AutoHotkey Newsletter December 2022
AutoHotkey Newsletter: December 15th, 2022
Howdy %Name%,
Improving oneself is a crucial aspect of personal growth and development. Learning new skills, techniques, and technologies can not only enhance our abilities and performance, but it can also help us to stay competitive in today’s ever-changing job market.
By learning AutoHotkey, individuals can significantly increase their productivity and reduce the risk of errors in their work. With AutoHotkey, tasks that would normally take multiple steps and require manual input can be automated, allowing users to complete them with a single click or keystroke. This not only saves time and effort, but it can also help to reduce the likelihood of mistakes.
In addition to improving efficiency and reducing errors,
learning AutoHotkey can also open up new career opportunities. Many companies and organizations are constantly seeking individuals with expertise in automation and scripting, and having AutoHotkey skills on your resume can make you a more attractive candidate for these types of roles.
Learning AutoHotkey is an important step in improving oneself and advancing one’s career. By mastering this powerful scripting language, individuals can greatly increase their productivity, reduce the risk of errors, and open up new opportunities in their chosen field.
Now on with the show…
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🎉 Ring in the New Year at the AutoHotkey Party 🎊 Don’t miss out on the fun! 🎆
Want to have some fun New Year’s eve with like-minded people? We’ll be in zoom from 7-10 CST (10 CST is midnight for Isaias) and live-stream to YouTube. If you’d like to join the zoom call there is a “cover charge” of $7 (Just trying to cover the costs of paying Isaias). We’ll be having fun helping people with code and talking tech. We used Chat GPT-3 to create some “AutoHotkey drinking games.” We discuss our plan for the evening in this video.
🎉 Ring in the New Year with AutoHotkey excitement 🎉 Join us live❗🎈
🤖 Chat GPT-3 is the bomb 💣
The more we use Open AI’s Chat GPT-3 (and other models), the more impressed we are with them. They are not writing amazing AutoHotkey (yet) but it definitely will be in the coming months. As I mention in this video, it is the biggest thing since Fire and/or the wheel. We’ve done many videos on how to use it for programming however I haven’t created videos on many other ways that I’m using it. There are too many to list here however I’ll consider making a video documenting some of what we’re doing with it.
Right now we’re realizing many things we are doing manually, Chat GPT-3 can do faster and better.
Should you be using Chat GPT-3🤖? Now that is a stupid question❗
How to Master UI Automation⚡ with AutoHotkey
We had a client consultation call that was having some trouble using the AutomationID with UI Automation. During the call Isaias gave some great learnings on deciding which “pattern” you might want, depending on your need and how to use it. Thankfully the client said it was okay we share this so you can learn from it here.
🔥Master UIAutomation : Learn how to interact with controls like a pro💪
🖱️ Customize your clicks! 🔥 Transform the way you interact with your computer 💥
I’m willing to bet you are all familiar with context sensitive Hotkeys and HotStrings. But have you ever thought about creating context sensitive mouse clicks? In this video I walk through how you can change what happens when you clicked based on what your mouse is over.
Revolutionize your clicking game with this MUST-HAVE AutoHotkey hack!
Amazing Auto-Completer in the works 😁
An AHK Hero member wanted a tool to help auto complete based on what he is typing. I immediately thought of the Sift function to allow for more complex pattern. We implemented it really quickly and our client was really happy with the tool. Later he “stress tested” it by loading over 40,000 rows of data (we started off with around 3,000 rows). This made a noticeable lag so we are working on an updated version using the built-in ADO database.
If you’re not aware, Windows has a built-in database tool that can read text files and allows you to run SQL on the results. In the past I’ve used it to join files together, filter lists, etc. After some quick testing we are satisfied we can incorporate it into the tool which will remove the latency.
We’re also writing a function entitled “SQLSift” which will be a SQL generator that will generate many patterns that were available in the Sift command (but in SQL). The SQL should work in most SQL environments so you can port it to SQLite, ADODB, MySQL, etc. Hopefully we’ll release this soon.
Changing GUI to be editable & great fuzzy matching script: Sift
AutoHotkey v2: Error Reporting
Have you made the switch to AutoHotkeyV2? We were really excited to see V2.0 released and are actively working more and more with it. In this video we discuss some of the benefits of the new Error Reporting in v2.
