AutoHotkey News 2025-01-30 It’s time to take back your life!

AutoHotkey Newsletter

Howdy,

I was reading this article which estimated the number of hours wasted per day by Industry on mundane tasks.

Horizontal bar chart titled Hours Wasted Per Day on Repetitive Computer Tasks by Industry, ranking 14 industries from 3.5 hours (public services and

So, my question to you is:

How many hours a day do you waste?

And what would you do with those hours you’ve gained back through automation?

Small businesses are increasingly turning to automation as a powerful tool to level the playing field with larger competitors.

In fact, 88% of small business owners report that automation enables them to compete more effectively by helping them operate more efficiently, reduce errors, and improve customer service.

As I’ve said before:

Knowledge is power.  Automation knowledge is a Super-Power

If you’d like help, check our consultation prices and then book a call with us by looking at my calendar.

Now on with the show…

Learn how to Master VSCode Make the switch to v2 Intro to AutoHotkey Intermediate AutoHotkey Intermediate ObjectsGUIs are Easy w/AutoHotkey Access all our Courses; Quit when you want

Running out of Hotkeys❓

Isaias and I were discussing a weird update to VS code.  The update mentioned you could now “use the Insert key…”

Both of us were laughing because it’s one of the most un-used keys ever made!

I blocked the Insert key and Numpad Insert key at least 12 years ago with the following code:

  • Insert::Return ;Disable Insert command
  • NumpadIns::Return ;Disable Insert key on 10-key Numpad

But then I realized, instead of blocking it, we should repurpose it.

With that idea in mind we went on to demonstrate a few additional ways you can play with hotkeys to have additional actions.  (Watch for long-press or double press etc.)

You can check them out in this video.

Showing mulitple ways to define hotkeys for an unused key on your Keyboard
Showing mulitple ways to define hotkeys for an unused key on your Keyboard2


Menus in AutoHotkey v2 rock❗

During an AutoHotkey Hero call a hero member wanted to learn about creating menus.

Isaias gave a great overview of how easy it is to create menus, sub-menus and add icons.

Learning Menus in AutoHotkey v2 [Excerpt from AHK Hero call]
Learning Menus in AutoHotkey v2 [Excerpt from AHK Hero call]

If you want to learn more about GUIs you should consider our Intro to GUIs course.

There is over 4.5 hours of content broken-down into bite-size videos.  And it, like all our other courses, comes with a 200% money back guarantee !


Improving People’s Lives: Story #36

I helped a client record tutorials.  Unfortunately sometimes, due to background noise or low bandwidth, some of her lecture was garbled.

She’s very busy so, instead of taking up her time to “patch” the videos, we used Eleven Labs to clone her voice.

I was amazed that, when I swapped out the cloned patches, it was virtually impossible to determine which was her and which was her cloned voice!


What we’re reading


AI / Chat GPT-3 News / Usage


⚡️Productivity tips: Plan for “tomorrow”

When I say “tomorrow”, I don’t mean some random day in the far off future, I literally mean, at the end of the day, outline what it is you need to get done the following day.

It’s amazing how much your subconscious will help you during your sleep!


A spot of Humor  12 Funniest Times Facebook Fact Checked the Babylon Bee

The 12 Funniest Times Facebook Fact Checked The Babylon Bee
The 12 Funniest Times Facebook Fact Checked The Babylon Bee


What we utomated this week with AutoHotkey #73

This week we had 236 AutoHotkey files that we worked on.  You can check them out in this video.

#73 What we automated with AutoHotkey
#73 What we automated with AutoHotkey


Client’s say…

The content is great in general and often questions can actually help and improve interest in AutoHotKey. —  Rodrigo Costa


Cartoon superhero mascot in green costume beside the bold text AHK Hero on a yellow background 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 372 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
  • Converting FlexiFinder to handle the equal sign in the .ini file (or changing to json)
  • When you should use ClipWait and when it is not needed
  • Working from Memory instead of a file
  • Example tasks you should use AI for verse Program directly
  • FileMove, FileDelete, and FileRecycle
  • Programmatically determining the File delimiter

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

  • When experiencing problems with tools, typically you should blame the operator, not the tool — Joe Glines
  • If it doesn’t make dollars, it doesn’t make sense — Grandma
  • The question isn’t who is going to let me it’s who is going to stop me — Ayn Rand
  • As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another — Proverbs 27:17
  • Motion beats meditation — Gary Halbert

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, Rizwan and staff


P.S. So %name%, how much time do you waste daily on mundane tasks that could be automated?

