• Intro to AutoHotkey Intermediate AutoHotkey Intermediate Objects GUIs are Easy w/AutoHotkey Painlessly switch from V1 to V2
Home Office Automation AutoHotKey Archive by category "HotKey"

Category: HotKey

Hotkeys are sometimes referred to as shortcut keys because of their ability to easily trigger an action (such as launching a program or keyboard macro). In the following example, the hotkey Win+N is configured to launch Notepad. The pound sign [#] stands for the Windows key, which is known as a modifier:

https://autohotkey.com/docs/Hotkeys.htm

Are you more incompetent than you realize❓ / September 20th AutoHotkey newsletter

AutoHotkey Newsletter

Imagine you have a friend named Joe who likes to write AutoHotkey scripts. He thinks he is very good at it, but his scripts all imitate a human and do not utilize an API approach. Joe also thinks AutoHotkey is “buggy” because his scripts often don’t work (especially when he shares them with other people.)

Joe thinks that other people who write AutoHotkey scripts are not very good and take overly-complicated approaches to make more money.

He thinks he is the best script-writer in the world.

This is known as the Dunning-Kruger effect.  The Dunning-Kruger effect is when people think they know more than they really do.  They are not very good at something, but they don’t realize it. They also don’t accurately evaluate how good other people are.

They believe they are better than average, or even experts (Yikes!), when they are not. This can make them act overconfident and make mistakes and often blame the instrument instead of themselves.

The Dunning-Kruger effect happens because some people don’t have enough knowledge or skill to judge themselves or others correctly.

Often People don’t know what they don’t know❗

The more you learn about something, the more you realize how much you still need to learn. You become more humble and realistic about your abilities.

To avoid the Dunning-Kruger effect, you should always try to learn more about the things you are interested in or need to do. You should also ask for feedback from others who are more experienced or knowledgeable than you. This is one of the best benefits of the AHK hero group.  We have 3 hours of Zoom calls each week where we help provide guidance to Hero members.   Not to mention the private Telegram group where people can ask for help during the week.   Give it some thought.  If you’re not sure, check out these objections that many people think.  You’re probably a better-fit for the group than you think!

Now on with the show…

Intro to AutoHotkey HotStrings with AutoHotkey Intermediate AutoHotkey Intermediate Objects GUIs are Easy w/AutoHotkey Make the switch to v2

HotStrings & Hotkeys that paste: Images, Text, and Hyperlinks / Rich text

For several years now sending keystrokes with AutoHotkey has been problematic.   It got so frustrating I asked Irfan to adapt many of my HotStrings to paste the text (instead of sending keystrokes).

This is a much more reliable way to get the text where you want it.   Nothing too special here…   But I also realized it is super easy to trigger them with either a Hotkey or a HotString.   Still, nothing too “wow” leveled (other than having automations that worked reliably).

Then I realized why don’t we kick it up a notch by making it easy to paste Rich text / Text with Hyperlinks and/or pictures.  Wow Now we’re on to something!

The function parameters are very easy to follow.  We share how to use them in this video.

Easily sending text, HTML or pIctures with Clipster
Easily sending text, HTML or pIctures with Clipster

We’re also considering wrapping the whole thing in a GUI to allow non-AutoHotkey users a way to have this functionality.  😊

Easily Adjusting your DPI

We just released two scripts that do (basically) the same thing.   They both make it super-simple to assign a hotkey to change your DPI.  One of them allows you to assign the monitor the hotkey will be applied to while the other just looks at the monitor your mouse is over.  You can see them in use in this video.

Two AHK scripts to easily change your Monitor’s DPI Scaling
Two AHK scripts to easily change your Monitor's DPI Scaling

How to Create & Use Custom functions

Last week I mentioned this video extracted from Intro to AHK v2 that explains how you can use the built-in AHK functions.    This week I’m following up by sharing this video which helps you see how you can write your own functions.  Functions are a crazy-powerful way to level you up!

Defining custom functions in AutoHotkey v2
Defining custom functions in AutoHotkey v2

Don’t forget, all of our courses come with an amazing 200% money back guarantee!

Pinning Files / Scripts in Windows 11

I have to say I’m not loving Windows 11❗ Granted, I wouldn’t even be using it if I hadn’t found this app that allows me to put the Taskbar on the side.  In this video I walk through a work-around on how to pin non-executables to the Taskbar.

How to Pin a non-executable file to Taskbar in Windows 11
How to Pin a non-executable file to Taskbar in Windows 11

How to create a File Installer with InnoSetup

A while back Jean Lalonde, author of Quick Access Popup, gave us a great tutorial on how to use InnoSetup.  In this video Jean walks us through many of the settings and how it can be configured to give your script a “level-up”.

💻 Take file installation to the next level – Use Inno Setup like a pro!
💻 Take file installation to the next level - Use Inno Setup like a pro!