Check out the New Error reporting in v2❗ Cool improvements 😍
Neutron is now available in AHKv2
Neutron is a great way to create amazing GUIs in AutoHotkey leveraging HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. During an AutoHotkey webinar back in May 2020, GeekDude demonstrated his amazing Neutron library. Just the other day GeekDude reached out to me and mentioned he has updated it to work with AutoHotkey V2. You can learn more about Neutron from the AHK forum post
AutoHotkey Webinar 05/2020 Hour 2- Geek Dude’s Neutron and Q&A
📚 What we’re reading
- 🔥How to Turn Off Animations and Make Windows 10 Seem Faster (one of my favorites)
- Google Chrome Has New Search Bar Filters
- Microsoft Is Testing Tabs in Notepad
⚡️Productivity tips Time Vampires ⌚🧛♀️
Time vampires suck! Do what you can to avoid people that take up your time and you’ll be amazed at how much more you have of it!
🤣 A spot of Humor
This video is a little out there but had some very funny clips.
The Best Of The Internet (2022)
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
- Absorb what is useful, reject what is useless, add what is specifically your own — Bruce Lee
- Successful people rarely start out As most likely to succeed
- Work first, reward second, in order — Dan Kennedy
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. We hope to see you New Year’s eve! You can join the YouTube channel for free or come onto the zoom call for $7.
AutoHotkey Newsletter: December 15th, 2022
Howdy %Name%,
Can you believe it; AutoHotkey v2 is, finally, here!
The initial release of AHK V2 happened in March 1, 2009 which means it’s been in development for nearly 15 years! Wow, and I thought I was slow to release things… lol
Seriously though this is really, really big news in the AutoHotkey world!
Personally I’m a bit torn on the topic. On the one hand, the language being “stricter” will give it more credibility to programmers however one of the huge strengths of AutoHotkey was it’s openness to non-technical people.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m very thankful for Lexikos’ work however I do think it is going to change the core audience and some people will not use it because it is too much like “programming”.
This link is to our V2 playlist however here are a few videos that you might want to review:
What to look out for when making the switch
🚀 Make the switch to AutoHotkey v2! 🚀 Here’s what you need to know 💡
Now on with the show…
Chat GPT-3 is taking over the world!
Okay, that might be a slight exaggeration, but I honestly believe it isn’t too far off. The AHK Hero group has been having a lot of fun discussing it’s uses. Here are a few videos we created last week discussing it’s usage with AutoHotkey. I have a public playlist here.
🤖AI revolutionized with Chat GPT & AutoHotkey!🔥Discover what you can and can’t do with it!🤯
🚨💻 Debugging AutoHotkey made EASY with ChatGPT 💥🔥
🔥🤯 Incredible Tips for Using 🤖ChatGPT to Generate Code Like a Pro 💻”
🚀 Boost Your Coding Skills with OpenAI 🔥 A Viral Guide to Generative Algorithms 💻
📚 What we’re reading
- How Much Electricity Did Clark Griswold’s Christmas Vacation Display Use?
- Speed Up Your Old PC With This 1TB SSD for $70 (great way to speed up your computer!)
- How to Access Windows 10’s Hidden Power User Menu
⚡️Productivity tips : 🕵️♀️ Track your day
Some people hate tracking every minute of their day however, unless you track it, it’s impossible to really “know” where your time is spent. Keep a clear log of what you work on every day and you’ll be amazed!
🤣 A spot of Humor
It’s rare for me, but I have felt this way a couple times this year
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
- Ideas fade away if you don’t write them down
- Put systems in place that will allow ordinary people to do extraordinary things — Joe Glines
- Work harder on yourself than you do on your job — Jim Rohn
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. We hope you have an amazing Holiday!
AutoHotkey Newsletter: December 15th, 2022
Howdy %Name%,
Do you read with purpose? Do you ask questions with purpose? Do you listen with purpose? Do you watch TV with purpose? What “purpose” am I talking about?
If you are committed to improving your automation skills then you should always be asking yourself if you can “use that approach” in solving your automation problem. Always be alert to and aware of what’s going on around you and soak in whatever information comes your way.
