January, 26th, 2023 AutoHotkey Newsletter
Howdy %Name%,
V2 is Official and AutoHotkey_L is Deprecated
We all knew it was coming however, when I read that V1.1/AHK_L is “deprecated” it really hit me
the future is here!
Now, even though AHK_L is deprecated there’s no real concern that AHK_ is going away. The fact that AHK 1.0 / Vanilla version is still available is proof of that! However Lexikos made it painfully clear that V1 is “dead” in his eyes. He might patch bugs but won’t be bringing in new features. You can watch this video where we discuss the announcement.
AutoHotkey v2 is now the official version of ahk
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He has also been very clear that there isn’t a performance gain in v2. The changes are, mainly, about the syntax and creating a version that is more consistent and structured better.
As I’m sure you know Isaias has been using V2 for quite some time and loves it. In fact, every person I’ve talked to that has switched has never considered going back to AHK_L.
Have you switched %Name%? If not, are you planning on it? In the very near future I plan to switch and our videos will most assuredly be using V2.
Don’t let your future pass you by. Make the switch on new scripts and don’t bother about converting your past ones. The installer tool Lexikos built will decide for you as we mention in this video.
V2 Installer & autodetect version of AutoHotkey to run
We do have a page on the-Automator dedicated to V2. We also have some great videos where we show how to configure VS code as well as SciTE4AutoHotkey.
🔥Unlock the power of AutoHotkey v2 with this easy SciTE4AutoHotkey setup guide🔥
BTW- next week we should be announcing a new course that is designed to help people painlessly switch from V1 to V2. If you’re interested you can sign up here (and receive a 20% off when it comes out)
How to Self-Sign your Certificates
Do you have executables that Windows “warns” you about when you launch them? In this video Isaias shows us how we can self-sign our executables (AutoHotkey and other) with our own local certificate.
🔒How to Secure your Executables with Self-Signing Certificates 🔑
Connecting to the DOM with UIA
While we recently had a great webinar on to 9 ways to Web Scrape with AutoHotkey, we didn’t realize you could connect to the DOM with UIA. In this video we walk through how to connect to the Document Object Model with UIA and some pitfalls.
😲Mind blowing way to Connect to the DOM with UIA & WebScrape
📚 What we’re reading
- When You Should Put Ice in Your Dryer
- 16 Google Search Features You Should Be Using (Viewing cached web pages is awesome)
- The 7 Best Registry Hacks for Windows 11
⚡️Productivity tips: Always write a crappy version first; THEN edit it!
A lot of people try and write and edit at the same time. It’s a horrible approach! Just get something down first and edit after (especially if you’re working with other people). It’s one of the greatest things Chat GPT-3 brings to the table. It can crank out a draft of something which you tweak/adjust.
Chat GPT-3 Resources and Example Usage
Isaias had to take today off so I asked a good friend and AHK Hero member, Ryan Wells, to join me discussing our week’s usage of AI tools. Thanks again Ryan. It was a great call! Here are some of the great resources. You can get the full list here
- 100 useful Chat GPT-3 prompts
- Futuretools.io / AI news & Articles
- Futurpedia.io
- Huggingface.co (early access to AI)
- TheresAnAIforThat.com
AI Chat GPT 3 News & resources Jan 25th, 2023
🤣 A spot of Humor
I can’t stop watching this guy’s videos. He makes fun of a lot of 80’s movies. This one, in particular, is one of my favorites.
Steven Seagal Movie Today You Die Is So Bad It’s A Crime Against Humanity – Worst Movie Ever
Quick Access Popup news
I was excited to see a new feature released in Quick Access Popup. The quick launch functionality is similar to what we showed with the SIFT function. Jean did a great job adding the functionality to Quick Access Popup!
Quick Launch with Quick Access Popup – QAP Bit by Bit Videos
Changing GUI to be editable & great fuzzy matching script: Sift
AHK Hero?
Want more time than the free hour? Have content that you can’t have on YouTube? Consider joining the 🦸♀️AHK Hero club! Members receive big discounts to courses, consultations, tutoring, done for you project work, etc.
They also have access to exclusive & pre-released content and a 2nd “office hours” session which isn’t on YouTube.
🗣️ 💭 Quotable quotes
- I will always hire a lazy person to do a hard job, because they will always find an easy way to do it — Bill Gates
- If the world should blow itself up tomorrow, the last audible voice would be an expert saying: it can’t be done —Peter Ustinov
- Good leaders don’t make excuses. Instead, they figure out a way to get things done —Jocko Willink
Live AutoHotkey Support Tomorrow
Don’t forget on Friday’s you can get free AutoHotkey support on my YouTube channel. Or you can sign up for reminders and join the zoom room.
