Functions – the-Automator

Office Automation AutoHotKey Archive by category "Functions"

AutoHotkey Webinar 10/2021: Creating and Using AutoHotkey Functions

Hour 2: Q&A Styles and helping Attendees

Script Highlight: Times around the world by jeeswg

The Automators’ Podcast

#113: 7 reasons to talk to others about your programming
#114: 5 tips how to reduce the amount of personal support you provide
#115: What is an idea worth? How much $ should you pay the “idea person”?

Resources presented in Webinar

What is a Function?

A function is similar to a subroutine (Gosub) except that it can accept parameters (inputs) from its caller.
In addition, a function may optionally return a value/values to its caller.

66 Built-in AHK Functions https://www.autohotkey.com/docs/Functions.htm#BuiltIn

Polythene’s Command functions https://github.com/Paris/AutoHotkey-Scripts/blob/master/Functions.ahk
jeeswg commands as functions (AHK v2 functions for v1) https://www.autohotkey.com/boards/viewtopic.php?f=37&t=29689

Some main benefits of Functions

They can be used without storing value
You can have multiple on one line / nest
Scope is limited (both a blessing and a curse)
You create functions to “wrap” complex code which greatly simplifies it’s usage
Via a DLL call you can leverage TONS of functions outside AutoHotkey!
Variadic functions take a “variable” number of parameters

Built-in AutoHotkey functions

Using built-in Functions (here are a couple examples)
SubStr(String, StartingPos [, Length])
Round(Number[,N])
Trim()
StrSplit(String , [Delimiters, OmitChars, MaxParts])

Highlights:

Positional parameters (the order matters they’re not named parameters)
Required parameters
Optional parameters

Creating your own Functions in AutoHotkey

Why you want to create them
Defining a Function verse Calling a function
Working with SCOPE
Global
Static
byRef

What we’ll cover:

Accessing variables outside your AutoHotkey function
Passing parameters
Setting default values for your parameters
Returning value
Returning more than 1 value (byRef & Objects/Arrays)
Using the #Includes directive and Function Libraries

Biggest things that will trip you up!

Scope seems like a design flaw however it is a great benefit. Most noobs (and even seasoned programmers) will sometimes forget they are inside a function and try and access a variable outside the function
Forgetting you returned an object and trying to access it as a variable
Making something Global and then reusing the variable in something else

Skins & Styles – Dimitri (I’ll work on a working example to include here)

Dimitri Geertz joined the webinar and demonstrated his work using the skinsUSkin.dll.

You can learn more about it here in the forum post

or this post from CodeProject

I made this video which shows how simple it can be. You can download the script below

Access 1,317 File Attributes with FileExPro by SKAN in AutoHotkey

Often we want to access specific file attributes but can’t easily see them. I found this cool AutoHotkey script FileExPro by SKAN that allows us to access 1,317 file attributes with AutoHotkey. In the below video I walk through how to use the function. You can get my version, with all it’s resources, below

Easily access 1,317 file attributes with FileExPro by SKAN

My updated AutoHotkey Excel function library

Over the years I’ve done a lot in Excel. Often I leverage my Excel function Library which is, at best, a work in progress. I commissioned Maestrith, author of AHK Studio, to review it. We worked through what did & didn’t work plus optimized a few things.

AutoHotkey Excel Function Library

AutoHotkey webinar: Connect to running scripts from Explorer Context Menu

Video Hour 1: High Level: Connect to running scripts from Explorer Context Menu

Context menus at work
1. Quick Access Popup real life example
Pieces of the puzzle (Here is a link to the below files)
1. Receiver (script or compiled): Receiver.ahk
2. Messenger (compiled): Messenger.exe
3. Testing at command line: Test.bat
4. Setup context menus: RegEdit import InstallContextMenus.reg
5. Remove context menus: RemoveContextMenus.bat
6. Questions

Video Hour 2: Coding and Q&A

Script Highlight: Random code generator.ahk by Maestrith (Author of AHK Studio)

Generate a list of random characters
Control what is in the unique list
How many unique “Keys” are generated

#SingleInstance,Force
Random:=[],Dup:=[],Items:=[]
for a,b in StrSplit("0123456789ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz") ;put whatever characters you want in here
	Random.Push(b) ;Add each character to Random Array
InputBox,Count,How Many Codes,How Many Codes do you want?
InputBox,Length,How Long For Each Code,How Long?
While(Items.MaxIndex()<Count){ ;Keep iterating until you have enough "keys"
	Out:=""  ;Clear out variable
	while(StrLen(Out)<Length){
		Random,Digit,0,% Random.MaxIndex() ;keep max lenght of random at right level
		Out.=Random[Digit] ;append the Random digit to out.
	}
	if(!Dup[Out])
		Items.Push(Out),Dup[Out]:=1 ;Add key to object
}
for a,b in Items ;Iterate over list
	Total.=b "`n" ;Add to total with new line

msgbox % Clipboard:=Total

Category: Functions