Give yourself opportunities to stretch your thinking. Read things you would not ordinarily read. Go places you would not ordinarily go. Use tools you wouldn’t ordinarily use.
Talk to people you don’t run into regularly. Don’t just hang around other people like you.
Keep your eyes (and more importantly your mind) open to new ways you can borrow what you’ve seen and incorporate into something you’re working on. ABL:= Always Be Learning❗
Now on with the show…
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Is there an AI Revolution with Chatbot GPT3?
During an AHK Hero call we discussed the current status of AI and Chatbot GPT3. It has definitely come a long ways in the past 6 months but still has a ways to go. Having said that, we discuss what you can currently use it for and how it can be increditbly helpful assisting you with your code.
🤖AI revolutionized with Chat GPT & AutoHotkey!🔥Discover what you can and can’t do with it!🤯
Context Sensitive Mouse Clicks 🐁
Inspired by an AHK Hero member I adapted one of Lexikos’ scripts to allow for context sensitive mouse clicks depending on what your mouse is hovering over. This way you can assign a mouse button to do different actions based on what it is above.
Mouse is Over- Context sensitive Mouse clicking with AutoHotkey
Yikes- was that a virus I just downloaded?
A subscriber emailed me to let me know that my script was a “virus”. I let him know that there are a lot of false flags from virus checking software but thought I’d make a video to help demonstrate what virus software is doing. In this video I show what happens when you submit the AutoHotkey.exe executable to VirusTotal.com as well an AutoHotkey script, compiled version and mpress (compressed) version.
Did I just download a virus❓ Why Virus checkers are often wrong
Why does this run❓❓❓
During one of our AHK Hero member calls I demonstrated a bit of code that surprised a lot of member so I decided to create a separate video because there are probably a lot of people out there that would get this wrong. Are you one of them?
Miss Conception of AutoHotkey: Why does this run❓
Sometimes simple is best
When you have advanced skills, it’s easy to want to create a complex solution to a problem however sometimes simple fits the bill! We recently had a webinar on 9 ways to web scrape with AutoHotkey. I definitely could have taken an advanced approach however, in this video I show how easy it was to repeatedly click a button over and over.
Web Scraping with AutoHotkey: The ultimate guide for 2023
Setting any program to be “Always On Top”
Sometimes it’s super-helpful to have a program stay on-top of other programs. In this super-short video I show just how simple it is. Trust me, once you get used to this you’re going to wonder how you lived without it!
How to easily set any program to stay on top of all others❗
Easily Mapping a mysterious key
Do you have an extra key on your keyboard that you don’t know what it is (so you don’t use it) but would like to? Isaias and I walk through how easy it is to detect what key is being pressed with AutoHotkey and map it to a Hotkey.
How to map a mystery key to a hotkey | 🗺❓🔑
Automating programs with UIA
The work Descolada did on UIA is really helping people automate programs! In this video Isaias and I walk through some of the basics in using the class. UI Automation is a model that can be used to automate most programs. It’s been around for quite some time however this class is relatively new to AutoHotkey. If you’re new to using classes & objects, I highly recommend our Objects & Classes course.
How to easily automate nearly any program with the UI Automation API
📚 What we’re reading
- How to Install Free HEVC Codecs on Windows 10 (for H.265 Video)
- 15 Super-Charged Alternatives to Built-in Windows Apps
- What’s New in Windows 11’s 2022 Update: Top 10 New Features (22H2)
⚡️Productivity tips : Tracking your time
People that have to log their time are typically much better at avoiding time /scope creep. Consider keeping a log of where you spend your time and you’ll magically start having more ofit!
🤣 A spot of Humor
This is an oldy but a great, hilarious, video. Have you ever been “the expert” in the room? I have and I know exactly how this guy felt!
The Expert (Short Comedy Sketch)
Consider joining the AHK Hero club
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
- Whatever Your Mind Can Conceive and Believe, It Can Achieve. — Napoleon Hill
- You’ll always think there is a better time to start; Start now!
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. We are having some amazing conversations in the Private Telegram group to the AHK Hero club. If you’re not a member you are missing out!
AutoHotkey Newsletter: December 8th, 2022
Howdy %Name%,
Do you find AutoHotkey confusing? Honestly I don’t blame you because we are not taught how to use a computer “efficiently”.
Schools don’t teach it.