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Joe, Isaias and staff
P.S. Our “painlessly switch from V1 to V2” course should be out soon. If you’re interested you can sign up here (and receive a 20% off when it comes out)
January, 19th, 2023 AutoHotkey Newsletter
Howdy %Name%,
The great wall of China was built by Chin Huang Ti, the first emperor of China Dynasty in the third century B.C. Most didn’t realize at the time a 2nd “invisible wall” was also created. You see the first wall kept out invaders and kept his country safe from raiders. This was at a time when China was the forefront of thought which is why the 2nd wall wasn’t noticed at first.
The second wall kept out ideas & cultures that didn’t “jive” with his beliefs. Originally this was okay however it later kept China from learning from advances outside it’s realm.
What unseen walls do you have up? Are you learning from others and not just sticking with what you know? One of the biggest advantages of the AHK Hero club is that we are sharing our ideas with each other, growing from one another. Don’t leave your future behind you %Name%!
Now on with the show…
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A much simpler way to use UIAutomation with AutoHotkey
Here we discuss how you can get a similar path to the ACC library. This can help non-programmers use UIA for automating their programs. BTW- we had another call with Descolada where he walked us through the ACC library written for AutoHotkey V2. Look for a video in the coming weeks on that!
🔥 Discover the secret to effortlessly using UIAutomation with AHK 🙌🏼
Web Scraping with UIA – Connecting to the DOM
Somehow we missed this additional library from Descolada. We got so excited about the UIA for all software we missed his first addition which was specific to web scraping. In this video we show some exciting ways you can connect to the DOM with UIA
😲Mind blowing way to Connect to the DOM with UIA & WebScrape
Simple way to Boost your productivity 😲
Batching is a great way to improve your productivity. Being organized is beneficial however humans don’t do great switching between tasks. By Batching your processes together we can be much more efficient. In this video we discuss how basic it can be.
🚀Boost Productivity Hack: Batching your Tasks💼
AI / Chat GPT-3 Resources and Usage
It’s been another amazing week learning how people are using Chau GPT-3. Here’s a video how we used Chat GPT-3 over the past week. You can get all the links and references here
Chat GPT 3 usage and examples 1/18/2023 (and some cool AHK Scripts)
I spent 5 minutes on Steve.AI to create this video. Pretty impressive for only spending a couple of minutes on it with a free account.
Steve.ai AutoHotkey video
Intro to RegEx in AutoHotkey
It always amazes me how much of my time programming is manipulating text. There are some decent functions & commands in AutoHotkey however, once your pattern gets a little complicated, Regular Expressions are typically the best solution. In this video I ease into the topic. I also have a lot more tutorials on my RegEx page. And don’t forget to consider buying Jack Dunnings AutoHotkey RegEx book. It really helped me when I was first starting out.
RegEx-Intro to Regular Expressions in AutoHotkey | pattern matching is easy
API calls are easy (well sort of)
API calls are a huge topic with a lot of interest. In this video I demonstrate how easy it can be however the hard part about APIs is, they are like Browser pages, in that every one is built differently (especially the oAuth which can be a pain)
Use AHK to pull weather conditions with API Calls
📚 What we’re reading
- How to add more HDMI ports to a TV
- Google Docs and Slides Now Have Better Voice Support
- How to Mass Delete Emails in Gmail
⚡️Productivity tips – Plan Your Day Ahead of Time
The first step to being productive is planning a day’s schedule in advance. You should know what you’re doing, when you’re doing it, and how long on any given day. Without a schedule, you’re likely to miss out on important tasks.
🤣 A spot of Humor
This is actually pretty accurate! Even the best code should still get a few…
AHK Hero?
Want more time than the free hour? Have content that you can’t have on YouTube? Consider joining the 🦸♀️AHK Hero club! Members receive big discounts to courses, consultations, tutoring, done for you project work, etc.
They also have access to exclusive & pre-released content and a 2nd “office hours” session which isn’t on YouTube.
🗣️ 💭 Quotable quotes
- Work harder on yourself than you do on your job — Jim Rohn
- Decisions, without actions, are worthless
- If the world should blow itself up tomorrow, the last audible voice would be an expert saying “it can’t be done” —Peter Ustinov
Live AutoHotkey Support Tomorrow
Don’t forget on Friday’s you can get free AutoHotkey support on my YouTube channel. Or you can sign up for reminders and join the zoom room.