Incidentally I spoke with Jean last week and he’s been hard at work on his other “clipboard” tool.  You can see an overview of it’s functionality in this video.

💥 Supercharge your productivity with this Amazing Clipboard Tool!😲
💥 Supercharge your productivity with this Amazing Clipboard Tool!😲

New YouTuber: Easily set windows locations

I was watching YouTube the other day and stumbled upon this video from Inthekhud.  He did a pretty good job.  He walks through using WinGet to detect where a window is located and then how to set it’s location.  I hope he continues to make AutoHotkey videos.  The more the better!

STOP manually adjusting windows | Use AUTOHOTKEY!
STOP manually adjusting windows | Use AUTOHOTKEY!

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📚 What we’re reading

🤖 AI / Chat GPT-3 News / Usage

HUGE Bard Update: The Future of Google is Now AI

HUGE Bard Update: The Future of Google is Now AI

⚡️Productivity tips: Setting Goals

Setting Daily, Weekly, Monthly and annual goals are a great way to make sure you achieve what you want.   Having said that, goals only take you so far, in the Atomic Habits book, he explains how habits are what truly drive action!

🤣 A spot of Humor This would freak me out!

Our Most Chaotic Prank Of ALL TIME | Just For Laughs Gags
Our Most Chaotic Prank Of ALL TIME | Just For Laughs Gags

AHK Hero 🦸

Consider joining the 🦸AHK Hero club! Members receive 25% off courses, consultations, tutoring, done for you project work, etc.

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

  • How you deal with failure determines whether or not you ever get to deal with the success — Dan Kennedy
  • A major reason for procrastination and lack of motivation is vagueness, confusion, and fuzzy minded thinking about what you are trying to do and in what order and for what reason. — Brian Tracy
  • You must stop expecting perfection — either from yourself, or your employees, or your customers and clients. It will never happen. — John Carlton
  • History is just new people making old mistakes — Sigmund Freud

AHK Newsletter⏩SHARE WITH A FRIEND⏩

Do you know someone that would benefit from learning useful automation tips like the gems in today’s issue?  Take a second and forward this newsletter and bask in the glow of their undying gratitude.  Was this email forwarded to you?

Sign up for this Newsletter here.  We never share your email with anyone.  Ever!

The-Automator

Joe, Isaias, Irfan, and staff

P.S. Are you one of those people that don’t know what you don’t know?  One of the best ways to safeguard against this is to regularly meet amongst others that know more than you.  The AHK Hero group is a great place to learn from others and ensure you’re accurately assessing your skills.  Do yourself a favor and sign up.   The only thing you’ll regret is that you waited so long!

Basics of Creating a Hotkey: Extract from Intro to AutoHotkey in v2

How to create a Hotkey: Intro to AHK in v2 Extract
Intro to AHK v2 Hotkeys Extract

This video teaches viewers how to create hotkeys in AutoHotkey v2 for launching actions and performing various tasks.