Bosses don’t encourage it and don’t give time for us to learn it
Colleges have specific courses on programs but they don’t focus on how to use a computer efficiently.
But your past does not need to dictate your future.
It’s one of the reasons why I’ve created over 1,200 AutoHotkey videos and our AHK Courses. It’s also one of the reasons why we created the AHK Hero club. So you can have direct access to AutoHotkey experts.
Stop being frustrated when you code and start learning how to be more efficient! Or consider signing up for an AHK Tune-up which has a 200% money back guarantee! That’s right. If you’re not 100% satisfied, you get a complete refund
AND WE PAY YOU!
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Now on with the show…
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Easily getting the Text under your Mouse
The UIA library from Descolada is relatively new however UIA has been around for quite some time. I realized I had never shared this script which utilizes the UIA technology for, programmatically, getting the text under the mouse.
How to easily get the text under the mouse in most Windows Programs❗
More Updates to v1: V1.1.36.02 released on Dec 7th
Last week we recorded this video on v1.1.36.00. There were some great additions like
VerCompare and updates to #Requires directive to allow specifying bitness and encoding.
Just an fyi- Lexikos has already pushed out two updates which fix a few things…
AutoHotkey v1.1.36.00 Some really cool new AHK functionality!😲
Reading and Writing files with AutoHotkey
A lot of what we do with AutoHotkey involves reading and writing to text files. Thankfully this is super-easy with AutoHotkey! Here I show how you can easily read/write to text files. This video was extracted from the Intro to AutoHotkey course.
File Read and write with AutoHotkey
Using Excel functions
Excel is an amazing program! With a crazy amount of built-in functions sometimes you want to leverage them. In this video I show how you can use some very common functions by inserting the formula in Excel. This way, if the data changes, the values will be recalculated.
I also show how you can “call Excel functions” without saving them in a cell. Pretty nifty stuff if you wanted a value as an AutoHotkey variable…
Inserting Excel Functions and Using Excel formulas with AutoHotkey
Sending a lot of text with AutoHotkey
As you probably are aware, I LOVE HotStrings! I ripped this video out of the HotStrings course which shows how you can speed-up sending a lot of text with AutoHotkey. We’ve also had reports of issues sending text with AutoHotkey. This is an approach that should work-around that problem.
How to send a lot of text with AutoHotkey
Adding GUIs to your scripts
Just a reminder, GUIs don’t have to be difficult. In this video I show how easy it was to add a GUI to my script. This was made after I worked through our GUIs are easy course. Isn’t it time you start using GUIs in your scripts? Level-👆
How to easily add a GUI to your script | AutoHotkey GUIs are easy
📚 What we’re reading
- 7 Awesome Google Drive Features You May Not Know About
- LastPass Just Had (Another) Security Breach 🤦♂️
- What is File Versioning, and Do You Need It?
- How to Disable Bing in the Windows 11 Start Menu
⚡️Productivity tips: Be Accountable❗
Whether it’s weekly check-ins with a co-worker or setting your own deadlines and announcing them to “the world”, having to answer to someone else can often force you to get the job done. When you share your goals with others research shows you are 42% more likely to achieve the goal.
🤣 A spot of Humor
I have to say, at times, I know EXACTLY how this “Tech Support” guy felt!
Medieval helpdesk in English
Quick Access Popup news
I had a call with a Hero member the other day and got him started using Quick Access Popup. It’s an amazingly powerful tool which I use throughout the day. Even though I know AutoHotkey, it is much easier for doing many thing! Are you using Quick Access Popup? Trust me, you should be!
Here is a link to my Quick Access Popup playlist (in case you need some ideas of what can be done with 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
- Work harder on yourself than you do on your job — Jim Rohn
- Whatever Your Mind Can Conceive and Believe, It Can Achieve. — Napoleon Hill (If he only knew about AutoHotkey!)
- If you ask me anything I don’t know, I’m not going to answer — Yogi Berra
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. Don’t forget the #1 investment you can make is in yourself! Learning to be more efficient is a great way to add security in these uncertain times.
AutoHotkey Newsletter: December 1st, 2022
Howdy %Name%,
If you boil down your personal, career, and , financial goals, into a single overriding objective it is the desire for greater control. Ironically, as much as we desire greater control, we are the ones who often give it away. Every time we say:
- It’s the location of our business
- It’s my genes / parents / partner / co-worker / spouse / supervisor / etc.