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Joe, Isaias and staff
Consider taking advantage of our amazing “double your money back” guarantee and get an AutoHotkey Tune up while we still have time…
January, 12th, 2023 AutoHotkey Newsletter
Howdy %Name%,
I was talking with Marketing / Automation expert Ryan Wells about how important it is to have good systems in place over goals. This was stimulated by this article and the below meme
Ryan asked Chat GPT-3 to provide some famous quotes on the matter which it did:
- “The key to success is to focus on systems, not goals.” – Bill Walsh
- “A goal without a plan is just a wish” – Larry Elder
- “The team with the best system will win” – Tom Landry
- “The process is what’s important, not the outcome” – Nick Saban
- “The key is to focus on the process, not the result” – Phil Jackson
- “The system is the solution” – Adam Grant
With AutoHotkey we often focus on the process so all of us have a leg-up on most however my question to you is: What is your process for learning more AutoHotkey? The AHK Hero club is a great place to expand your mind and knowledge level!
Now on with the show…
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🚀💻 Unleash the power of coding in UIA with ease! #UIA 👍
UIA is amazing however it often fairly complicated to program in. I asked Isaias to help me use a simpler approach similar to the “dot-notation path” from the ACC tool. In this video we show how you can get a numeric path out of UIA that is (often) reliable and easy to find.
🔥 Discover the secret to effortlessly using UIAutomation with AHK 🙌🏼
Great Deep-dive into UIA with Descolada
As most of you know, the UIA model is amazingly powerful. We’re still learning how to use it and were very happy to hear that Descolada is working on a version that is compatible for V2. In this video we dive deep into the UIA library with Descolada.
🚀 Boost your UI Automation skills with these amazing tips from Descolada 🤖
If you’re using the library, consider donating to him here; I did!
Inserting Formulas In Excel and Using Excel’s functions
I’ve done a lot of videos on using COM with Excel. Its crazy powerful in automating Excel however, you can up your Automation game a bit if you insert formulas instead of values. This will allow the data to auto-adjust if / when there are changes.
💥Inserting Excel Functions and Using Excel formulas with AutoHotkey💥
Restructuring files is easy!
It’s a new year and I decided I’d, finally, reorganize my Newsletter files & folders. Instead of manually doing it, I asked Isaias to help me complete the move with AutoHotkey. As you’ll see in this video, it was easier than I anticipated…
💥Automate File Restructuring with AHK💻 It is easier than you’d think❗
Deleting files/folders
Have you ever wanted to delete files / folders on your computer? In this video we show just how easy it can be!
Effortlessly delete Windows files & folders with this AutoHotkey hack
📚 What we’re reading
- Amazon’s “Buy With Prime” Is Coming to More Online Stores
- Is a Vertical Mouse Right for You? I switched to this one years ago and LOVE it!♥
- How to Show Windows 10’s Hidden Floating Performance Panels
🤖 AI / Chat GPT-3 News / Usage
The world of AI is exploding! Each week we’re creating a new video discussing what we’ve used it for and what new resources we’ve seen. Click here to get all the links mentioned in the video.
AI Chat GPT 3 Usage examples and Resources 2023/01/11
Here are a few of my favorites:
- AI – Automate web scraping
- Boomy– Create Songs & Music
- 100 best Chat GPT-3 prompts
- Rytr – Automate creating blog posts
⚡️Productivity tips
I use many of these: 8 ways Google Assistant can increase your work productivity
🤣 A spot of Humor
Love it❗
AHK Hero 🦸♂️
Want more time than the free hour? Have content that you can’t have on YouTube? Consider joining the 🦸♀️AHK Hero club! Members receive big discounts to courses, consultations, tutoring, done for you project work, etc.
They also have access to exclusive & pre-released content and a 2nd “office hours” session which isn’t on YouTube.
🗣️ 💭 Quotable quotes
- You’ll always think there is a better time; Start now! — Joe Glines
- If you are not ready today, you will be even less so tomorrow — Ovid
- Tough times never last, but tough people do❗ — Robert Schuller
Live AutoHotkey Support Tomorrow
Don’t forget on Friday’s you can get free AutoHotkey support on my YouTube channel. Or you can sign up for reminders and join the zoom room.
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Joe, Isaias and staff
P.S. January is nearly 1/2 over. Have you taken steps to ensure you will grow in 2023? Members of the AHK Hero group are expanding their minds like crazy. You really should give it a try. Trust me, it is easily worth 10 times the current nominal fee!
January, 5th, 2023
Howdy %Name%,
Steve Jobs and the importance of saying no
In this video Steve Jobs discusses the importance of saying no and focusing in order to create great products. He explains that it involves deciding on the fundamental directions a company should take and eliminating distractions. He mentions that you will probably face criticism from the media or from people within the company, but ultimately the result will be products that are greater than the sum of their parts.