  • 00:00 📝 Learn how to create hotkeys in AutoHotkey, which are triggers used to launch actions, in this extract from the Intro to AHK v2 Hotkeys course.
  • 00:49 📝 Creating hotkeys in AHK v2 is as easy as creating hot strings, with the only difference being the syntax for specifying the hotkey and the action, and modifier keys like Control, Alt, Shift, and Windows can be referred to using special characters.
  • 02:09 💡 To create a hotkey in AHK v2, use the character for the modifier key (e.g., control) followed by the desired key (e.g., enter) and separate them with a colon.
  • 03:03 📝 The speaker explains the difference between hotkeys and hot strings, and demonstrates how to create a hotkey that opens a website when a specific key combination is pressed.
  • 04:08 💡 The Run command in AHK v2 allows the user to execute files or open websites with their default application, making it convenient and efficient.
  • 05:12 🔑 You can easily create hotkeys for various actions like opening files, folders, or websites using AHK v2, with the hotkey command taking a hotkey as the first parameter and the corresponding action on the right side.
  • 05:58 💡 The speaker explains how to define and use a function in AHK v2 for performing actions based on a specific hotkey.
  • 06:50 💡 Create dynamic hotkeys in AutoHotkey by defining a variable and using an if statement to determine if the hotkey should be set or not.
hey it’s Joe Glines from the-Automator and this video we’re going to show you it’s an extract from our Intro to Autohotkey course intro and V2 that is and this is going to walk you through how to create HotStrings and Hotkeys right phenomenally helpful you can use them to launch things you can do using them for a lot of different stuff they’re think of them as triggers when you want to do
something is the most often used so in this video here is this is going to walk you through how to set them up I’m going to put up a coupon code or a link that’ll give you 20 percent off if you’re interested in getting the intro to AutoHotkey course it’s a great solid course I think it’s around four hours long most of videos are between three to five minutes this one’s a little bit longer butthey’re very very to the point and easy to follow they’re built for people who don’t know anything about
coding so check it out I hope you liked it please like the video If this helps you because it really helps us out cheers creating HotStrings so again anAuto Hotkey it is just a matter of specifying the Hotkey that you want and the action the only thing that changes a little bit is the syntax of how you do that let me go ahead and show you how to create static and dynamicHotkeys so if we open a new file we have our directives here for single instance and what it requires and in this case let’s
go ahead and create a Hotkey you have the hashtag like this so if I want to create a Hotkey that says Ctrl enter
or Ctrl shift enter I don’t have to write control or you know shift I don’t have to write any of that I just use the character that is designed for it and that’s the reason why on the Hotkeys because you because each each of them has a specific meaning but now to create a Hotkey let’s go ahead and say that I want to show a message box when I hit control enter so what I would do is I would have
to use the character for control which is the correct and then enter as a word like that and then I put two columns one after the Auto which defines that I’m doing a HotString instead of aHotkey here I don’t have the two columns at the beginning but I do have the two columns to divide the action in this case let’s go ahead
and do message box right and this is a test so now when I run this script whenever I hit Ctrl enter on my keyboard I will get this new box this is great as I mentioned it’s really easy and even though this example is very simple you could do many Auto things and actually very cool things for example just to show you how easy it is instead of a message box let’s do something a little bit more practical let’s say that I want to have a website show up whenever I press aHotkey so let’s go ahead and do control okay shift
F1 I can do this Ctrl shift F1 now what I could use in this case is the-Automator
website here I run this up and again as I mentioned this is Ctrl shift plus F1 in this case and this is Control Plus enter right so I’m running my script Ctrl shift F1 just goes ahead and open scrum with that page so just imagine how cool it is that you can create HotStrings and is
the same concept with the Hotkey command instead so this command takes a Hotkey as the first parameter notice that I’m actually putting quotation marks because this is literal text so this would be control so let’s say Ctrl shift enter in this case and then the action goes on the right side but the second side the the action that I’m going to perform is usually a function that you’re going to call and for that reason I do not have to put that in quotation marks because it is a function object and not only that I have
to Define define the function myself so let’s say open desktop this is going to be my function I just name it like that but as that is not literal text this is referring to a function you do not have to put quotation marks there but you do have to define the function somewhere else we will talk about functions later during the course but as a quick overview this function will take one parameter it is the plot key that I press this up and in the braces here I’m going to put the actions that I want to perform with this function in this case
what I want to do is run the desktop so a desktop is a variable that contains the path to my desktop and if I try to run a folder what is going to happen is that AutoHotkey is just going to go ahead and open the folder in Explorer so in this case this is the way to define a dynamic Hotkey which you can of cAutose use option right if you have a variable called option you can determine if it is true or false and if it is true then go ahead and use theHotkey and set theHotkey if it is false don’t set it so this is the way
to create Dynamic Hotkeys the-Automator this is how simple you can create Hotkeys in here

37 Amazing Windows keyboard shortcuts | Print out this awesome cheat-sheet & begin memorizing them today

37 Must-know Windows keyboard shortcuts / Hotkeys

It’s hard to believe, but I created this document over 20 years ago!  I was watching my classmates fumble around on their computers and put together a list of great Windows shortcuts / Hotkeys that they should memorize.   All but one date back to 1998!  But don’t worry, while I created this a long time ago, they have all stood the test of time!

This used to have 36 Must Know shortcuts but I realized I forgot to at the Windows+V shortcut for the Clipboard history manager in Windows 10+

Amazingly very little has changed since then!  I added one new hotkey (for emoticons)

 

Windows keyboard shortcuts Walkthrough- These are all great hotkeys to memorize

AutoHotkey Tutorial for Beginners – Start automating your PC in 1 hour with this amazing tool

AutoHotkey Tutorial for Beginners

AutoHotkey Tutorial for Beginners

In this AutoHotkey Tutorial for Beginners I walk you through what you need to get started and help you write your first AutoHotkey script.  Below are some convenient links to the tools you’ll want starting out with AutoHotkey.

AutoHotkey Tutorial for Beginners: What you’ll learn

Table of Contents

1. Outline of video
2. Video
3. Programs to Install
4. Commands / Concepts covered
5. Resources
6. Reviews

Outline of video


Step #1:  Which version of AutoHotkey to use  @ 3:15
Step #2:  Which editor to use with AutoHotkey @4:36
Step #3:  Trigger Commands, Programs / Scripts / Websites by hitting key-combinations (Hotkeys) @11:07
Step #4:  Type a few letters and have them replaced with the long strings of text (Hotstrings) @26:29
Step #5:  Use a spell checker that will run on every Windows program @34:49
Step #6: Remap keys /key combinations @43:29
Step #7:  Send a Mouse Click to specified coordinates @47:12
Step #8:  Compile a script so you can give it to someone else to run on their computer @53:09
Step #9:  Information & Resources where to go when you need help @54:52 Continue reading