- It’s the season
- It’s the economy
- It’s the _______________
Each and every time we say an “it’s the…” We’re doing two things simultaneously:
- we push away a small “weight” of responsibility which, temporarily, makes us feel “better”
- we give up an equal-sized amount of control which will later cause us anxiety
Only by taking on more responsibility can we have more control. Once you realize you are in charge of your future, you are one step closer to achieving great things❗
Now on with the show…
Black Friday Sale ends soon! Save 40% on everything we offer!
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AutoHotkey V2 is out of beta! 😲😲
Isaias and I were both really surprised to see that AutoHotkey V2 was out of beta. The version is currently entitled “RC” which stands for “Release Candidate” but I like to think of it as meaning “really close”. LOL
In his comments Lexikos says he’s planning to release it “this year”. Wow! Have you begun to work with AutoHotkey V2?
AutoHotkey V2 is no longer in Beta❗ Planned to be released in 2022 😲
9 ways to Web scrape with AutoHotkey AHK Hero Webinar
Last Friday we invited AHK Hero members to a webinar discussing pros/cons of 9 different approaches to Web Scraping with AutoHotkey❗ We discussed many different aspects of each one. While the webinar was only available to AHK Hero members, we are letting people watch it. If you’d been an AHK Hero, you could have been there to ask YOUR questions!
Web Scraping with AutoHotkey: The ultimate guide for 2023
We have a few more days to take advantage of the 40% discount code “IndependantMeBlackFriday” offered for Black Friday. Don’t miss this deal; You’ll hate yourself later!
Getting around an Automation warning in Outlook
Several of our clients have us automating Outlook for them. They were seeing a “stupid” automation warning from Outlook. We looked around and found a simple, albeit weird, way to solve the problem.
Outlook Warning: “A program is trying to access e-mail address information”
Using Excel to create an editable grid
A new client (thanks for the referral Jean Lalonde), and AHK Hero member, had created a tool similar in some ways to Quick Access Popup however he was having some difficulties with the GUI. One need was to have a fully-editable ListView. In AutoHotkey you can easily edit the first column however, to edit the other cells, you have to jump through a lot of hoops. We discussed the client’s need and proposed using Excel to provide the grid. With a little work we were able to hide everything except for the grid.
Excel is an amazingly powerful tool so he now has amazing functionality built into his tool with only 1 hour of our time being used!
Creating an editable Grid in AutoHotkey- Excel saves the day❗
Rendering Modern websites in AutoHotkey
An AHK Hero member was wanting to display Google maps in an a GUI. Since we’d come up with a solution for another Hero member we thought we’d all get on a call and talk through how to do it in AutoHotkey V2.
How to Display Modern Websites inside an AHK GUI (🆕 WebView2 Runtime)
Adding custom information to a GUI event in AutoHotkey
A YouTube subscriber asked a question on one of our GUI videos about being able to pass parameters from a “button click” on an AutoHotkey GUI. In AHK V1 this is a fairly complicated topic as you need to bind it to the function so Isaias suggested we create a video demonstrating it and showing how much cleaner the code is when achieving the same goal in V2.
How to add custom information to a GUI event in AutoHotkey v1 & V2
📚 What we’re reading
- How to Find the Smallest or Largest Number in Microsoft Excel
- How to Hide Reels on Facebook
- How to Disable Bing in the Windows 11 Start Menu
⚡️Productivity tips
One great tip for getting more done the next day is to drift-off to sleep thinking about a task you need to do the next day. Amazingly your subconscious will get to work for you while you sleep! 💤
🤣 A spot of Humor
I know a few people I’d like to send this to. How about you %Name%?
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
- Don’t wait. The time will never be just right. — Napoleon Hill
- There’s more pay off from self-improvement than improving anything else — Dan Kennedy
- Improved productivity means less human sweat, not more. — Henry Ford
- The question isn’t who is going to let me; it’s who is going to stop me. — Ayn Rand
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. Don’t forget you can save 40% on everything we offer by using our Black Friday discount code IndependantMeBlackFriday. Sale ends soon so act now!