I’ve mentioned saying no is one of the best ways to improve “productivity”. You can look at what you’re doing and trim off the “fat”. What will you stop doing %Name%?
Now on with the show…
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How to better use UIA for Automation
We had a long call with Descolada, the author of the updated UIA Library, earlier today. Look for a video discussing updates to the class as well as when to use a Tree Walker verse FindFirst method. BTW- Descolada is doing an amazing job on the UIA class. If you’re using the library, consider donating to him here; I did!
The call was every educational and should help many use the UIA infrastructure. Meanwhile, if you haven’t already seen it, check out this video discussing how to interact with Controls like a pro.
🔥Master UIAutomation : Learn how to interact with controls like a pro💪
Restructuring files / folders is easier than you think!
We finished up the year and I finally decided to make a switch in how I was storing my Newsletter Word and HTML files. Initially I created separate root folders and used sub folders for each month beneath them however it was annoying to have to navigate around from the Word files to the HTML folder. I realized, as long as I organized the files by month, I could put both the word.docx and HTML files in the same folder and it wouldn’t be too unwieldy. This probably would have taken me 3 minutes to do however why do that when, in 15 minutes, we could automate it! 😅 Honestly it really was easier than I thought and there were some good learnings along the way.
💥Automate File Restructuring with AHK💻 It is easier than you’d think❗
No, you didn’t just download an AutoHotkey Virus
Many people write me to let me know that the code they got from me had a virus. Of course this is just a false-positive by Anti-Virus software. I created this video to demonstrate how Anti-Virus software isn’t really “peaking” inside your code.
Don’t panic❗ Find out why virus checkers aren’t always right and how to protect your computer
Super cool RegEx secret
RegEx / Regular Expressions are an amazingly helpful skillset to have in your toolkit. I’ve recorded several videos to learn about them. In this video Isaias gives us a great tip to help when you are working with line returns.
Solve your RegEx woes with this AutoHotkey trick for dealing with pesky new lines
Great AutoHotkey Menus Hack
If you’re building AutoHotkey Menus and want to display a hotkey that is right-aligned you should check out this amazing video for a secret hack. It’s undocumented but is a great and reliable way to improve your menus in AutoHotkey. If you’re new to GUIs, check out our GUIs are Easy course.
🔥Adding Hotkey & HotStrings to your menus | Amazing Secret tip🕵️♀️
Chat GPT-3 is Unbelievable!
Many of the members in the AHK hero club are using Chat GPT-3 to simplify their lives. It’s often something we discuss both in our private Telegram group as well as during our private Zoom calls. Isaias and I are going to start to do more frequent videos discussing how we’re using it just to facilitate brainstorming with y’all. If you’re not using it, you should be!
🤖Should you be using Chat GPT-3? Now that is a stupid question❗
I used it earlier today to write this nice AutoHotkey FAQ page. I even used it to create the FAQ schema which will help Google index / reference it.
- BTW- you can install this Chrome Extensions which will allow Chat GPT-3 to search the web
- And here is a link to a VS code Extension for submitting Chat GPT-3 queries.
- BTW- I have lot of AI /GPT-3 videos on my AI YouTube Playlist
📚 What we’re reading
- Why You Should Use Time Blocking to Manage Your Tasks
- Why Scheduling Texts Is Weird, But It May Be Useful
- 8 Tips to Improve Your Wi-Fi Signal
⚡️Productivity tips
Forget about Setting goals. Focus on this instead (Thank you Ryan W. for the referral!)
🤣 A spot of Humor
AHK Hero?
Want more time than the free hour? Have content that you can’t have on YouTube? Consider joining the 🦸♀️AHK Hero club! Members receive big discounts to courses, consultations, tutoring, done for you project work, etc.
They also have access to exclusive & pre-released content and a 2nd “office hours” session which isn’t on YouTube.
🗣️ 💭 Quotable quotes
- Decisions without actions are worthless
- How you deal with failure determines whether you ever get to deal with success — Dan Kennedy
- Tough times never last, but tough people do❗ — Robert Schuller
Live AutoHotkey Support Tomorrow
Don’t forget on Friday’s you can get free AutoHotkey support on my YouTube channel. Or you can sign up for reminders and join the zoom room.
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Joe, Isaias and staff
P.S. Improving yourself is, by far, the best investment you can make! Why not start the year off right getting one of our AutoHotkey courses and improve your AutoHotkey skills?