Why don’t you automate more?

Personally, I used to spend 1/3rd of my day automating what I did.  How much do you spend?   Learning AutoHotkey is, by far, one of the best ways to automate the mundane❗

And don’t forget, all of our courses come with a 200% money-back guarantee !

AHK Newsletter 2024-12-25- Christmas Edition

 

AutoHotkey Newsletter

Howdy %Name%,

It seems hard to believe but Christmas is upon us!   I write this on Christmas morning and am looking forward to a (mostly) relaxing day.   We celebrated over the weekend because the kids have their families.

Are you having a wonderful Christmas /Hanukkah / Holiday?

Personally, I don’t care what religion you practice and view Christmas and New Years as a time to spend with family & friends remembering the reason we do what we do.

I miss the times when people would just say “Merry Christmas” and not be worried about offending anyone.

I remember when Darrius Rucker was criticized for singing “White Christmas” and/or when Dean Martin’s “Baby it’s Cold Outside” the world was changing (and not for the better).

So, if me telling you “Merry Christmas” causes you anxiety, I’m sorry for you.  I hope you learn that the world is not centered around you (nor is it around me).

And that 99% of the time when someone tells you “Merry Christmas” they’re really just saying they wish “you and yours well”.

Now on with the show…

Learn how to Master VSCode Make the switch to v2 Intro to AutoHotkey Intermediate AutoHotkey Intermediate ObjectsGUIs are Easy w/AutoHotkey Access all our Courses; Quit when you want

Adding an Icon to a Listview

We were making a small update to our Fake drive tool and I realized the tool could also benefit by adding icons to the ListView to indicate if it was a Local or Fake drive.

So I asked Irfan to show us how he’d do this.

Thankfully he remembered in our Icon Resource Finder it provides syntax for doing just that!  You can watch the process in this video.

Adding an icon to a listview Updaing our Fake Drive creator
Adding an icon to a listview Updaing our Fake Drive creator


Improving People’s Lives: Story #31

A client called up mentioning they needed additional help as they were getting a lot of support calls.  Their tool requires users to do several things before running.

One of which is to set their DPI to 100

I mentioned our Active Monitor DPI adjuster could easily be tweaked to take care of this so we cranked out this simple tool to help with this.   You can check it out in this video.

Automatically setting the DPI on your primary monitor with AutoHotkey
Automatically setting the DPI on your primary monitor with AutoHotkey


What we’re reading


AI / Chat GPT-3 News / Usage


⚡️Productivity tips:  Cut to the Spike in Word

Ctrl + F3: Cut the to the Spike in Microsoft Word, allowing you to cut multiple selections and then use Control+Shift+F3 to paste them all at once


A spot of Humor

Here are some Christmas Fails

Christmas Fails of the Week | FailArmy
Christmas Fails of the Week | FailArmy


What we utomated this week with AutoHotkey #69

In this video I walk through 97 AHK scripts we worked on during the past week.

What we automated with AutoHotkey #69
What we automated with AutoHotkey #69


Client’s say…

With The-Automator, I learned to use AutoHotkey, in order to automate otherwise tedious and repetitive tasks. My favorite script extracts audio tracks from a video file for me, converts it into an MP3 file and saves it on my hard drive. What previously required dozens of mouse clicks and dozens of keyboard shortcuts in loops, now only requires the support of a simple key like < ALT+1>. With this script, all I have to do is specify the number of loops the script should perform depending on the number of files to convert, press < ALT+1> and fetch me a coffee. Thanks to Joe Glines and all his guests, I am now able to automate boring tasks, “if only my mower could respond to AutoHotkey”. — Claude Paga


Cartoon superhero mascot in green costume beside the bold text AHK Hero on a yellow background 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 357 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 Members with their code
  • Adding an Icon to the “Open folder”
  • Add timer to restart every X hours, minutes, etc.
  • Putting “ads”in a program / AdPopupAds
  • Run program; Add condition do something else ;If !folder; run folder
  • Fix API call responses with Proper UTF-8 Encoding [lib] AHK V2
  • Demonstrating resource drain during debug mode

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

  • What gets measured gets improved — Joe Glines
  • It’s easy to see stupid in other people — Dan Kennedy
  • The thing most people like least is a mirror — Dan Kennedy

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, Rizwan and staff


P.S.  If my mention of Merry Christmas offended you.  I’m not sorry.

It was meant in good faith as a way to say “I wish you & your family well“.  If you celebrate a different holiday feel free to substitute it there (even if that holiday is Festivus!)

