some pretty cool client problems.

From fixing Windows Explorer’s annoying search results to creating custom tools that make everyday tasks way smoother.

We tackled everything from file navigation hacks to UI improvements that’ll make you wonder why Microsoft didn’t think of these things first!

Sadly I only searched over the past 3 days (I was trying to go back 3 weeks). LOL

What we Automated with AutoHotkey #112

Clients say…

THANK YOU, YOU SAVED MY LIFEEEEEEEEEEEEEE — sillybilly-102

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 497 hours of recordings teaching AutoHotkey that is exclusive to AHK Hero members❗

You can watch 1 hour a day for a year and not repeat content! That’s a lot of AHK Learning!

During this Friday’s call we’re planning to discuss:

• Help AHK Hero Members with their Questions & Code
• Ahk Script Maker : Running / killing scripts, Notification of AHK Updates
• Add a Debugger to AHK Script maker
• Script showcase: API Syntax Writer in v2
• PBT Property-Based Tests
• Using a Ternary to easily apply changes based on logic (instead of using an “if“)
• Comparing strings, case sensitivity, how to handle when in map, etc.
• Verbs – Syntax Writer
• 5 Git commands that feel like Magic
• Using SendTo for passing multiple files to a script

They also have access to exclusive & pre-released content and 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 more we sweat in training; the less we bleed in combat❗
• Mankind is made of two kinds of people: wise people who know they’re fools, and fools who think they are wise — Socrates
• The object of life is to make your vocation your vacation. — Mark Twain

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The-Automator

Joe, Isaias, Irfan and staff

P.S. No, I didn’t make up that intro.   When I was 14 I lived in Oregon with my Uncle Tony and Grandmother.

I got paid $3 an hour for installing fiberglass swimming pools and “laying curb”.

What was your first “job”❓