How to Personalize SciTE Intellisense | Speed-up your AutoHotkey coding with this amazing SciTE hack

Personalize SciTE IntellisenseIn this post I leverage two different scripts where I demonstrate how to personalize SciTE Intellisense / Autocorrect.   Both are great ways Personalize SciTE Intellisense to increase your productivity while coding!

Personalize SciTE Intellisense  by Adding Functions, Labels and variables

This script can be used to point to specific files/folders and grab labels, functions, etc. and pull them into your Intellisense for you.   This script will generate a “user.ahk.api” file in your default SciTE library and only needs to be run periodically (when you have new functions/labels you want to include).

  • Save BuildUserAhkApi.ahk to a location on your computer (if you save it in your local \lib\folder you will not need to #include it!)
  • From a separate file, call the function and tell it what file(s) /directory you want it to review and what you want it to include (functions and/or labels).  You can also decide to be recursive or not.   I had it import all of my functions from my standard AutoHotkey\lib\ folder but did not include my labels (as they’re really only relevant for an active script).
  • Here is the function and parameters (the last one should not be used):  BuildUserAhkApi(AhkScriptPath, [OverwriteAhkApi, RecurseIncludes, Labels, WrapWidth, AhkApiPath, RecursionCall])
  • Here is how I called mine (note you’ll need to dupate the destination path:
BuildUserAhkApi("B:\Progs\AutoHotkey_L\Lib\", 0, 0, 0, 265, "C:\Scite_Install\SciTE_Custom\user.ahk.api")

Video walk through how to Personalize SciTE Intellisense :

Adding Functions, Labels, Variables from your current file to your SciTE Intellisense / Autocorrect

In this second example I demonstrate how you can have variables, labels, functions in your current script populate the SciTE Intellisense / Autocorrect.  If you’re like me, you’ll LOVE this functionality because it will help prompt you of the variables, functions, labels you have in the current saved script.  This can drastically increase your productivity!

  • Save AutoComplete.lua to SciTE default directory  ;(See attached or download here)
  • Save UserLuaScript.lua to SciTE default directory (append if you have something there already –I had this file but it does not show up under Option)
  • I’m beta testing this but right now it looks like it works fine-  I added one line @ row 282 to my version . This tells SciTE to update all the time (not waiting for the document to be saved).  So far it seems to work fine but I’m going to give it a bit before recommending…
local events = {
    OnChar          = handleChar,
    OnKey           = handleKey,
    OnSave          = buildNames,
    OnUpdateUI      = buildNames, --I added this line @ line 282 
    OnSwitchFile    = function()

 

Two women smiling and looking at a computer screen together in a bright office, one pointing at the monitor.

Automate Unicode character encoding for HTML

Unicode character encoding

Group of coworkers seated around a table in a bright office, talking together with a green reusable water bottle in front of themOur CMS does not support Unicode text thus when we need to search-replace for characters like the ™ and © symbols. This takes a fair amount of time and is easy to miss so I wrote a script in AutoHotKey to automatically handle the Unicode character encoding.

Now I can highlight the word and click a button and  Whamo!  Instant replacement with HTML equivalents!  No more trying to scan text and find illegal characters.

A black AutoHotkey branded water bottle on a desk beside a laptop, with a person reading a newspaper in the backgroundUnicode character encoding

Here is the AutoHotKey code I use.  My code first grabs the highlighted text and copies it to the clipboard, where it manipulates it, then sends it back to the active program I was working in. No more need for Unicode character encoding!

Example of Web Scraping- Automating Exporting of contacts from Lexis Nexis

Example of Web Scraping

Example of Web Scraping– Automating the Exporting of Data from Lexis Nexis

A few years back Lexis Nexis had access to Jigsaw (a sales list provider).  They had built in restrictions which allowed for exporting up to 1,000 contacts at a time.

Using AutoHotKey I was able to automate the exporting of contacts from Lexis Nexis into a great format.   All-told I exported over 4 million business contacts including their Name, job title, job function, email address, phone number, company name, company revenue, company NAIC code and SIC codes and much more!  It was quite a score and I was in love with Web Scraping  from then on!

Example of Web Scraping with AutoHotkey