Have an amazing day and I’ll be talking to you “next year”

 

AutoHotkey Newsletter 2024-11-28- Happy Thanksgiving❗

Howdy,

AutoHotkey Newsletter

It’s Thanksgiving here in the U.S.  For most of us that means starving for the first half of the day only to be stuffed for the 2nd half! 

This year we’re celebrating on Saturday so Thursday I ordered from a local Mexican restaurant.

We’re getting to the time of year where its more about planning for next year than working on getting things done this year.

Have you given thought to what you will accomplish in 2025❓

What are things you’ve wished you’ve automated but haven’t yet?  

What’s stopping you❓

Now on with the show…

Learn how to Master VSCode Make the switch to v2 Intro to AutoHotkey Intermediate AutoHotkey Intermediate ObjectsGUIs are Easy w/AutoHotkey Access all our Courses; Quit when you want

AI is getting better at Coding

I was pleasantly surprised the other day and documented something I hadn’t seen AI do before in this video.

Today I also saw it add one of my default hotkeys that I use frequently use in debugging (I typically assign one to reload the script for me) and it through it in there without me asking for it!

AI is getting Better at Coding
AI is getting Better at Coding


Easily Rip Audio from your Video files

I’ve been using NotebookLM a lot lately!   Why they only let you download .wav files is beyond me!   Don’t’ worry though “I have a script for that”.   Lol

I simply pass it through my mp3 ripper tool and it converts the wav file to mp3 format incredibly quickly!  You can check out the tool in this video.

Easily Convert Video to Audio with Mp3 Ripper
Easily Convert Video to Audio with Mp3 Ripper


AHK Developer LifeCycle

Are you wanting to know where you are in the process of learning AutoHotkey?   Want to know what’s next?  

Check out this video where we discuss the natural progression of AHK Users. 

We discuss what editor / IDE you should probably be using, the version of AutoHotkey you should be using, and what topics you should be learning next!

Answers to Important AHK Questions (depending on your Skills & goals)
Answers to Important AHK Questions (depending on your Skills & goals)


Improving People’s Lives: Story #27

The other day I ordered a few new smart switches that, according to Claude, were easy to automate with API calls.  I got them the other day and was amazed at how simple the code is!  

We’ll be adding some cool logic to my AutoHotkey scripts to “auto-trigger” behaviors!  I can’t wait to both implement them & share them with y’all❗


What we’re reading


AI / Chat GPT-3 News / Usage

We’re considering creating another group where we solely talk about and work with AI. 

If you’re interested in this group, you can add your ➡️contact information here⬅️ and we’ll get in touch with you when we have more details

Ranking 22 Of The Most Popular Ai Tools (Q4 2024 Ai Tier List)
Ranking 22 Of The Most Popular Ai Tools (Q4 2024 Ai Tier List)


⚡️Productivity tips:

In Chrome Ctrl + Shift + T reopens the most recently closed tab.


A spot of Humor

It’s Thanksgiving so I have to re-watch the WKRP Turkey Drop

WKRP Thanksgiving 1978
WKRP Thanksgiving 1978


What we utomated this week with AutoHotkey #65

Another heavy week Automating the mundane for clients!  In this video I discuss some of the cool things we’ve been doing and demo some of our newest tools.

What we Automated with AutoHotkey #65
What we Automated with AutoHotkey #65


Client’s say…

“You guys are awesome” — Allen Horn


Cartoon superhero mascot in green costume beside the bold text AHK Hero on a yellow background 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 342 hours of recordings teaching AutoHotkey that is exclusive to AHK Hero members❗

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

    • Member’s Questions & Code Reviewed
    • Claude’s Model Context Protocol & it’s implications for AI & AutoHotkey
    • Demonstrating resources needed during debug mode
    • Local Smart Switches & triggering them with an API call
    • The below image and how it helps understand when to use AI over Logic in your code       

Balance scale comparing RPA and AutoHotkey approaches on the left with AI approaches on the right across data volume, activation, and data handling

 

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

  • As God as my witness, I thought turkeys could fly — Arthur Carlson
  • Don’t sacrifice peace of mind for a piece of luxury — James Cleary
  • If you want something done, ask the busiest person you know to do it!
  • If you spend too much time thinking about a thing, you’ll never get it done — Bruce Lee

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, Rizwan and staff


P.S. I sincerely hope 2024 treated you well and hope 2025 is even better! 

Now is a great time to schedule a call to plan for us to help you in 2️⃣0️⃣2️⃣5️⃣.  You can check out my calendar here.  Remember:

Time is linear but results do NOT have to be❗